When it comes to the top offensive play-callers in the NFL, Los Angeles Rams head coach Sean McVay and San Francisco 49ers head coach Kyle Shanahan get consistently mentioned. With the NFL season right around the corner, the final preseason rankings and anonymous quotes from executives are getting published. Earlier this week, two polls ranking offensive play-callers got released.<\/p>\n
Said one defensive coach on McVay,<\/p>\n
\u201cI think he can just see it live the best. He has a full Rolodex of plays. He can get to anything on his call sheet, but he can also get to anything in his head. If he needs to adjust in-game, he can completely come up with a new game plan on the spot. So it\u2019s almost to the point now where he\u2019s seen a lot. He has such a good memory of everything, with 12 years of experience calling plays and reacting to stuff. If you\u2019re playing this (defense), he\u2019s going to go to this \u2026 and he can do it in a second. That\u2019s weird that he can just adjust so easily.\u201d<\/p>\n
At the end of the day, the rankings themselves don\u2019t necessarily matter. Most rankings this time of year are simply offseason content to get to the regular season. Still, it is eye-opening to see what other coaches that are often on the other sideline have to say.<\/p>\n
For example, one of the biggest critiques of McVay is that he doesn\u2019t adjust. However, based on the quote from a defensive coach, that may not be fully accurate from the perspective of the other sideline. It\u2019s important to remember that teams install a specific game plan every week. The entire playbook is rarely available as teams don\u2019t practice the entire playbook. Still, McVay has the ability to adjust in-game and get to specific personnel groupings to take advantage of certain matchups and create different looks.<\/p>\n
Teams aren\u2019t going to an entirely new game plan in-game. It\u2019s possible that an offense can go back to something that was previously installed, but teams aren\u2019t completely shifting the game plan from the sideline. That\u2019s why teams prepare during the week.<\/p>\n
The interesting part with these two rankings specifically isn\u2019t that Sean McVay and Kyle Shanahan ended up at the top. Most would consider McVay and Shanahan the top two offensive coaches in the NFL. What is interesting is that in two different polls by the same outlet, McVay topped one list while Shanahan topped the other. Said one defensive coordinator on Shanahan,<\/p>\n
\u201cThey challenge all your rules. They\u2019re obviously 21 personnel, but whatever you try to do, they always have an answer for it because they can align in anything out of that personnel\u2026He understands your rules and he tries to manipulate your rules.\u201d<\/p>\n
Whatever order McVay and Shanahan are in, there\u2019s no denying their impact around the NFL. On Nguyen\u2019s list of 10 offensive play-callers, two of them are McVay and Shanahan and three more of them are from that tree. Those other three are Kevin O\u2019Connell, Matt LaFleur, and Liam Coen.<\/p>\n
Choosing between Shanahan and McVay is splitting hairs. Most in the media would probably have Shanahan ahead of McVay, but it\u2019s very close. At the end of the day, they are undoubtedly two of the best at what they do. They are the two that the league most respects when it comes to calling a game. Neither are perfect and each have their own strengths and weaknesses. That\u2019s also what makes their rivalry that much better.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When it comes to the top offensive play-callers in the NFL, Los Angeles Rams head coach Sean McVay…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":342321,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2079],"tags":[7,1014,58,4200,36026,2444,2611,6,424],"class_list":{"0":"post-342320","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-los-angeles-rams","8":"tag-football","9":"tag-los-angeles","10":"tag-los-angeles-rams","11":"tag-los-angeles-rams-news","12":"tag-los-angeles-rams-power-rankings","13":"tag-losangeles","14":"tag-losangelesrams","15":"tag-nfl","16":"tag-rams"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/115148890162666789","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/342320","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=342320"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/342320\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/342321"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=342320"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=342320"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=342320"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}