San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
Shanahan vs. McVay rivalry has extra edge
We were deep in the heart of the Santa Monica party scene in the spring of 2018 and Sean McVay, for all his surprising success in his first year as the Los Angeles Rams’ head coach, was pretty far from A-list. It was a simpler time.
As our small party sat at an outdoor table at Bungalow, a trendy bar on the bluffs above the Pacific Ocean, the NFL’s recently christened Coach of the Year sipped his mixed drink in relative anonymity and brought up a defeat he conspicuously couldn’t get over. No, it wasn’t the Rams’ first-round playoff loss to the Atlanta Falcons on their home field; it was the beatdown that had taken place six days earlier at the Los Angeles Coliseum.
“We went into that last game against the 49ers with the division clinched and our playoff position set, and I did the smart thing and rested a bunch of our guys,” McVay recalled. “And Kyle (Shanahan) and those guys came in and mauled us. It was miserable. I mean, it was just torture.
“I'll tell you this: That was the last time. I don't care if there's a game where we've clinched everything and there's zero reason to take a risk. If we're playing against Kyle, I'm playing everybody, and I'm playing to win. There's no way I'm going through that again, as long as I f—ing live.”
McVay was smiling, and everyone laughed, but he was serious: Losing 34-13 to a San Francisco 49ers team that had long since been eliminated from playoff contention still stung him, and his competitive relationship with Shanahan was the biggest reason for that.
In theory, the Niners were playing only for pride in that 2017 finale. They'd been invigorated by the Jimmy Garoppolo trade and were looking to close out a miserable season with a fifth consecutive victory.
With Shanahan and McVay, however, it's always deeper than what we see on the surface.
The latest installment of this charged coaching rivalry will play out Sunday at SoFi Stadium, as the Niners (3-4) and Rams (3-3) try to get back into the thick of the NFC playoff chase after similarly choppy starts. With Shanahan owning a seven-game regular-season winning streak in head-tohead competition — and McVay having won the clash that counted most last January, en route to a Super Bowl ring — each coach has reason to feel vulnerable.
Here's another one: This is the 13th meeting between Shanahan and McVay since each man was hired by his respective team before the 2017 season. And there's a chance it could be the last, at least when it comes to their coaching the 49ers and Rams.
Whichever coach loses this game will be in a midseason hole, with no guarantee of climbing out. In Shanahan's case, he likely would survive even a disastrous campaign, but that's not a lock. Remember, Jed York fired Jim Harbaugh one season after a narrow NFC Championship Game loss to the Seahawks, and two years after a near-miss Super Bowl defeat to the Ravens, reasoning that the 49ers (who went 8-8 in 2014) had peaked under Harbaugh and were getting worse.
McVay, coming off a Super Bowl triumph, obviously won't be fired even if the Rams were to go 3-14. However, the charismatic coach toyed with the idea of stepping away after last season to enter the “Monday Night Football” booth, and TV remains a tantalizing possibility for a 36-year-old who may be seeking a reboot, or at least a short-term respite from the coaching grind.
It all depends upon what happens between now and January — especially if McVay suffers the first losing season of his career and doesn't envision a quick fix for 2023 and beyond. NFL coaching is an all-consuming profession that beats down even the most successful headset-wearers, and unmet expectations are particularly scarring. People who work closely with McVay, and with Shanahan, say each man has been noticeably stressed in recent months. Both care deeply about their craft — and their legacies — and don't handle it well when confronted with weaknesses that problem-solving won't cure.
Understandably, the two coaches are hyper-aware of one another's triumphs and travails. McVay, like fellow future head coaches Matt LaFleur and Mike McDaniel (and, for that matter, current Niners run game coordinator Chris Foerster and Rams defensive coordinator Raheem Morris), was on Mike Shanahan's renowned Washington staff for which Kyle served as offensive coordinator. Hired as a low-level offensive assistant in 2010 and later promoted to tight ends coach, McVay, as with that staff 's other young guns, was constantly in search of the younger Shanahan's approval and measured himself against that lofty schematic standard.
In some ways, McVay still does. Hired at the age of 30 by the Rams, who made him the youngest coach in the NFL's modern era, McVay triggered an immediate turnaround, won Coach of the Year honors and made the Rams a perennial playoff team. Shanahan, hired a few weeks later by the 49ers, has been more up-and-down, but he has helped turn a talent-deficient roster into one of the league's most star-studded.
The two rivals have pushed one another — in areas ranging from strategic innovation to motivational style to teambuilding. Both have suffered wrenching Super Bowl defeats as head coaches and responded by making bold, high-risk moves, including at the quarterback position. McVay won out in the battle to acquire Matthew Stafford; more recently Shanahan prevailed in trading for game-breaking running back Christian McCaffrey.
McVay and Shanahan are both all-in, and if and when they depart, the coaches and general managers who succeed them will likely have difficult rebuilding jobs ahead of them. In the meantime, the two coaches fight it out, each pridefully clinging to his successes and convinced his way is the best way.
When McVay looks in the mirror at night, he knows he is 4-8 in head-to-head meetings with Shanahan, with seven defeats in their past eight meetings. And yes, he's tortured by that. Then again, instead of looking into a mirror, he can simply squint into a Lombardi Trophy and see a reflection of the ultimate coaching triumph. You had best believe that tortures Shanahan.
So here they are, like AC/ DC, back in the ring to take another swing. In all 12 of their previous meetings, at least one coach was riding high. This is the first time they've both been so vulnerable while staring across from one another on the sidelines.
It probably won't be the last time — but you never know.