During a week in January, Rams head coach Sean McVeigh discussed his future as head coach after a disappointing 5-12 season.
But taking this time to reflect, McVeigh said Friday he’s grateful for the new perspective it’s given him, allowing him to get back into coaching for the long term.
“When you go through some of the things that we went through last year, you can really get lost in things that become more of a burden than a blessing,” McVeigh said. “When you really take a step back and get a chance to reflect, sometimes that reflection is best served after a humiliating experience and a difficult experience.”
Although Los Angeles won Super Bowl LVI just a season ago, the team had a severe hangover in 2022. champion since 1999.
Following the conclusion of the 2022 season, McVeigh said he would take a short break to assess his future, the second straight off-season he has gone through this process. Many have speculated that he may have retired from coaching for a job in television or as a result of burnout due to his rapid rise as a young head coach followed by a sharp decline last year.
Ultimately, McVeigh said that he had regained that passion for coaching and was unsatisfied with where he would leave his team if he moved on.
“To say that as a competitor I would feel comfortable giving it up is no,” he said. “I wouldn’t feel comfortable coming out of a situation where I think I owe people more than that.”
While McVeigh’s coaching future has been the subject of discussion in each of the last two years, the 37-year-old said the January decision marks a long-term commitment and it was important to him that a period of reflection allowed him to arrive at a decision that “is designed to last for years.” forward, not every year.
“I’m really committed to making sure this doesn’t become history every year,” he said. “Because I know this is probably something people are asking or wondering about and I don’t take it lightly. That’s why reflection, because there was never any doubt if you wanted to train again. be able to have the appropriate perspective to be the best version of themselves for players and coaches?” And I’m sure it can exist in the future.”
Now that McVeigh has made the decision to stay with the Rams, he has to deal with the realities of the situation the franchise is in. They have only a handful of draft picks, not much headroom, and major players are getting seriously injured. General manager Les Sneed said on Thursday that while the team is not undergoing a complete overhaul, they will have to “overhaul” the roster by adding some of their key elements in order to be competitive again.
And McVeigh is up for the challenge, saying that even with the work it takes to get back to where they were in 2021, he doesn’t count his team yet.
“Let’s not try to write history until we open the first page of the book,” McVeigh said. “Let’s think about what we can do with the circumstances.”
Source: www.nfl.com
