Week 5 of this NFL season will be remembered by historians as the week when head coaches apologized, admitted mistakes and otherwise regretted their decisions in front of their teams and in public — and Los Angeles Rams coach Sean McVay is the latest to join them.
The Rams lost in overtime to the Buffalo Bills in what was perhaps the most entertaining game of the season on Monday Night Football.
Afterward, McVay was unhappy with himself, saying he was “sick” and “regretting” a decision that wasn’t necessarily wrong but wasn’t optimal and didn’t help his team in what could have been a game-deciding situation.
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Here’s the situation:
The game is in overtime. The Rams have stopped the Bills on their first possession, so any points by McVay’s team wins the game.
And the Rams seem headed toward those points and victory when they drive from their 20-yard line to the Buffalo 30 mostly by attempting five consecutive pass plays.
The Buffalo defense is on its heels under Matthew Stafford’s passing barrage. But on third-and-5 from the Bills’ 30-yard line, McVay calls a run for Kyren Williams off right tackle.
No gain.
It was, clearly, the coach setting his team up for a field goal rather than pressing the issue. Except the Rams had their field goal blocked on fourth down, continuing a multi-season struggle with their special teams that has cost them multiple games.
“Yeah, you know what? If I would have known,” McVay told reporters afterward. “I wish I would have had a better play call and gone for it, got it a lot tighter. I’m sick right now with myself.
“…I’m proud of the way that we battled and I’m sick that we came up short and I’ll be regretting kicking that and not having a better call to be able to go forward on third down …
“That’s on me.”
We heard this multiple times in Week 5.
Washington Commanders coach Dan Quinn said “it’s my responsibility” for the blown clock management at the end of his team’s game against the New York Giants that turned a likely victory into a tie.
Philadelphia Eagles coach Nick Sirianni took blame for his team’s last-second loss to the Jacksonville Jaguars because of a decision he made on a kickoff.
“I lost us that game,” Sirianni said.
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These coaches are seemingly wrestling each other for Harry Truman’s “The Buck Stops Here” Oval Office sign. And that’s good.
Accountability from a head coach, especially when it is taken publicly, sets a good example for players and how they’ll act privately within the team.
But that’s not the point.
The point is three coaches that took teams to the Super Bowl — McVay and Sirianni won on the NFL’s grandest stage — made significant errors on the same week of NFL action. The mistakes were so obvious that all decided to take responsibility publicly.
The NFL last week was mired in officials making mistakes and getting suspended and that was the big story.
These star coaches all blowing it on the same week has shifted the focus to the quality of decisions by coaches in the league.
