The last Super Bowl winner to be named Coach of the Year multiple times was Bill Belichick, who won the award in 2003, 2007, and 2010. Sean McVay won the award in 2017, his first season as a head coach with the L.A. Rams, and Week 11’s matchup against the Seattle Seahawks for the division lead would be a great opportunity for him to establish that he’s overdue for a second title.
McVay has long been credited with popularizing various offensive schemes, tendencies and techniques over the past eight
years and now he’s doing it again by changing the Rams offense into a TE-heavy 13 personnel formation at a rate unlike any other NFL team. And dominating with it. YouTuber Alex Rollins broke it down this weekend:
McVay’s list of accomplishments is well documented, from becoming a head coach at the record-breaking age of 31 to turning around the Rams in his first season on the job and then winning the Super Bowl in 2021. McVay has helped the Rams lock down four division titles at the helm, which is as many as the team had won from 1986-2016.
The Rams had only finished higher than third one time since 2007 prior to his arrival, when they were second in 2010 with a 7-9 record. In his first season, the Rams went 11-5, won the NFC West, and finished first in scoring.
McVay won Coach of the Year that season because voters usually get it to a first-time winner who turned a bad team into a good team. But sometimes shouldn’t the award just got to a great head coach of a great team? Not just basing it on how the team did the season before?
That is largely the case that’s going to be made for Seattle’s Mike Macdonald to win the honor this season, having taken over the Seahawks as the first coach in 2024 and at the time being the first coach since 2017 to be younger than McVay. Macdonald took over one of the worst defenses in the NFL at the time and now has Seattle ranked sixth in points allowed and top-5 against both the run and the pass. If the Seahawks can defeat the Rams on Sunday, then Macdonald’s argument for Coach of the Year will be as strong as ever because then Seattle will be in first place and he will have defeated the best team standing in their way of the number one seed.
However, the same can be said for McVay. Can he slay his mirror opposite and put the Seahawks a tier below them…again?
Kevin Stefanski won his second Coach of the Year award in 2023. Kevin O’Connell, a former Rams offensive coordinator under McVay, won the award in 2024. If the Rams beat the Seahawks on Sunday, perhaps it’s time for the Coach of the Year award to go to the best coach in football.
Other candidates in 2025:
- Mike Vrabel, Patriots (previous winner)
- Shane Steichen, Colts
- Sean Payton, Broncos (previous winner)
- Andy Reid, Chiefs (only win came in 2002)
- Nick Sirianni, Eagles
- Dan Campbell, Lions
- Ben Johnson, Bears
- Todd Bowles, Bucs
