Bad Coaching in the NFL: Sean McVay and Bill Belichick say hello

We’ve reaching the point where Sean McVay and Bill Belichick have made it to C’mon Coach, and frankly, we’re both proud and disappointed.

The more time Los Angeles Rams head coach Sean McVay has to think about an opponent, the dumber he gets.

McVay had 10 days to prepare for the New York Jets, who were coming off a 40-3 surrender to the Seattle Seahawks and are coached by a rabid stoat. So how well-prepared was the NFL’s answer to Elon Musk for what should have been the easiest win on his team’s schedule?

Well, the Rams went three-and-out on their first two possessions, allowing a 74-yard touchdown drive to a pea-shooter offense in between. Then they surrendered a blocked punt. Then an interception.

It was 20-3 in the third quarter by the time their dignity kicked in. But by then it was too late: the Jets won their first game of the season by a 23-20 score, and the Rams jeopardized their playoff hopes on an afternoon when they should have clinched a berth by halftime.

“That was very humbling,” McVay said after the game, per Adam Maya of NFL.com. Sure was.

Last season, the Rams came off their bye and lost 17-12 to the Mason Rudolph-led Pittsburgh Steelers. Given a 10-day layover after a Thursday night game last year, they lost 20-7 to the San Francisco 49ers.

The Rams beat the Seattle Seahawks off their bye this year, but they had nowhere to go but up after they were upset 28-17 in a four-turnover fiasco against the Miami Dolphins before the bye. And who can forget how the Rams looked in their 13-3 loss to the New England Patriots in Super Bowl LIII?

It was as if McVay spent the two preparation weeks before the big game coming to grips with the fact he’s no Bill Belichick, but merely the nutty neighbor who keeps dropping by for dinner in the 2010s sitcom Jammin’ With the Shanahans.

McVay’s problem isn’t that he has too much time to think during bye weeks and mini-byes. It’s that he has never, ever come up with a Plan B in four seasons as a head coach.

If Jared Goff makes a few early mistakes, there’s a special teams snafu or defensive lapse, or if the patented McVay system just isn’t clicking, the Rams become a turtle on its back in a soup factory.

McVay doesn’t really do adjustments, and the Rams don’t do comebacks: Goff is credited with just one fourth-quarter comeback in the last two seasons. For comparison’s sake, Sam Darnold somehow has two.

The Rams had a chance to come back and win on Sunday. They trailed by three points with 4:05 to play when they reached the Jets 37-yard line.

On 3rd-and-4, McVay emptied the backfield and ordered a deep wheel route to rookie running back Cam Akers. Goff’s pass sailed over Akers’ head. On 4th-and-4, McVay emptied the backfield again and called a similar play concept up the opposite sideline to tight end Gerald Everett. That pass was broken up, essentially ending the game.

Two deep sideline shots? To a rookie running back and a tight end? On the fringe of game-tying field goal range? In four-down territory? When a shallow cross or even a swing pass could have netted a first down? Against the worst team in the Milky Way? With the playoffs on the line? Did McVay expect Gregg Williams to parachute onto the Jets sideline wearing a headset and call the ol’ Madden “Engage Eight” blitz?

“I’ve got to do a better job getting us ready to go,” McVay said. “And really it was in all three phases, it wasn’t good enough.”

Congratulations, Aging Boy Wunderkind. You just got outcoached by Adam Gase. As punishment, you should slam a car door shut on your own forehead over and over again until you lose consciousness.

Bill Beli-Quit

Bill Belichick sure coached Sunday’s 22-12 loss to the Miami Dolphins as if he was having none of this “back into the playoffs as the final Wild Card team and get humiliated by the Indianapolis Colts” nonsense and was ready to start the rebuilding process:

• Belichick punted from the Dolphins 39-yard line in the first quarter. Yes, it was 4th-and-long, but it’s hard to imagine the New England Patriots getting trapped in a 4th-and-long situation at the opponent’s 39-yard line as recently as two years ago.
• Belichick ordered a field goal on 4th-and-3 from the Dolphins 27-yard line. Actually, he ordered Cam Newton to try to draw the Dolphins offsides, then called a timeout, then kicked a field goal. That’s right: Belichick now wastes timeouts on tactics like that.
• Belichick ordered another field goal on 4th-and-2 from the Dolphins 27-yard line in the fourth quarter. Heck, what are Belichick and offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels to do? Call some sort of read-option concept for Cam Newton, the best short-yardage running quarterback in modern NFL history? Nah, why not trust what’s left of the mighty Patriots defense to protect a one-point lead for 20 minutes instead.
• The Patriots finally did go for 4th-and-3 from the 19-yard line while trailing by two scores with 1:16 to play. Time for a Newton zone-read, RPO or rollout concept, right? Nah. A dropback pass. With rookie tight end Dalton Keene split wide as one of Newton’s target, lest there be a slim chance that someone might get open. Newton was sacked for an eight-yard loss.

“Yeah, well, it’s obviously a disappointing day for us,” Belichick mumbled after the game, per Chris Mason at mlive.com. “We didn’t do anything really well enough to win the game. We just didn’t coach well enough … Miami was just better than we were today.”

Translation: I hear Augusta National Golf Club is lovely in January, and after 20 years I think I deserve a chance to check it out.

Exploded Coverage

C’mon, Coach dares you to watch this replay of Adam Thielen’s wide-open touchdown and figure out what coverage Chicago Bears defensive coordinator Chuck Pagano called.

The Vikings threatened the left side of the end zone with four receivers. The Bears responded with two defenders, three if you count safety Eddie Jackson wandering over at the last minute. If it’s man coverage, then it’s the “everyone has to cover two guys” concept. If it’s zone, it’s “blanket the flats, leave the end zone vulnerable and ignore the Pro Bowler with 12 touchdowns so far this season … er, make that 13 touchdowns.”

The Vikings ran this play in hurry-up mode, so what Pagano actually called was “Crap! We’re not ready! Everybody pick a guy!” He developed that coverage concept when he and Mike Pettine coached together on the Baltimore Ravens staff.

The Bears went on to win 33-27, and their defense has played well for much of the season, keeping the team in the Wild Card chase. But never forget that Chuck Pagano is Chuck Pagano, a time bomb ready to make a fundamental mistake at the worst possible moment.

Questionable Judge-ment

Giants head coach Joe Judge tried to challenge the recovery of an onside kick with 4:12 to play in the fourth quarter and his team trailing 20-6 to the Cleveland Browns on Sunday night.

Challenging what happens at the bottom of an onside kick clusterhump may be the only thing dumber than challenging a spot. It’s not like the guy who pounces on the football is wearing a bodycam that the officials can consult. The replay showed two Browns landing atop the ball, with a bunch of Giants leaping on top of them, then the usual melee (which resulted in a Browns unnecessary roughness penalty). If the football somehow changed hands after many unseen and best-unthought-of crotch-and-crack violations beneath that heap of humans, that’s between the participants and their creator: the television cameras won’t see any of it, and the officials ain’t gonna look too close.

Judge burned a timeout on the challenge, leaving the Giants with just one left. They faced a two-touchdown deficit with Colt McCoy at quarterback, so their win probability was slim under any circumstances. But two timeouts with four minutes left offered the chance of a Browns punt, a quick touchdown and another attempt at an onside kick. Instead, Judge threw away a timeout on a lost cause.

It seems as though the NFL’s rookie coaches have some really quirky ideas about late-game desperation strategies. Here’s another example:

Matt Rhule’s Figgie Pudding

Carolina Panthers head coach Matt Rhule loves short field goals so much that he ordered kicker Joey Slye to attempt a 23-yarder on first-and-10 with the Panthers trailing the Green Bay Packers by 11 points in the fourth quarter on Saturday night of Week 15.

It’s not that hard to piece together Rhule’s logic. The Panthers needed two scores. The kick came with 2:08 to play, giving the Panthers an extra timeout at the two minute warning. (they had just one left). In a way, the tactic worked: the Panthers forced a three-and-out and got the ball back at their own 20-yard line with 55 seconds left and no timeouts.

But here’s the problem: it’s easier to score a touchdown when you are already in the red zone and have ways of stopping the clock, then figure out how to kick the field goal later, than it is to take the chip shot and then figure out how to drive the length of the field for a touchdown with no timeouts.

Think about it: even if the Panthers blew past the two-minute warning (but preserved their timeout) to score a touchdown, they could probably get the ball back with about 25 seconds left if they forced a three-and-out. What’s more likely: one 25-yard pass and a spike to set up a 55-yarder, or an 80-yard touchdown drive with no timeouts? It’s not even close.

Slye is now 11-of-12 on field goals of less than 29 yards. Rhule settles for a short field goal nearly once per game. And the Panthers have lost five games by five points or less. It doesn’t take a statistical genius to figure out that Rhule’s almost gleeful willingness to settle for a short field goal is hampering his team’s development.

Maybe Rhule, the collegiate tactical genius, is just keeping expectations low and positioning the Panthers for a top draft pick. Or maybe Rhule isn’t the innovator he’s billed to be and has been outsmarting himself with suboptimal tactics all season long.

You can probably guess which way C’mon Coach is leaning.

The $100 Million Man

Jon Gruden challenged a two-yard gain midway through the third quarter of the Las Vegas Raiders’ 30-27 overtime loss to the Los Angeles Chargers on Thursday.

Fullback Gabe Nabors appeared to make a diving reception on a scrambling checkdown by Justin Herbert, but replays showed that he clearly trapped the ball. Gruden figured the difference between 2nd-and-10 and 2nd-and-8 was worth the risk of losing a timeout in the second half of a tie game with his team’s playoff hopes on the line.

The Raiders won the challenge, so Gruden saved the timeout.

Later in the same drive, the Chargers drove to the one-yard line. The Chargers lined up in a standard short-yardage formation. Raiders defenders began looking around frantically and pointing. Then linebackers Nick Kwiatkowski and Kyle Wilburn signaled for a timeout. There’s no coaches’ film for timeouts, but it sure looked on the television feed like there were only 10 Raiders defenders on the field.

Gruden, you may recall, fired defensive coordinator Paul Guenther on Sunday night, forcing Rod Marinelli to take over with just a few days to prepare for a Thursday night game. Perhaps that might have had something to do with the Raiders’ inability to perform a simple goal line defensive substitution.

Chargers running back Kalen Ballage punched in a touchdown, which was probably going to happen anyway, so the lost timeout was no big deal, right?

Fast forward to the fourth quarter. The Chargers missed two potential game-winning field goals. The Raiders got the ball at their own 41-yard line with 53 seconds left.

Unfortunately, they possessed no timeouts, because they used the two they had left to stop the clock when the Chargers had the ball. One more timeout could have helped them drive about 20 yards to attempt a game winning field goal of their own. Instead, they were forced to attempt a rushed 65-yarder, which resulted in a fumbled snap. The Chargers, of course, won in overtime.

The most remarkable thing about Thursday night’s loss is that Twitter spent the evening ripping Anthony Lynn for running the ball too often on first down. And yes, Lynn runs the ball too much on first down. But Lynn’s Chargers won their second straight game, and Herbert is developing into a superstar.

Gruden’s team is swandiving out of the Wild Card chase for a second consecutive year. He’s firing coaches, burning timeouts, making weird challenge decisions and (knowing Gruden) is about to exacerbate a Derek Carr-Marcus Mariota quarterback controversy. But Gruden’s our cranky uncle who says and does stupid stuff all the time, so we just tune his mistakes out.

Lynn may not be coaching in the AFC West next year. Perhaps that’s for the best. But Gruden will definitely be coaching in the AFC West next year. There’s no way that’s for the best.