Sean McVay’s coaching tree has grown so many branches that now he’s in the full grips of his own branches like one of those evil trees from The Evil Dead. Every NFC West team now has a strong connection to McVay:
- The Cardinals hired Mike LaFleur as head coach
- The 49ers hired Raheem Morris as defensive coordinator
- The Seahawks passing game coordinator is Jake Peetz
Peetz, who was on McVay’s staff from 2022-2023, was passed over for the open offensive coordinator role as the Seahawks hired Brian Fleury off of the 49ers staff instead. But Seattle also has two important former Rams starters in Cooper Kupp and Ernest Jones.
LaFleur actually hasn’t poached anyone from L.A.‘s staff in Arizona. Strangely, he’s retaining many of the same coaches and is perhaps unable to convince anyone else go to to the Cardinals. Especially this late in the game.
Morris has an important role in San Francisco, running the entire defensive side of the ball for Shanahan as he did for McVay.
So the state of things for McVay in the NFC West is that his coaching tree is so vast that eventually the entire coaching cycle comes to surround his assistants and his former assistants. Aside from LaFleur, McVay’s staff was barely touched during this cycle, but next year could include Chris Shula and Nate Scheelhaase, among others.
There’s no telling how many more Rams coaches will have coordinator and head coaching jobs in one year, two years, or three years. Coaches are being cycled through faster that any any point in history, or at least that’s what it feels like, especially when it feels like every time you’re down (like Morris being fired by the Falcons) and popping back up in the division with the 49ers;
That’s not The Evil Dead. That’s The Walking Dead.
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