Kyle Shanahan, Sean McVay top defensive peers’ ratings of NFL’s offensive play callers

A sample of NFL defensive coordinators and coaches say who they think is best at designing and executing an offense.

www.nytimes.com

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2. Sean McVay, Rams​

Many coaches view Shanahan and McVay as 1a and 1b. Like Shanahan, McVay’s play calling helped keep the Rams playing at a high level despite multiple injuries. Their offensive line was ravaged, Puka Nacua missed five games, and Cooper Kupp regressed with injuries and age last season. Yet the Rams remained efficient, finishing eighth in success rate and 10th in DVOA.

McVay has drastically evolved his offense from a highly systemized and coach-controlled outside zone, play-action system into a gap scheme, quarterback-centered, more spread-out system with Matthew Stafford at the helm. Coaches surveyed gave McVay a lot of credit for giving Stafford the tools to weaponize his football IQ at the line of scrimmage.

McVay’s career low point was in Super Bowl LIII, in which the Rams only scored 3 points in a loss to the Patriots. In that game, he couldn’t adjust to Bill Billichick’s 6-1 front. With years of experience, McVay’s ability to adjust is now levels above where it was early in his career.

“I think he can just see it live the best,” one defensive coordinator said. “He has a full Rolodex of plays. He can get to anything on his call sheet, but he can also get to anything in his head. If he needs to adjust in-game, he can completely come up with a new game plan on the spot. So it’s almost to the point now where he’s seen a lot. He has such a good memory of everything, with 12 years of experience calling plays and reacting to stuff. If you’re playing this (defense), he’s going to go to this … and he can do it in a second. That’s weird that he can just adjust so easily.”

TNF: Dallas Cowboys @ Philadelphia Eagles

Date: Thursday, September 4, 2025
Time: 8:20 PM ET (Live coverage begins at 7:00 PM ET)
Venue: Lincoln Financial Field, Philadelphia
TV/Streaming: NBC, Peacock

RamsOnDemand Sportsbook: (pending)

It’s been a sprint. I was hoping to go live today… but TOMORROW is the day!

We are finalizing schedules but around 9-10am CST we will be offline for the update… about 4hrs.

When you click on RamsOnDemand.com the browser should advise you we are in update mode. At the very least it will say unavailable in some way.

When we go live, the site will be in Midnight Mode. This will help make it jump out that the update is complete. BOOM! The Rams need to CONSULT WITH ROD on Midnight Mode!

THEME SWITCHER IS ALL THE WAY TO THE BOTTOM LEFT OF YOUR SCREEN. There is a chooser.

Our Standard Blue will be default in a matter of days.

You can always select based on your mood from:

1. Midnight Mode
2. Bone
3. 1980’s
4. STL Years

This feature will be members only in the future.

I have tested and tweaked colors like crazy. The combinations are many to consider. Please be patient with a few color bugs. I might have missed something as it’s impossible for me to test everything. I hope you like what you see and PLEASE PROVIDE feedback.

In the coming weeks we’ll be rolling out membership stuff and easier ways to donate.

I wanted the theme thing launched for opening night. It adds FUN to the season kickoff!

Another new feature that will appear as a new ribbon is the introduction of FEEDS.

This is just a different way to interact with and sort content. My advice…Just play with it… click on the buttons and you’ll see. There is a Facebook/Reddit vibe to the layout. It’s cool. We’ll have some fun with this.

The familiar Forum List View will be right there, as default.



There are a lot of other little changes. The LIKE system will display votes differently and other fresh things to stuff. But the familiar blue color scheme will feel very familiar.

Please be patient if there are color bugs. I don’t expect performance bugs. The site will scream.

I will keep this thread updated as plans firm.

I will probably edit it for stuff I’ve forgotten.

It’s the 2025 Season! It’s our 15th year!




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