Outside-the-box thinking makes Belichick, McVay more alike than you think

ATLANTA - You don't have to know that Bill Belichick and Sean McVay have been texting buddies to know that the 66-year-old head coach has a great deal of respect for his 33-year-old counterpart. (Even the texting might not be the best indicator, by the way. "Think that got a little overblown," McVay said this week.)

This week has been and will continue to be loaded with comparisons between McVay and Belichick, contrasting their ages, their offensive and defensive backgrounds, their on-camera demeanors. This is New School vs. Old School. Emotional vs. Stoic. Hair Gel vs. Who Knows?

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Yet they may be more alike than you think.

Could you blame Belichick if he saw a little bit of himself in the Rams head coach? As someone who has done things his way for decades, it'd come as no surprise if he had an appreciation for the fact that McVay has his own style.

"Coach McVay has done a great job with that football team," Belichick said this week. "He's been there two years. They basically led the league in scoring both years. They've won a ton of games. They're very well coached."

Just as Belichick didn't try to use a Cowboys or Steelers or Niners blueprint when building the Patriots, McVay has done anything but try to follow the Patriots plan step-by-step since his arrival in Los Angeles.

There's what he's doing in terms of team-building. 

McVay and his front office built their roster on a No. 1 pick at quarterback, a high-end first-rounder at running back and a high-end first-rounder at defensive tackle. They filled out the locker room with high-priced players -- both through free agency and trades -- at receiver, corner and on the defensive line. With the quarterback still on a rookie contract, they're built to win now. 

There's what he's done in terms of preseason prep.

McVay didn't play his offensive starters a single exhibition snap before the 2018 season. Defensive starters played seven. The young coach, again, took his own path, admitting that type of plan "might not be for everybody," but . . . wait for it . . . he thought it was best for the team.

"It's an imperfect deal," he said at the time, "but this is the decision that we felt like we wanted to make."

Then there's what he's done with his scheme to make it his own. 

Belichick has long had great affection for certain branches of the Shanahan tree -- especially the Shanahans, Mike and Kyle, themselves -- and McVay is the latest success story to stem from that particular coaching flora. Yet since McVay's arrival in Los Angeles, he's turned his offense into something unique. 

"He’s got four or five things," Belichick said last week, "that I would say are pretty specific to their offense, the Rams offense, that I won’t say we’ve never seen them before, but I think the way they do them, they blend well together. They sort of merge into each other and create problems for the defense. Those are the things that I think are the toughest for the defense."

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Yes, like the Shanahans, McVay uses zone running concepts. Like the Shanahans, he uses play-action extensively. Like the Shanahans, he asks his quarterback to execute bootlegs and nakeds and other fakes that stem from the run actions around which that style of offense is built. 

But then there's what McVay has done to put his own imprint on one of the league's most explosive offenses.  

For instance, he uses 11-personnel -- one tight end, one back, three receivers --  almost exclusively when the Shanahans and others in similar systems will mix in more "12" or "21." McVay had three receivers on the field over 90 percent of the time in 2018, far and away the most in the league. 

"They do a lot of things out of one personnel group and that’s an issue, so you kind of have to deal with everything from everything," Belichick said last week. "Sean’s done a really good job of doing what they do but they blend it together in a way that it’s different, but it’s the same but it’s different. It’s hard for the defense to really differentiate or get in the right spot easily. You have to really work at it. They don’t make it easy for you."

From within that personnel group, the Rams will often align their receivers very tight to the formation. That's another McVay wrinkle. In the age of spread concepts becoming more widespread, McVay has tightened things up. That gives his receivers more room to work either over the middle or to the sidelines, giving themselves more time and space to separate. 

There’s the potential for receivers to create communication issues at the line of scrimmage or traffic in the secondary when they take those “nasty” alignments close to the tackles. They’re also able to participate in the run game as blockers when they’re packed into a smaller space. 

“It creates a lot of problems," Belichick said. "That's why they do it . . . It creates an extra gap and it puts the player in close proximity to other things to run crossing routes, run reverses and misdirection plays as they've done with Woods many times this year. Add another gap into the running game that you have to account for defensively -- man or zone.

"All the things they do, they don't do them to be friendly to the defense. They're very inhospitable to the defensive coaches and players. They make it tough. They have great game plans, they have great schemes, and all their tactics provide a degree of difficulty for the opposing defense."

Another Rams staple tactic -- something many teams use but not as frequently -- is their "jet" motion plays. The Patriots refer to those as "missile" motions. Right before the snap, a receiver will sprint in motion and pass the quarterback just as he's leaving from under center. The motion man may take the football. He may be a decoy for an inside run or a boot-action pass. 

Even if that player doesn't touch the ball, he effectively forces defenders to react, which is what McVay is looking for. 

"The Rams make it tough because it could be [Brandin] Cooks, it could be [Robert] Woods, it could be anybody that they have over there that they’ve run it with," Devin McCourty said. "That kind of makes it tough. It comes from both sides, to the tight end, away from the tight end. But I think the experience of seeing it and kind of understanding the challenges we know, but a lot of times it’s just gang tackling. 

"When they give it, it’s guys running inside-out and trying to get the guy down and then it’s guys understanding that if you don’t have that, you need to play your responsibility that you have on the play whether that’s a gap, whether that’s a man. It’s one of those smoke and mirror things that if your eyes go straight to that and you chase that, teams are really good at running toss-action off it, downhill runs off it, so you really have to do your job on that. It’s misdirection. And whenever you get misdirection from an offense, guys have to do their job."

No one has done their job quite like McVay the past couple of years, though the NFL is loaded with teams hoping to find the next. Imitation is coming. Duplication -- as it's been with those who tried to replicate Belichick's unique style over the years -- looks like a far greater challenge. 

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That may be why Belichick seems to like him so much.

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