Sean McVay’s future with the Rams is secure after Monday’s announcement that he’s signed a multi-year contract extension with the team, but quarterback Matthew Stafford’s plans are less certain.
Stafford said after the Rams’ loss to the Seahawks in the NFC Championship Game that there is a lot that goes into a decision to play an 18th NFL season and that he will “figure all that kind of stuff out with some time.” On Monday, McVay said the team will give Stafford that time while making it clear that the hope is that he’s running the Rams’ offense again this fall.
“I’m keeping my fingers crossed like you guys that he still wants to go play,” McVay said, via Greg Beachem of the Associated Press.
There’s no timetable in place for Stafford to make his decision, but the sooner the Rams know whether they need to find a new quarterback the better for their overall planning for next season.
Rams Clips
Rams head coach Sean McVay is heading into his 10th season with the team and there are no plans for the run to end anytime soon.
The Rams announced on Monday that McVay has signed a multi-year extension with the club. General Manager Les Snead, who has been in his job since 2012, has also signed an extension.
“As we enter their 10th season together, it is only fitting to reflect on the tremendous success Sean and Les have brought to this franchise, and the indelible impact they have made on Los Angeles and the NFL,” Rams owner Stan Kroenke said in a statement. “They continue to embody the standard of this franchise to compete for championships, consistently delivering a product that our fans and city can be proud of. Their collaboration embodies the We Then Me ethos we seek in our players, coaches and staff, and we are thrilled they will be leading the Los Angeles Rams for years to come.”
The Rams are 92-57 since McVay became the head coach and this year’s playoff trip was their seventh in the last nine years. They are 10-6 in the playoffs, including their Super Bowl LVI win over the Bengals at SoFi Stadium.
The Cardinals made it official Sunday, announcing they have agreed to a five-year contract with Mike LaFleur.
LaFleur replaces Jonathan Gannon as the team’s new head coach.
“I couldn’t be more fired up to become the head coach of the Arizona Cardinals and am beyond grateful to [owner] Michael [Bidwill] and [General Manager] Monti [Ossenfort] for this opportunity,” LaFleur said in a statement. “Having competed against them in the NFC so many times in recent years, I know the type of talent and toughness the team has and cannot wait to get to Arizona to hit the ground running.”
LaFleur, the younger brother of Packers head coach Matt LaFleur, served as the Rams’ offensive coordinator for the past three seasons. While he didn’t call plays for head coach Sean McVay, LaFleur did gain play-calling experience in two seasons as offensive coordinator with the Jets.
He turns 39 in March.
“In his career, Mike has been around some of the best and brightest coaches in football and has been a key contributor to highly successful teams,” Ossenfort said in a statement. “He understands what winning football looks like and what it takes to achieve it. Mike is a strong communicator with a detail-oriented teaching style that has always gotten the best from his players and we are incredibly excited for him to bring that to the Cardinals.”
LaFleur began his NFL coaching career under Kyle Shanahan, working with him in Cleveland and Atlanta before becoming Shanahan’s passing game coordinator in San Francisco from 2017-20. He was then hired by the Jets under then-head coach Robert Saleh.
LaFleur becomes the 11th Cardinals’ coach since the team moved to Arizona.
“We had the opportunity to speak with an outstanding group of candidates during this very thorough process and gathered tremendous insight from each of them,” Bidwill said in a statement. “At the end of that process, it was clear that Mike LaFleur possesses all the traits necessary to lead this team to success as its head coach. He is highly intelligent with an exceptionally sharp, creative football mind. Mike is also a dynamic and innovative leader and exactly the type of person we were looking for to guide our team as its head coach.”
Raheem Morris is heading back to the NFC West.
Three years after leaving the Rams to become head coach of the Falcons, Morris will be joining the 49ers as the team’s new defensive coordinator, via Adam Schefter of ESPN.com.
Morris served as the Rams’ defensive coordinator from 2021 through 2023. In his first season, the Rams won the Super Bowl.
Before 2021, Morris worked for the Falcons as an assistant coach from 2015 through 2020. He worked in Washington from 2012 through 2014. Before that, Morris spent three years as head coach of the Buccaneers.
Morris will be the fifth 49ers defensive coordinator in five seasons. DeMeco Ryans had the job from 2021 through 2022, before becoming head coach of the Texans. Steve Wilks coordinated the defense in 2023, and Nick Sorensen had the job in 2024.
Robert Saleh returned for 2025; he parlayed his work into a head-coaching job with the Titans — five years after leaving that same job to become head coach of the Jets.
Morris will essentially be working for free; anything he makes will be credited to the head-coaching salary the Falcons owe him, through the expiration of the deal Atlanta terminated after two years.
The last head coaching vacancy has been filled.
The Cardinals are hiring Rams offensive coordinator Mike LaFleur to be their next head coach, according to multiple reports.
LaFleur is set to have a five-year contract.
LaFleur — the younger brother of Packers head coach Matt LaFleur — had been with the Rams as OC since 2023. While he did not call plays for Los Angeles, as head coach Sean McVay performs that role, he did have a play-calling stint with the Jets from 2021-2022.
Mike LaFleur also spent plenty of time working under 49ers head coach Kyle Shanahan. He was an offensive intern for the Browns in 2014 when Shanahan was the team’s offensive coordinator. He then followed Shanahan to the Falcons, serving as an offensive assistant while Shanahan was the club’s OC.
LaFleur became the 49ers’ passing game coordinator and receivers coach when Shanahan was hired as San Francisco’s head coach in 2017. He was the passing game coordinator from 2019-2020, following Robert Saleh to the Jets when he became the team’s head coach.
With the Cardinals selecting LaFleur, all 10 head coaching vacancies for the 2026 offseason have now been filled.
Mike and Matt LaFleur now also become the second pair of brothers as current head coaches, joining the Giants’ John Harbaugh and Chargers’ Jim Harbaugh.
Kevin Stefanski has made another addition to his coaching staff in Atlanta.
Tom Pelissero of NFL Media reports that the Falcons are hiring Alex Van Pelt as their quarterbacks coach. Van Pelt was a senior offensive assistant with the Rams during the 2025 season.
Van Pelt worked on Stefanski’s Browns staff from 2020-2023 as the offensive coordinator and he was also the quarterbacks coach in his final season with Cleveland. He was succeeded by Ken Dorsey and was replaced by Tommy Rees in 2025. Rees will also be the coordinator in Atlanta.
Van Pelt was the Patriots’ offensive coordinator in 2024 and he’s also coached quarterbacks with the Bengals, Packers, Buccaneers and Bills over the course of his coaching career.
The key play in Sunday’s NFC Championship happened with 4:59 to play, the Rams trailing by four, and L.A. facing fourth and four from the Seattle six. The Rams went for it, and quarterback Matthew Stafford’s pass to the end zone fell incomplete.
After the game, Rams coach Sean McVay explained that the Seahawks basically got lucky.
“They kind of lucked into having two guys peel on Kyren right there,” McVay said at the time. “I know that that can’t be part of their design, so . . . fortuitous bust by them. . . . I can’t imagine that’s what they were really trying to do.”
While that may not have been the plan, Seahawks linebacker DeMarcus Lawrence improvised in the moment.
“The back was too fast,” Lawrence told reporters on Thursday, via Brian Nemhauser. “You know, if it was a regular design and the back wasn’t [Stafford’s] ‘hot’ [route], the back would have, you know, waited to see if [safety] Julian [Love] was going to rush first and then flare it out. But he didn’t wait, you know, so that was definitely an indicator, like, a ‘oh shit’ moment, you know? The back is flaring out that fast, that means that’s his ‘hot.’ So he’s going to the back first and, you know, playing football as long as I’ve played, I ‘ve seen so many formations and schemes. Like, you know, you start to pick up on those things.”
We broke down the play on PFT Live, in the attached video. Williams runs past Love, who abandoned his blitz, grabbed at Williams, and retreated along with Lawrence.
As Simms noted, however, Williams still looked to be open, even with two men covering him, or at least trying to. But they did enough to get Stafford to move to his next read — and to ultimately thwart what could have been a go-ahead touchdown pass.
The Rams have hired Bubba Ventrone as their special teams coordinator, Tom Pelissero of NFL Media reports.
The Rams fired special teams coordinator Chase Blackburn last month after a series of blunders by the unit in a 38-37 overtime loss to the Seahawks. Assistant special teams coach Ben Kotwica finished the season as the interim coordinator, but the Rams muffed a punt in the NFC Championship Game.
The Steelers also requested to interview Ventrone.
Ventrone was the assistant head coach and special teams coordinator for three seasons on Cleveland’s staff. He has also coached for the Colts and Patriots since concluding a playing career that saw him spend time with the 49ers, Browns and Patriots.
A week ago, a massive winter storm sparked optimism that viewership for the conference championship games would skyrocket. Relative to those expectations, the actual performance was more like the last shot from a Roman candle.
Via Austin Karp of Sports Business Journal, the average audience for the AFC Championship and NFC Championship fell by 6.7 percent, from 50.8 million in January 2025 to 47.4 million.
The average ends a three-year streak above 50 million as the average audience for both games.
The early game, Patriots-Broncos on CBS, generated the bigger number, at 48.4 million. It was the lowest average for the AFC Championship in four years, when Bengals-Chiefs attracted 47.9 million.
Rams-Seahawks on Fox averaged 46.1 million. While up from 44.2 million who watched the Eagles blow out the Commanders in the early window a year ago, the prime-time game dropped from 57.4 million last year for Bills-Chiefs. It was the lowest NFC Championship audience since Packers-49ers landed at 43 million in January 2020.
Karp’s article mentions “likely suppressed out-of-home viewership” due to the weather. But wouldn’t folks who have watched it at a bar or a restaurant or a friend’s house watched it at home?
The better explanation seems to be this: Jayden Daniels, Jalen Hurts, Josh Allen, and Patrick Mahomes. They were the four quarterbacks last year. Remove star players from the equation (Travis Kelce, too), and the games have less inherent sizzle.
The Rams had issues with their special teams all season, including a crucial muffed punt in their NFC Championship Game loss to the Seahawks, and they are working to find a new coach for those units.
Tom Pelissero of NFL Media reports that they have requested an interview with Browns special teams coordinator Bubba Ventrone for the same role on Sean McVay’s staff. Mary Kay Cabot of Cleveland.com reports that the Steelers have made the same request.
Ventrone also had an assistant head coach title during his three seasons on Cleveland’s staff. He has also coached for the Colts and Patriots since concluding a playing career that saw him spend time with the 49ers, Browns, and Patriots.
The Browns news comes shortly after the Browns announced the hiring of Todd Monken as their new head coach. The team already has a vacancy at offensive coordinator and passing on promoting defensive coordinator Jim Schwartz could leave the team with openings at all three coordinator spots.
The Steelers are in a similar position after hiring Mike McCarthy over the weekend.
