Rams coach Sean McVay and Bengals coach Zac Taylor are the youngest pair of head coaches ever to meet in the Super Bowl.
The 36-year-old McVay and the 38-year-old Taylor were the two youngest head coaches in the NFL during the 2021 season, and their combined age of 74 is the youngest for two Super Bowl head coaches in history.
If McVay’s Rams win, he’ll be the youngest head coach ever to win a Super Bowl. Mike Tomlin, who was a month shy of his 37th birthday when his Steelers won Super Bowl XLIII, currently holds that distinction. McVay just turned 36 last week.
If Taylor’s Bengals win, he’ll be the second-youngest head coach ever to win a Super Bowl. Jon Gruden, who was 39 when his Buccaneers won Super Bowl XXXVII, is currently the next-youngest after Tomlin.
When McVay became head coach of the Rams in 2017, he hired Taylor as wide receivers coach, and the next year he promoted him to quarterbacks coach. It was Taylor’s status as a young coach who worked under McVay that made him a hot candidate for the Bengals. It turned out that they really did represent the next generation of winning coaches in the NFL.