Sean McVay is in the same boat as Frank Reich — a coach with a new quarterback who cannot talk about his new quarterback until a trade becomes official at the start of the new league year.
And McVay also held a press conference on Thursday afternoon.
Asked in general what he’d like to see from the quarterback position in 2021, McVay’s comments boiled down to wanting to see more explosive plays — without mentioning Matthew Stafford’s name.
“I think it’s guys who can make things happen with the ball in their hands,” McVay said. “I think there’s different ways of creating explosives, but it’s a collaboration of certainly I’ve got to do a good job of giving us opportunities. And then the players are the ones that end up making it come to life. So that’s always going to be a big part of it.
“I think when you have to go 12, 15-play drives consistently, your margin for error is so small. The level of competition is just so great that you’ve got to be able to find ways to continuously create explosives, give yourself a little bit of margin for error that it’s not always taking that many plays to produce points in this league. I think any good offense, anyone that’s at the upper echelon of the league, that’s usually something that you can probably check the box on. And I think that’s something that we’ve definitely got to do a better job of, starting with me, next season.”
In terms of creating those explosive plays, Jared Goff had 47 passes of at least 20 yards in 2020 while Stafford picked up 54. But Stafford ended the season at 8.7 pass yards per attempt, ranking fifth among qualified passers. Goff was 33rd at 6.2 air yards per attempt, ranking ahead of just Drew Brees (6.1) and Alex Smith (5.1).
So if the Rams would like to create more explosive plays, they seem to have the quarterback to do just that — even if McVay can’t yet mention him by name.
