Five days after the Rams concluded their 2022 season, four days after frank and candid comments from coach Sean McVay regarding his deliberations regarding whether to return for a seventh season, and three days after a report emerged that the team won’t block current assistant coaches from taking jobs with other teams, McVay hasn’t made a final decision. If he has, he hasn’t shared it with anyone.
The clock, as always, is ticking.
How long will McVay take to make his decision? The Rams need to know whether they’ll be looking for a new coach.
Would it be as simple as giving the job to defensive coordinator Raheem Morris? Or would the Rams embark on a broader search? If Sean Payton is in play, would owner Stan Kroenke want to make a play for him?
What if another one of the currently coveted coaches would be the answer? The longer McVay takes to provide his own answer, the harder it will be for the Rams to join the chase for a new coach.
That said, maybe the Rams don’t want to be part of that process, because that could only expose how undesirable their job would be, given the overall state of the roster. With years of draft picks flipped for veteran players, there’s no young nucleus of great players. Instead, the Rams are top heavy with bloated deals for aging stars who likely will be gone before things begin to turn around.
Yes, they won a Super Bowl. They also are currently in a mess that may take several years to clean up. If the job were to become available, it would be one of the least desirable in the current cycle.
For now, the question is whether it will become available. And with each passing day, the absence of an answer is becoming more conspicuous.