Getty Los Angeles Rams head coach Sean McVay looks onto the field during a 2019 game versus the Atlanta Falcons. The national analytics site Pro Football Focus ranked the best play-callers of 2021, leading to an online response from the Rams' Twitter account on June 9.
Pro Football Focus and the Los Angeles Rams Twitter account are in a disagreement. And the latter unveiled its displeasure toward a ranking unveiled by PFF on June 9.
The premium data and analytics website took to Twitter to reveal PFF writer Eric Eager’s top offensive play-callers for the 2021 NFL season. Through a photo edit posted on the social media website at noon P.T, Eager and PFF announced the top six guys tabbed as the league’s best offensive minds in order from one to six.
The top offensive play callers in the NFL, per @PFF_Eric
Do you agree?
Not mentioned in the six? L.A. Rams head coach Sean McVay. The same McVay who back in 2018 was lauded by PFF for turning around the Rams’ offensive fortunes from the Jeff Fisher era and called McVay’s scheme special. Mike Renner and Zac Robinson were also on the McVay praise train in 2018 through this video breakdown of his offense.
The Rams Twitter account felt the disrespect from PFF following the 2021 play-caller rankings. And four hours later, gave the national online publication the McVay pointing finger/head shaking gif.
Perhaps the Rams’ No. 22 overall offensive ranking from 2020 could be a reasoning behind McVay getting snubbed. But before last season, McVay conducted the NFL’s best offense in 2017, the league’s third-best scoring offense in 2018 and the NFL’s fourth-best passing attack in 2019. Throughout his time in the City of Angels, McVay has gotten the Rams to establish offensive consistency with the football.
That’s Not the Only Ranking Snubbing McVay
On the day before the play-caller rankings, Eager and PFF ranked who the best head coaches are for the upcoming season.
🥇 Andy Reid
🥈 John Harbaugh
🥉 Matt LaFleur
@PFF_Eric ranks the NFL’s best head coaches ahead of the 2021 season ⤵️
Landing at No. 1 was back-to-back AFC champion and 2020 Super Bowl winner Andy Reid of the Kansas City Chiefs, calling him “the standard by which the rest of the league is evaluated.” Green Bay’s Matt LaFleur was the NFC’s highest representative in the PFF head coach rankings at No. 3, with the website describing the third-year head coach as “the league’s highest-rated play caller in our metrics.” LaFleur was one of just two NFC coaches who made the PFF top seven, the other being New Orleans’ Sean Payton.
That’s right. Another list that left out the Rams head coach. And this list didn’t extend out to a top 10 either.
Are the Rams Highly Ranked in Any PFF Category?
Only the defensive line cracked the top five in a PFF category. Ben Linsey ranked all 32 units in his June 7 article and plugged the Rams at No. 4, ahead of the Philadelphia Eagles and Chicago Bears. Linsey said this of the Rams trench players:
The Rams don’t have the same quality of depth as the other top-five defensive lines in these rankings. But does it matter when they boast the single most disruptive force in the NFL? Aaron Donald’s 456 pressures over the past five seasons are 86 more than any other defender despite the fact that he saw a consistent barrage of double and triple teams. The attention he commands frees up other players to enjoy career years, as Dante Fowler Jr. and Leonard Floyd can attest. Los Angeles will have to replace Michael Brockers, whose 5,658 regular-season snaps since joining the Rams in 2012 rank ninth among all players at the position.
So PFF somewhat pleased fans of the Rams, more so fans of their defensive linemen. But again, PFF perplexed a lot of Twitter users and Rams fans by snubbing McVay, the same McVay who has never finished below .500 in his four-year head coaching career and has won 43 of 64 games with one NFC title ring.