An open letter to Sean McVay --I'm here to help.

Sean -

Can I call you Sean? I'm older than you, so calling you Mr. McVay just seems weird.

Super Bowls are awesome aren't they? As a Seahawks fan, bludgeoning the Denver Broncos to death in Super Bowl 48 and getting to front run basically the entire game will be an outsized cherished memory the rest of my life. The next year wasn't quite so hot, but it was still awesome to be there competing. Given who the Seahawks have been the majority of their existence, I'm happy to have what we have. Don't think I don't know my place in the pecking order of NFL franchise importance. The Seahawks will never be the Cowboys, the Patriots, or the 49ers, even if they somehow miraculously win a few more Super Bowls.

Unfortunately Sean, the Rams aren't a whole heck of a lot different.

Most of their history has been pretty putrid as well. Eric Dickerson was a thing. The Greatest Show on Turf was damn fun to watch, so much so that when they shit the bed and lost to a vastly inferior New England Patriots team in Super Bowl 36 as 14 point favorites I nearly cried and let it ruin my week. But for the most part they have been warm sick reheated on a paper plate much like the Seahawks.

I'm sorry to talk out of school, but your team at present looks like an Ozark tire fire. I would be hard pressed to think of any team other than the Houston Texans I would feel less confident in winning a football game right now if my life depended on it. Everybody that matters is hurt. Even when you had your full complement of players, you weren't very good. I don't remember a team in recent history which had fewer pointy head prognosticators thinking they could repeat than this Rams team. That being said.......

It's not your fault, and I don't blame you. You still won the Super Bowl last year. It absolutely counts, unlike your crosstown brethren Lakers and Dodgers' pandemic titles which absolutely do not count. Go ahead and tell me that the Dodgers can win a title in a full season or that Anthony Davis won't get pharmaceutical grade lemon booty if he has to perform in front of actual road playoff crowds instead of cardboard cut outs of Kim Jong-il and Melissa Joan Hart. I won't believe you. Your Rams did win 4 playoff games in a row. I saw it with my own eyes and the internet also confirms it. Never mind that you nearly registered an all time "I've gotta leave this banquet right now and get a new pair of pants" oopsie down your leg against the Bucs. Never mind that the 49ers' Jaquiski Tartt dropped one of the easiest game ending interceptions you'll ever see and Jimmy G went....well full Jimmy G on the final 2 drives. Never mind that you got to play the Bengals in the Super Bowl instead of either the Bills or the Chiefs and whatever alien took over the body of Patrick Mahomes in the 2nd half of that game and made him forget how to play American Football. Never mind any of that. None of those facts are thankfully on your Lombardi trophy. You and your team are forever champions and deserve to be recognized as such.

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Somehow, you are still only 36 years old. You are younger than 10 current NFL players. Tom Brady could be your Alabama father. Ronald Reagan and Oliver North were still actively committing treason-level felonies on the eve of your birth in January 1986. You are the youngest coach to ever summit the NFL mountaintop of winning the Super Bowl. You're handsome. Your supermodel wife is even more handsome. You made Robert Griffin III look like he was good at NFL Football. (He wasn't). Nobody has it all, but you've got most of whatever "it" is. Even now as you attempt to wipe the dog shit off your shoes that is this season for your Rams, you are in as much of a position to write your own ticket as any head coach in the league has ever been. The Broncos ownership would right now give you 17 Walmarts to have you as their coach instead of the guy they have who needs to wear adult pampers during the 4th quarter of games. You were smarter than Joe Judge at birth, Daniel Snyder by 6. You are the head coach of a team in one of the world's 10 most important cities and could likely exercise Supreme Court here-till-I'm-dead level job security if you wanted to.

You really shouldn't though. Forget this season, though I know you can't. It deeply saddens me that your housekeeper, landscaper, and fringe family members won't take the free box seats you offer them. It's not your fault the Rams have the most plastic fans in the league who don't truly support your team and cause you to play 17 road games a year. Getting down to brass tacks, the outlook of your team going forward is as bleak as any team in the league. Ted Lasso would have a hard time being positive about your roster and cap situation. In a way, as a fan of the game it's good to know that reckless front office actions still have consequences. If you didn't know better, you could convince an unbiased alien who parachuted in to Los Angeles in 2021 that Les Snead and your front office thought the world was going to end in 2022 in the style of Don't Look Up. There could almost be no other explanation for their course of action between 2018 and 2021. To say that your front office doesn't value draft picks is like saying Donald Trump doesn't value the electoral process. We know this. Instead of actual scouting and shrewd transactions, they just paid 150 cents on the dollar for everyone else's players and worse put it all on the Kroenke Discover card in a salary cap league. It's closing time at the bar. The lights have come on, the alcohol has worn off, and the Rams are asking you to pay a massive bill with the best years of your career.

Please don't do it Sean. As your friend, I'm here to tell you to not dive on this grenade. You didn't knock up the Rams, and you don't have to marry them.

You probably know this, but your next 1st Round Draft pick is in 2024. Do you remember the last 1st round pick the Rams had and used without looking it up? Of course you do, because it was Jared Goff. The immortal Jared Goff, a player that Snead and crew traded up to get. A player so immortal that even after you got to a Super Bowl with him, you couldn't wait to drive him to the airport. A player (and contract) so good that you had to ship 2 first round picks with him just to get another guy (Matthew Stafford) that is squarely in the Kirk Cousins/Matt Ryan/Phillip Rivers this guy looks good on paper but he ain't really that good club. I guess you could say that the Goff/Stafford trade ultimately worked out because you won a title, but Stafford looks pretty well cooked to me. Based on what you've seen from him this year prior to his injury, can you say you feel great about rolling him out there the next 3 years and giving him 130 million guaranteed? Yikes. It's not as bad as the Wilson situation in Denver, but it ain't a whole lot better either. He may have been playing through a significant injury, but your Rams have looked positively DOA with Stafford at the helm this season. I'm assuming he knows there are other wide receivers on the roster besides Cooper Kupp right? I know that $40 million is the going rate for a competent (and for some a grossly incompetent) NFL starting quarterback these days, but the Rams committing that kind of money to Stafford seems about as prudent as marrying a stripper after the best ketamine filled night of your life. You are stuck with him for at least the next 2 seasons. I'm not positive about this, but I think if we duct taped you to a chair and jammed a truth serum needle in your neck, I bet you'd say you don't feel great about your chances with Stafford going forward either, especially given your expertise in evaluating the position.

You do have 2 best in the world at their position players in Aaron Donald and Cooper Kupp that are a joy to watch. In my opinion, Aaron Donald is the best player of his generation at any position. Full Stop. That's the problem facing your franchise though. You are so top heavy and stacked with high level (and more importantly very high paid) talent that you can sustain no injuries whatsoever. Worse yet, you gave away all of your draft picks to get them. You've got a lot of Cadillacs in the driveway, but they are 2016's not 2023's. They look real good shined up but they are going to be in the shop as much as your garage. You've got a 6 year, 18% loan of $72,000 on a 2016 Escalade with 158k on it that your ownership and front office are asking you to pay for with your career. Please don't do it. Don't be their White Knight. Don't let this be the girl you put on the cape and become Captain SaveaHoe for. You can have the 2023 shiny Cadillac for free if you want Sean, but it ain't gonna be as the head coach of the Rams.

I may have mentioned this already, but you're 36 years old. That should be no part of your evaluation of whether or not to remain the coach of the Rams though. The malignant, terminal cancer that is your roster and cap situation should. Even given this horrific season, your leverage is extreme in your selecting your next opportunity. It's easy to say in hindsight of this season that you should have taken the Amazon job and the $20 million a year treasure chest that goes with it. I get it though, you're a football coach. I have no doubt that you would much rather build your legacy holding a laminated play sheet than holding a microphone. You probably should take that job now though, or something similar to it. It doesn't have to be forever. Do the Sean Peyton thing and name your next job. I just can't watch you waste the next years of your life playing Weekend at Bernies with the corpse of Matthew Stafford and trying to figure out how you can feasibly target Cooper Kupp 58 times a game without getting him killed.

I'm telling you as a football watching fan that you would actually get me to turn the channel to whatever network you land on. As you well know, the networks and streamers went absolutely bonkers this past offseason throwing money out of helicopters to all of the A-Team announcers who ended up playing musical chairs. While I could name where they all went, I think I speak for a lot of football fans when I say that I just don't give a shit what network Mike Tirico, Joe Buck, Troy Aikman, Jim Nance and Chris Collinsworth are on. Joe Buck is great but has the Q rating of wet toast and skim milk. Al Michaels is a legend but 8000 years old, and Kirk Herbstreit is well......Kirk Herbstreit. Tony Romo is the only needle mover I see, and there is no scenario in my estimation where you wouldn't achieve at least his level of success. Whether you're in the booth, in the studio, or evicting Booger from the Booger Mobile and actually providing competent and interesting analysis from the sideline, it won't matter. You're handsome, brilliant, and dynamic. These traits tend to do well in broadcasting. You could be the next John Madden if you wanted to. The path is there for you Sean, but I can't do it for you.

I hope you know this letter is coming from a place of love. You need to know there is help for your situation even if you aren't ready for it yet. You don't have to suffer through the next few years that will be your life if you remain the coach of the Rams. You've got your title, made some money, and built a reputation that will serve you the rest of your career unless you've got some John Gruden/Bobby Petrino stuff going on that I don't know about. Go be with that hot Amazon girl for a year or two and then settle back down with your next wife. Don't worry about Herbstreit, he'll be just fine announcing Penn State vs. Purdue games where he belongs. Go chum around with Bezos. He spent what Kroenke is worth to send William Shatner to space last year. Your salary is ashtray money to him, and he might be your next boss in the NFL anyways. Just do it please, for all of us. We all love you and simply can't bear to see you wake up in 4 long years at the ripe old age of 40 wondering what it is you've done with your life.

Your friend,

Ryan