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As the Los Angeles Rams game-plan for the Minnesota Vikings, head coach Sean McVay is the latest play-caller to ask himself: What would Brian Flores do?
The Vikings defensive coordinator has frustrated mobile quarterbacks and pocket passers alike, downhill rushers and elusive cutters thwarted by versatile coverages including a heavy dose of zero blitzes.
The Vikings have allowed just -0.13 expected points added per play, third-best in the league, thanks to versatile coverages and a heavy dose of zero blitzes.
But when the Rams and Vikings played each other Oct. 24 on Thursday Night Football, a strange trend occurred: They barely pressured Rams quarterback Matthew Stafford.
Despite Stafford posting his worst season completion percentage against pressure (44.6%) since Next Gen Stats began tracking the data in 2018, the Vikings pressured him on just 11.8% of his dropbacks, the lowest they’d posted since at least 2018.
They blitzed just 10 times, well below their season max of 28 and their season average of 16.3 blitzes per game.
So in the chess match that is NFL game-planning, the Rams now find themselves wondering: Will Minnesota recreate that more traditional strategy during Monday’s wild-card game? Or will the Vikings return to the pressure bonanza they levied much more often en route to 14 wins this season?
The battle of the minds awaits.
McVay, whose reputation for revolutionizing NFL offensive systems and advancing league trends precedes him, is developing his beliefs and inclinations — his plan for each of the possible outcomes the Vikings will throw at his play-calling responsibilities. He knows how much he can’t control, the most acute reminder coming from the devastating Los Angeles wildfires that moved the Rams’ home game to Arizona.
But as the Rams prepare for their fourth vs. fifth seed NFC playoff game, they lean into a season-long strategy to practice responding to unpredictability.
McVay isn’t relying exclusively on a traditional offensive staff to build a game plan and analyze likely outcomes. He’s also employing former Chicago Bears and Philadelphia Eagles defensive coordinator, Sean Desai.
To help put himself in Flores’ shoes, McVay has asked Desai to do just that.
Sitting in quarterback room meetings all season and calling unscripted play periods against McVay, Desai’s top responsibility is to be “a defensive set of eyes for the offense, both self-scouting and opponent scouting,” one Rams executive told Yahoo Sports.
Desai translates his scouting reports to the field. This week, he’s emulating Flores.
For Rams, the NFL is not always scripted
NFL teams trend heavily toward fully scripted or nearly fully scripted practices during the regular season and postseason, four current NFL assistants who have coached for nine league teams told Yahoo Sports.
Teams “card out” — or draw on cards — the looks they want scout-team players to emulate.
Rarely, the four coaches said, do play-callers prompt uncarded periods deep into the season.
“As far as my exposure, everything’s been scripted,” one 2024 assistant and former NFL offensive coordinator told Yahoo Sports. “We never had someone that was a former coordinator. [We might say,] ‘Hey, these six calls he has, rotate those calls.’
“But I’ve never done a full-fledged ‘Screw that.’”
When the Rams hired McVay as a 30-year-old head coach, he also stuck to a script in season, then-Rams defensive coordinator Wade Phillips told Yahoo Sports. Phillips valued the fast-paced, competitive, non-game-planned periods in offseason practices — but he doesn’t remember ad-libbing during game-plan installations from 2017-19.
McVay has integrated versions of it for at least two years now, multiple members of the Rams organization say.
[McVay] doesn’t always wanna just get the rep of the play against the ideal perfect look that he designed it for, but instead wants it to play out more game-like.an AFC assistant coach
He hired former University of Washington head coach and defensive coordinator Jimmy Lake to assist in 2023, and this season Desai.
Some of Desai’s responsibilities resemble those of cross-ball consultants across the league: scouting opponents, determining their rules and tendencies, recommending wrinkles.
But the Rams take that a step further.
When McVay floated this idea to Desai last winter, he sought an experienced play-caller to call looks against him during practices, Desai told Yahoo Sports by phone.
“The way Sean likes to run practice, he wants to not script practice and have a person that can call it. So somebody with a coordinator-type of experience, that’s used to calling plays, call it against him during practice on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday,” Desai said of the vision. “The big day was gonna be Thursday because that’s where they go first, second and third down.
“Then it would grow.”
Weekly opponents and injuries influenced the prevalence of that strategy. But one AFC assistant, when told of the practice, appreciated the value.
“He doesn’t always wanna just get the rep of the play against the ideal perfect look that he designed it for,” the AFC assistant said, “but instead wants it to play out more game-like.”
Desai chooses simulated situations and personnel in a similar manner to coaches who script practices. But since he doesn’t give McVay or the offense a heads-up, their success hinges on real-time instincts and the ability to apply rather than just memorize principles.
“The player reaction thing, for sure, is real,” said the former offensive coordinator whose teams have not used the tactic. “It really helps you know what they know, because they can’t get out in front of it, study it, memorize it.
“They’ve just got to react to what you call in the huddle.”
A defensive perspective in the QB room
Some of Desai’s Rams scout-team decisions stem from his weekly film study, and his interpretation of the opposing defensive coordinator’s ideal counterattack to the Rams’ offense.
Part stems from the exposure he’s been granted to the McVay system. While a handful of teams each year hire consultants to differentiate insight, rarely are defensive assistants granted access to quarterback meetings.
Quarterback Dresser Winn remembers his surprise when seeing Lake in meetings during 2023. Winn, who spent the past two offseasons and part of the 2023 season with the Rams, didn’t know teams integrated defensive minds into quarterback meetings.
“I’m like, ‘Golly, that’s smart,’” Winn told Yahoo Sports by phone. “‘How do y’all get this guy to come sit in this quarterback room and tell us what’s going on?’
“It’s such a big asset.”
Desai has explained to Rams quarterbacks how an opponent is most likely to defend a bunch route, and which look will most bait a safety. He’s adjusted his beliefs on creative four-man front alignments that could throw off combination blocks, and he’s increased his commitment to the value of defensive backs charading as linebackers long before third down. Desai takes notes on Stafford’s checks and audibles to integrate those looks into scout-team reps.
Desai says he’s learned more from Stafford than he credits himself teaching the 16-year NFL starter and 2009 first overall draft pick. But Winn credited Desai with clarifying the nuances of coverages during training camp meetings.
“Say a corner is supposed to be in the deep third and a receiver runs an out route,” Winn said. “He bangs an out route. It could have been a Cover 2, could have been a Cover 3, and he fell off an out route; you never know. But usually Sean [Desai] can differentiate that and tell you exactly what it was supposed to be, not what we thought it was and it played out to be.”
Discerning between fact and fiction will hold extra weight this week, as McVay and the Rams face Flores and former colleague Kevin O’Connell.
Rams vs. Vikings will be more than 3D chess
McVay downplays the history he and the Vikings head coach share as a primary factor in game-planning this week.
Sure, O’Connell served as Rams offensive coordinator to head coach and play-caller McVay in 2020 and 2021, O’Connell also joining Washington’s staff in 2017 as McVay left it.
They’ve faced each other in different capacities, including as head coaches in this year’s Oct. 24 matchup, which the Rams won, 30-20.
But philosophies and game plans evolve, McVay emphasizes. Each coach has tailored their schematic identity to their personnel. They know plenty about each other, yes. But that means how the other could plan against them and decoy against them. At some point, three-dimensional chess stretches into infinitely more dimensions, and coaches are better off designing the game plan they believe most accentuates their roster’s strengths and their opponent’s weaknesses.
“That’s always the give and take, understanding that there is a game of inventory against one another,” McVay told reporters this week. “You also have to see: All right, how have they evolved and adapted as the season has gone on? A couple of different guys that they have, just from a health perspective, who are available.
“We definitely will use [the experience] while also being mindful of what’s gone on as of late.”
Flores praised the Rams’ ability to “move pieces to undress defenses,” lauding how Stafford recognizes defenses and “spits the ball out quickly” to receivers who often get open.
The Vikings’ defense and Rams’ offense each threaten with pick-your-poison weapons. From pressure to target distribution, they’ll sketch out a plan from a long list of options.
Say a corner is supposed to be in the deep third and a receiver runs an out route. He bangs an out route. It could have been a Cover 2, could have been a Cover 3, and he fell off an out route; you never know. But usually Sean [Desai] can differentiate that and tell you exactly what it was supposed to be, not what we thought it was and it played out to be.former Rams QB Dresser Winn
Desai’s role comes in handy here, as he sends the offensive staff a weekly scouting and tendency report.
Then he tests McVay and Co. in practice, this week charged with anticipating Flores’ best crack at advancing past the wild card.
Even with the unscripted periods, questions and unturned stones and unexpected scenarios will creep into the game. Los Angeles will anticipate, and the Rams will practice responding in real-time to the unanticipated, knowing the Vikings have exposed many an offensive plan already this season.
McVay will hope his play-calling reps in practice pay off. Winn, who prepared for two games with them last season, believes they will.
“I think it shows when it comes to stuff like play-calling and clutch situations,” Winn said. “[McVay] has always prepared himself and done it before he has to do it in real terms.
“He’s one step ahead, and it shows when he comes to calling a game.”