00:00Listen, Sean McVay comes out with a very, very, I got to say, Dfish, you were a head coach in
00:06the NBA, man.
00:08And you played for, if you were to take a guess in the NBA, how many head coaches did you
00:13play for?
00:16Five?
00:16Five?
00:17Now, I've had the fortune and misfortune of playing for some great managers and some very fairly subpar managers in
00:25my time.
00:26Yeah.
00:26And I kind of, I don't know about you, I've always kind of learned just as much and at times
00:33even more from my bad managers than I did my good ones.
00:37Mainly so I can kind of learn how things can go wrong so fast with sometimes the wrong guy at
00:43the helm or just messaging is not going for me or the team.
00:49Sean McVay is a guy that seemingly has his messaging down pat and really his players really respect him.
00:56They respond to him.
00:58His game management is second to none when it comes to the NFL.
01:02But he has held himself to a very specific standard.
01:06And I really appreciate something that he did the other day when he went on a podcast.
01:10And he did some very detailed self-reflection on his own past mistakes.
01:15And the only mistake and the main mistake he really focused on was his treatment of Jared Goff specifically when
01:21the trade happened between the Detroit Lions and the Los Angeles Rams.
01:26And I'm giving this quote right here of Sean McVay revealed his regrets of how he handled trading away Jared
01:32Goff.
01:33I'm super sensitive to what an amateur I was with the Goff situation.
01:38You want to talk about lack of courage, lack of clarity, lack of ability to be able to look somebody
01:43in the eye that you've had a lot of really cool experiences with and tell them,
01:48Hey, not easy to say this, but we might explore an opportunity to acquire Matthew Stafford and you'll be a
01:54part of that trade there.
01:56I really, as a player that played in my respected field, hearing this, even though it's after the fact that
02:05I'm sure that wound might even still be there for Jared Goff,
02:09that's phenomenal stuff to hear from a head coach kind of self-reflection.
02:12Because most head coaches will double down and be like, no, right decision, I did everything right, I'm the man.
02:18This is just, this is gold.
02:20If I'm a player, this is what I want to hear from my head coaches.
02:24Yeah, it's, you know, for Sean McVay, like the way he shows up as like the most authentic version of
02:35himself on a daily basis is why his players respond to him the way they do.
02:38It's why they play so hard.
02:40It's why they've been so successful.
02:42Not why, you know, their talent is also why.
02:45But, you know, I'm not sure how, in the NFL, you know, in terms of trade scenarios, if it was
02:54in the offseason when it happened.
02:56It was, it was in the offseason.
02:57Like where it's like on the NBA side, a lot of trades happen during the season.
03:00So you, you may not be able to have that conversation as an NBA head coach because the trade is
03:07happening during the season.
03:08You can't go sit down and talk to your superstar guy and say, hey, we might be exploring the trade
03:13with you, man.
03:14But go out here and score 40 for us tonight, okay?
03:18It's not, it's not happening.
03:19So are you, are you insinuating that Jason Kidd didn't know what was coming the next day?
03:25Uh, yeah, I was not there.
03:27I do not know what Jason Kidd did or did not know.
03:32I'll get to see it.
03:33We'll talk about, you know, we talked about Jason Kidd a little bit yesterday.
03:36I'm not a fan of any coaches ever.
03:39I don't like people who can, but yeah, it's tough.
03:42But Sean McVay, like, whether you're right or wrong in certain situations,
03:49the ability to stop and pause and reflect on how and where you just could have handled the situation better
03:57or differently
03:59or in a way that maybe was, you know, more positively impactful for the other person or people involved.
04:06That's all you can ask for from another human being.
04:09We're not going to all get it right in any situation, in particular in professional sports,
04:15when there's so much involved in terms of, like you said, there's ego, there's money, there are people with jobs
04:21on the line.
04:22So there's a lot of things that are going wrong because of what all is at stake and how you're
04:28trying to balance it all.
04:29But Sean McVay appears to just continue to be one of those guys that he's always reflecting.
04:35He always has a, you know, a growth and kind of learning mindset, always focused on getting better himself,
04:43which I think then allows him to be able to coach his football teams, you know, in a more impactful
04:49way.
04:49So a lot of courage by him, you know, just great authenticity, you know, from a leader of a pro
04:55sports organization.
04:56And yeah, man, as a player, that's all you can ask for, you know, from your coach, even when things
05:01go wrong.
05:02Yeah, he even went on to say, it was more really about me than it was ever him.
05:06I didn't handle that the right way.
05:08Did I ever have the courage to really sit him down after the season in 2020 and really tell him,
05:13hey, there's a possibility that we'll explore some of the avenues that might lead to you not being our quarterback
05:19moving forward?
05:19No.
05:20And you know what?
05:22Another reason why I love this, these types of self-reflections is probably not the reason,
05:28but a reason why he's even grown into the coach that he is today.
05:32Like, you being a former NBA head coach, do you ever, like, look back at former mistakes going, like,
05:37if I did this differently?
05:39Or is it kind of a blessing in disguise going, like, I did that wrong.
05:44Now I know this.
05:46Yeah, we all have that, you know, almost, like, natural fear of, like, failure or things going wrong.
05:53Like, we do so much to try and avoid those scenarios, when in reality, just running face first towards the
06:02hard stuff.
06:03You know, the failures is really, that's where you learn the most about yourself, which is most importantly.
06:09And then that allows you to then be better or more impactful in a situation the next time you're in
06:14a similar scenario.
06:16And so, yes, as a coach at the NBA level, in the WNBA, also in high school, like, yes,
06:24there are all types of situations where you feel like, man, I could have handled that differently.
06:29I could have done that better.
06:31You know, and there are things you can't avoid that even after the fact, you still feel bad about it.
06:38Like, there was a scenario where, you know, I go to have lunch with a current player.
06:45I have no idea the team is going to cut the player in 48 hours.
06:51I have lunch with the player.
06:53Our families have lunch together with his family.
06:56We're interacting in a normal fashion.
06:59Yeah.
07:00And then a day and a half later, he's cut and released from the team entirely.
07:04There's no way he's sitting there at lunch a day and a half earlier thinking that he's going to be
07:10cut.
07:10And then once he's cut, how can he not think that I already knew about this?
07:15Yeah, no, you're right.
07:17How can he not?
07:17Now you're the bad guy right out of the gate.
07:18Now I'm the bad guy even though I didn't know.
07:21There are other scenarios where, yes, you're not sure how to call a player in, sit him down, and say,
07:29yeah, man, we're going to need to go in a different direction.
07:31You know, we're going to have to cut your minutes some.
07:34We're going to have to think about playing a different way.
07:36It's not going to involve, you know, you as much offensively as you would like to.
07:40But learning those things as a young coach, like Sean McVay is still a young NFL head coach.
07:48You're going to make a ton of mistakes.
07:51Thankfully, the ownership group with the Rams, you know, the Crocky family is who they are.
07:57And so that also is a blessing in disguise when you end up with the right ownership group and the
08:04right type of front office leaders.
08:05So as an NFL head coach, you get to learn through those mistakes and you get to learn through some
08:12of the failures and coming up a little short in a couple seasons
08:15and then being able to come back as a better version of yourself and lead the team to more success
08:20in the future.
08:21If the ownership group and the front office know that they have their guy and they know what he's made
08:27of,
08:28then you don't have to – you don't make changes as quickly.
08:31Yeah.
08:32And Sean McVay is one of those guys that they know they picked the right guy.
08:36They did.
08:37And so then they get to ride through the ups and downs of what the experience is going to be
08:42like.
08:42Yeah.
08:42And also, it's the word I want to use for McVay, especially with this, this reflection that he's given, it's
08:48accountability.
08:49If there's one thing I want from my head coach, no matter who – where he is, it's accountability.
08:53And not to, like, throw this, like, salacious story out there, but, like, the exact opposite, I feel like, what
09:00we're getting out of New England,
09:02like with the Mike Vrabel situation.
09:03Like, I understand how you've decided to handle this, but the lack of accountability you've taken is kind of a
09:10problem.
09:10And honestly, seemingly, more people are upset about the lack of accountability than the actual, quote-unquote, crime you committed,
09:16which doesn't really affect your football team at all, but your behavior and actions after that certainly do.
09:23The immediate denials and all of this, where Sean McVay just gets right in front of it and says,
09:27I did this, I messed up.
09:29I need to learn from it.
09:31I just think we need more of that in our sports and our head coaches.
09:34No, I 100% agree with the accountability part.
09:38I would disagree in terms of the scenarios are different.
09:43They are definitely different.
09:44Whereas Vrabel's is, I would say, it appears to impact his professional life because we know about it.
09:54But in reality, it's a personal, private situation.
09:57Completely agree with that.
09:59Yeah, it's our business because he coaches the New England Patriots, but it's not really our business.
10:03Completely agree.
10:04Like, the accountability may be happening professionally inside of their building.
10:10We don't know what he and Robert Kraft have talked about.
10:14We don't know what conversations he's had with Drake May and the leaders of their football team,
10:20the conversations he's had with his coaching staff,
10:23whether he's apologized, taken accountability, responsibility for those things internally.
10:28But publicly, my personal life is a private thing that I don't have to take accountability to fans
10:36for making a personal decision that may or may not be in alignment with who I am.
10:41No, you're right about that.
10:42But from a football perspective or professionally, Sean McVay is able to go out and say openly, publicly,
10:49I take accountability for not handling this situation very well in regards to our football team and our players.
10:59That's different from an accountability perspective, even though, like I said,
11:04I agree with parts of what you're saying and would add other things to it in terms of, like, the
11:10situations being different.
11:11Of course.
11:12And they are absolutely different.
11:13Make no mistake.
11:14Make no mistake.
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