Sean McVay’s immediate future as the Los Angeles Rams head coach is in limbo, multiple sources told ESPN.
Those sources believe McVay will take some time after Sunday’s regular-season finale against the Seattle Seahawks to determine whether he will return in 2023.
McVay has gone back and forth on the decision and needs time to get away to process all that has transpired over the past year: winning a Super Bowl, being courted to work in television, getting married, watching his wife’s home country of Ukraine invaded, losing his grandfather and then coaching a team that has fallen short of its expectations.
Los Angeles is 5-11 — the first time since the Rams hired him in 2017 that McVay will have a losing record as a head coach. The defending Super Bowl champions have been decimated by injuries, and sources believe it has taken its toll on McVay. Sources believe McVay needs time to recharge and to determine whether he has the energy to continue coaching next season.
The Rams have some of their own changes to make. They are without their first-round pick. They are tight against the 2023 salary cap. And their offensive coordinator, Liam Coen, is planning to return to his offensive coordinator job at Kentucky, sources told ESPN’s Chris Mortensen last month.
McVay, as always, is expected to have options: He could draw interest from networks — as he did last offseason from Amazon — but many of those jobs have already been filled.
McVay, 36, told reporters Friday that interest from the networks comes in part because he hasn’t “run away from the fact that down the line, or whenever that is, that’s something I’ve been interested in.”
McVay is under contract to the Rams through the 2026 season, but if he were to step away, the contract would expire and he would remain under contract to Los Angeles, just as Sean Payton remains under contract to the New Orleans Saints.
Through a Rams spokesman, McVay declined comment to ESPN on his future or his plans for 2023.
McVay will close out his season in Seattle against a Seahawks team that needs a win to have a chance to make the playoffs, with one of the ironies of ironies: All season long, since the Lions own the Rams’ 2023 first-round pick, Detroit has rooted against Los Angeles. But the Lions need the Rams to beat the Seahawks on Sunday to give Detroit a chance to advance to the postseason.
Former Lions quarterback and current Rams signal-caller Matthew Stafford was eligible to come off injured reserve on Saturday, but Los Angeles opted against activating him. For the first time this season, the Lions will be cheering for the Rams in a game that will mark the final one of the season, before McVay can take time to best decide what he wants to do in the future and whether he will be coaching the Rams in the 2023 season.