PHOENIX — Part of the bitter pill the Rams had to swallow after their gut-wrenching loss to the Seahawks in the NFC Championship game was the deep dive they took on a season that fell short of expectations.
The only thing worse than a bitter rival denying you the chance to play for a Super Bowl championship is re-watching the mistakes that led to your demise.
Amid the frustration, though, a surprising flower of positivity sprouted.
The reminder it delivered was both frustrating and hopeful.
As Sean McVay and his staff dutifully poured over the tape, specifically of veteran wide receiver Davante Adams, two things became readily evident.
On one hand, the Rams clearly could have done a better job tapping into Adams, one of the best wide receivers of his generation. The 60 catches he had for 789 yards and 14 touchdowns looked decent on paper, but it should have been more.
On the other hand, it was clear as day that the 33-year-old Adams is still playing at a high level.
For a team looking to close the inches-wide gap separating them and the Super Bowl champion Seahawks, that was the positive takeaway.
Ultimately, the revelation from that tape study led the Rams to an important conclusion. Rather than trading Adams, which they had been open to at the start of the offseason, they realized they were better off keeping him.
“If we felt like it was best for our team, we would have done that,” McVay said about possibly moving Adams in a trade.
One problem: As the Rams conducted their full evaluation and honored their long-standing philosophy of being open to improving their roster, even if it meant parting ways with valued members of their family, word leaked that Adams’ name came up in trade discussions.
For McVay, the Rams’ ever-evolving head coach, that didn’t sit well. McVay is by no means an old man — he’s only 40 years old — but as he approaches his 10th season as an NFL head coach, the importance of being direct with his players has never been more paramount.
Especially when it involves veterans who have earned the right to nothing less than complete honesty and frankness.
In years past, McVay might have swept the trade speculation surrounding Adams under the rug, either out of a desire to avoid a touchy subject or out of unawareness of how players can absorb that kind of information negatively.
But the more McVay grows and learns as a head coach, the more he realizes the errors of those ways.
“There’s been instances where I wasn’t as good about that, and so I don’t want to make those same mistakes,” McVay said.
So he picked up the phone and called Adams, essentially telling him that the Rams have a responsibility to field the best team possible, part of which means being open to all options, including the trade tool.
And yes, McVay told Adams, his name came up in trade discussions.
“You want to be able to give some truth to what the context was, and I don’t want to get too specific about what my conversation was with him, but I addressed what those conversations were,” McVay said. “Even though they never really got too far, I did want to acknowledge it.”
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In the spirit of full disclosure, McVay told Adams that if he felt trading him would have been in the best interests of the Rams, he would not have hesitated to pull that trigger. No matter how much love and respect McVay has for his players, and both are in abundance, his ultimate responsibility is to make decisions in the best interests of the Rams.
But even that frankness came with a silver lining. The very reason the Rams are running it back with Adams is that the tape made it clear that was the best option.
“We didn’t think it was best for our team,” said McVay, who feels Adams could be in line for a more productive season in his second year with the Rams.
In the process, McVay’s growth continued. He didn’t have to reach out to Adams to set the record straight. In fact, many coaches would have let it slide.
In the past, maybe McVay would have been one of them. But he’s learned over the years that it’s an unhealthy policy.
“There’s a lot of stuff that’s out there that’s not accurate,” McVay said. “But when there is at least some accuracy or some thought to it, you want to deal with that direct, honest and open.”
