Rams coach Sean McVay has put an end to speculation he will walk away from trying to defend the Super Bowl championship and take a TV job.
In a tweet Friday, ESPN reporter Adam Schefter said McVay told the network he isn’t pursuing broadcasting opportunities and is committed to coaching the Rams in 2022.
This came two weeks after the 36-year-old touched off conjecture by musing at a pre-Super Bowl press conference about seeking a “balance” between the demands of coaching and his desire to start a family with fiancee Veronika Khomyn.
He had passed up a chance to commit to the Rams the day after their Super Bowl victory when he told a Los Angeles columnist “we’ll see” about coaching next season.
More assuring, but not quite definitive, was what McVay said at the Rams’ championship parade and rally outside the Coliseum on Feb. 16.
That day, McVay gave the crowd the impression he was fired up about next season by leading a chant of “Run it back!” and goading defensive tackle Aaron Donald into expressing desire to pursue another championship.
The ESPN report Friday sounded more definitive.
Now the conjecture will be about how much the Rams will pay to keep McVay happy after he led the team to its first Super Bowl victory as a Los Angeles-based team, its second Super Bowl appearance in four seasons and its fifth winning season since he became head coach at age 30 in 2017.
There was no immediate announcement of a new contract for McVay, who has two seasons to go on an extension signed in 2019 that makes him the NFL’s sixth-highest-paid coach at a reported $8.5 million per year.
The previous extension was announced in the July after the Rams’ Super Bowl LIII loss to the New England Patriots, at the same time as General Manager Les Snead got an extension.
Friday’s development came at a time when NFL broadcasting lineups are as unsettled as coaching staffs, with Troy Aikman’s expected move from Fox to ESPN for “Monday Night Football” touching off a game of musical microphones.
McVay reportedly was set to meet with Amazon next week about a Thursday night football commentary position.
The Rams’ official Twitter account reacted to the ESPN report by posting a GIF of Leonardo DiCaprio’s character, in “Wolf of Wall Street,” rousing employees by announcing “I’m not leaving.”
— Los Angeles Rams (@RamsNFL) February 26, 2022
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