Sean McVay's full offensive vision can be realized with Los Angeles Rams' early addition in the 2025 NFL Draft
Before the Los Angeles Rams hired Sean McVay as their head coach, he had built a tremendous offense with the Washington Commanders as their offensive coordinator. McVay's 2016 offense finished second in the league in passing yards, relying on a mixture of different personnel and Kirk Cousins's acumen. That year, McVay deployed a 2TE offense, […]
Before the Los Angeles Rams hired Sean McVay as their head coach, he had built a tremendous offense with the Washington Commanders as their offensive coordinator. McVay's 2016 offense finished second in the league in passing yards, relying on a mixture of different personnel and Kirk Cousins's acumen.
That year, McVay deployed a 2TE offense, utilizing Jordan Reed and Vernon Davis as receivers regularly. Both caught over 50 passes and combined for over 1,000 yards and eight touchdowns. Many envisioned that would be McVay's vision on offense when he joined the Los Angeles Rams. Instead, however, the Rams adopted an 11-personnel offense with three wide receivers that has stuck around ever since.
With the league's reshuffle back into heavier personnel groups, however, McVay can't resist the desire to get back to his roots, a feeling that has shown up in each of the Rams' last three draft classes. In 2023, the Rams tried to trade up for Dalton Kincaid and tried the same for Brock Bowers in 2024. Finally, in the 2025 NFL Draft, they got their chance to add their tight end of the future in Terrance Ferguson with the #46 overall pick.
Shortly after the pick, McVay alluded to Ferguson's ability to scheme "some different things" for their offense. General manager Les Snead confirmed the vision for McVay's offense later on during a segment on the Pat McAfee show.
"I know there’s an element of Tyler being at the end of his career. Who’s going to replace him? And then just adding another tight end to the field. I think when Sean McVay came to us from Washington, they did a lot of 12 personnel, so maybe we’ll add a little bit of that to our repertoire."
This vision has been planned for some time, and it even impacted the hires the Rams made for this coaching cycle. After losing tight ends coach Nick Caley, who was hired as the Texans' offensive coordinator, and senior offensive assistant Jerry Schuplinski, McVay went out and hired Scott Huff to serve as the team's tight ends coach and brought in Alex Van Pelt as a senior offensive assistant.
Huff, a career-long offensive line coach, was undoubtedly brought in to help this unit and the offense with blocking. The more interesting move here was the hire of Alex Van Pelt, who spent years working under Kevin Stefanski with the Cleveland Browns in a heavy 12 and 13-personnel offense. Last year, as the offensive coordinator for the New England Patriots, Van Pelt ran almost 400 plays out of 12-personnel, good for the third-most in the league. Undoubtedly, that familiarity was a big reason the Rams brought him in this year.
Now with Ferguson in the mix, the Rams can get a bit more creative offensively. Ferguson can line up inline or flexed around the formation, giving the Rams the illusion of 11-personnel but keeping 12-personnel tendencies. It will be an intriguing balance between keeping that balanced so teams don't begin matching it the same, as well as keeping targets available for Davante Adams, Puka Nacua, and the surprisingly extended Tutu Atwell.
However, this is shaping up to be arguably the most creative Rams' offense since their Super Bowl run in 2021. That fact alone should make fans excited about what Ferguson means for the offense moving forward.
