The Los Angeles Rams released a fun video Thursday night of new head coach Sean McVay, general manager Les Snead and executive vice president Kevin Demoff receiving "the call" from NFL Senior Director of Broadcast Michael North revealing their 2017 schedule.
The immediate sell Friday was McVay's I-can't-believe-my-ex-girlfriend-showed-up reaction to learning that he'd play his former team, the Washington Redskins, Week 2. The 31-year-old goes from making an all-smiles joke about Tony Romo calling their Week 1 game to a bizarre 180-degree turn where he can only mutter, "Oh, now that's exciting."
Either McVay at that moment remembered he was on camera or remembered that the Redskins were on their schedule. Snead and Demoff crack some jokes. McVay says, "It'll be a good game man, I'm looking forward to that."
But like all of these peek-behind-the-curtain videos -- more NFL teams should be doing this, by the way -- there is richness in the minutiae. Outside of McVay's reaction to playing the Redskins, here are a few of our favorite moments from the 4 minute and 41 second clip.
» Demoff calls the Redskins game the "Coach McVay bowl" upon the announcement. The joke is then painstakingly extended throughout the call. Snead calls the game against Houston the "Wade (Phillips) Bowl" and North asks with a hint of sarcasm, "Does every game have a nickname?" Shortly after, Snead calls the Saints game the "Bill Johnson Bowl" (the defensive line coach spent eight years in New Orleans). No laughter was recorded on the video at that point. Remarkably, seconds later, when the date for the Rams-Eagles game is set, Snead goes back to the well once more calling it the "Goff vs. Wentz Bowl." McVay now also asks Snead if he's going to see if he can come up with a nickname for every game. This feels like a second warning.
» North announces that he managed to secure the Rams a late-afternoon East Coast start against the Jaguars, meaning the game would be played at 4:25 p.m. ET instead of 1:05 p.m. ET so it did not feel like the Rams were playing a game at 10 a.m. local time. Thinking he did a nice thing, North was immediately met with a half-joking retort from Snead, who says every East Coast game should be like that. North's voice morphs into that of an exhausted parent who just wants to eat his cold supper. "We are WELL AWARE of the western teams' preferences," he said.
"So we go Jacksonville, London, New York?" Demoff asks.
"You got it," North says before quickly moving on.
» McVay, already the butt of countless bad millennial jokes, appears to take a cell phone picture of the schedule once it's posted in full. Perhaps for Insta-Face.
In all seriousness, this was a fantastic piece of work by the Rams' video team. The team is in uncharted waters with their very young head coach and the clip was a raw piece of drama that fans are rarely allowed to see. I've watched it a dozen times already and can safely proclaim that North has an excellent sense of humor, as does the Rams' coaching staff. Here's hoping to more of these down the road.
