The Importance of Keeping John Fassel
- Updated: February 20, 2017
It isn’t often in the NFL that you keep the man around that you’re replacing. Not often at all. But when Sean McVay took over as the head coach of the Los Angeles Rams, he knew three things about his staff that were incontrovertible: he was going to run the offense himself, he was going to tab the legendary Wade Phillips to run the defense, and he wanted to retain incumbent John Fassel for special teams.
John Fassel had a lot of success running special teams in St. Louis and LA with the Rams. In 2011 and 2012, the Rams were among the worst special teams units in the league. 2012 was Fassel’s inaugural year. After 2012 – once he had his guys and his system in place – the unit was in the top ten every year under Fassel. In 2013 they ranked 4th. In 2014 and 2015 they ranked 7th. They ranked 3rd in 2016. John Fassel knows how to coach special teams.
But he didn’t end his 2016 season as the special teams coordinator. John Fassel ended the season as the head coach of the Los Angeles Rams. The head coach. Although Rams management had many options to temporarily replace Jeff Fisher when they fired him before the end of the year, they chose Fassel. They had Gregg Williams on staff. Williams had more than 25 years of coaching experience in the NFL, and three years previous experience as a head coach. They had Dave McGinnis, Fisher’s assistant head coach, with more than 30 years experience, 4 as a head coach. They even had Mike Singletary on staff, a Hall of Fame linebacker, avowed disciplinarian, and 3-year former head coach.
The Rams chose John Fassel. Roughly 10 years coaching experience in the NFL. Zero years as a head coach.
The reasons for this may vary. They may never really be known, but one thing was commonly understood: Fassel had the respect of all the players, all the coaches, and all of management within the organization. He is, by all accounts, a universally likable guy.
As the interim head coach, John Fassel was probably never the long-term solution to the Ram’s head coaching puzzle. Fassel understood that. He was a place-holder. Had he gone 3-0 instead of 0-3 in his head coaching debut, it probably wouldn’t have made a difference. By Fassel’s own account, he is happy to be a special teams coach for all time. His passion for his job is evident and he is a natural motivator. Those traits stand out.
When 31-year old Sean McVay got the job offer to be the Los Angeles Rams’ head coach, he knew what he wanted in a team. He knew what he wanted in a staff. McVay wanted to build a winner that competed. He wanted to build a winner that competed for Super Bowl titles. To do that he had to surround himself with great leaders, great teachers, great motivators, and great people. In Wade Phillips, he got one of the best defensive coordinators to ever coach the game. In John Fassel, he kept one of the best special teams coaches in the game today.
It isn’t often in the NFL that you keep the man around that you’re replacing. Sean McVay did. He kept John Fassel around to coach his kicking game. That appears to have been accepted well, by the organization and by the players. When Benjamin Allbright tweeted that Fassel was likely to be retained by the Rams, the Rams Pro Bowl punter Johnny Hekker hilariously tweeted back that he better be right or he was getting a boot to the shin.
That would be a painful punt.
But the indication is clear: Johnny Hekker feels his enormous success in the NFL is largely attributed to the man the Rams kept around.
When a guy like John Fassel commands that kind of passion (and playfulness) from his players, is highly regarded by his peers, and routinely puts units on the field that perform with distinction, you keep him. If you want to build a winner, you keep him.
Nobody knows what kind of head coach Sean McVay will be, not yet. All we can judge McVay by so far is how well he picks the people around him. Retaining John Fassel gives us a pretty good indication that McVay has that part down pat.
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