When the Los Angeles Rams won their second Super Bowl in 2022, head coach Sean McVay was honored to be a part of the team’s winning culture: “It’s an incredible honor to be here.” But a year later, one disastrous season on the same team made him question if he wanted to keep coaching anymore. After winning Super Bowl LVI following over a two-decade-long wait (when they went by the name St. Louis Rams), the team completely collapsed into a 5-12 campaign, putting HC Sean McVay in a tough spot.

Once the 2023 offseason arrived, McVay considered walking into the media world. “It took that 5-12 year where you’re really getting broken down, and I almost quit coaching,” McVay said during his recent appearance on the Bussin’ With The Boys podcast. “You could use the narrative that I was going to go to media or whatever, but the truth would have been, I was quitting because I couldn’t handle the losing. It was almost like a scarlet letter. There was moments you think about – it’s so crazy to me – I was counting down the days for that season to be over. Like, what a fraud.”

Just one season removed from winning the Super Bowl, McVay and the Rams could never truly build momentum off their championship run, especially because injuries completely ravaged the roster. Quarterback Matthew Stafford was already dealing with elbow issues even before the 2022 season officially began. And once the year kicked off, things only spiraled further for the veteran signal-caller.

Midway through the season, Stafford suffered a concussion before later going down with a spinal cord contusion that ultimately ended the remainder of his year. At the same time, receiver Cooper Kupp, fresh off winning Super Bowl MVP, also suffered a high ankle sprain that eventually required surgery.

The Rams later placed Kupp on injured reserve as well, ending his season during the second half of the year. And on top of that, Los Angeles’ offensive line became a complete revolving door throughout the season, with the Rams using 11 different offensive line combinations across their first 11 games alone.

But the injury problems were not limited to the offensive side of the ball either.

The Rams’ defense revolved heavily around Aaron Donald, but the veteran defensive tackle ended up missing six games because of injuries during the second-to-last season of his career. So between a battered offensive line and injuries to the same three cornerstone players who helped McVay win his first Super Bowl as a head coach, it’s easy to understand why Los Angeles finished 5-12 and why McVay mentally reached a breaking point.

But even after the disastrous season ended, the problems were still far from over because the ghosts of the past were waiting for McVay during the 2023 offseason.

For years, the Rams aggressively built a Super Bowl-caliber roster by trading draft picks for established stars, handing out massive veteran contracts, restructuring deals repeatedly, and continuously pushing salary-cap hits into future years. Huge contracts existed everywhere across the roster, including Stafford, Donald, Kupp, Jalen Ramsey, Allen Robinson, Leonard Floyd, and several others.

By the 2023 offseason, though, the entire situation caught up with Los Angeles. The Rams entered the previous season expecting another playoff run, but instead found themselves stuck with an aging and expensive roster, poor depth, injured stars, limited draft capital, and massive future salary-cap obligations. Per reports, Los Angeles entered the 2023 offseason carrying roughly $75 million in dead cap money.

As that reality fully kicked in, the Rams immediately began moving on from veterans across the roster. To put that into perspective, Los Angeles had signed Ramsey to a five-year, $100 million contract extension worth $71.2 million guaranteed back in 2020 after trading for him just one year earlier. But by 2023, the Rams were forced to trade him to the Miami Dolphins despite everything he had contributed to the franchise.

The same thing happened with Floyd. The Rams signed him to a four-year, $64 million deal just one season after acquiring him. But by 2023, Los Angeles also moved on from him because of salary-cap pressure. Bobby Wagner followed a very similar path. He arrived in Los Angeles on a massive five-year contract worth up to $65 million, only to last one season before the Rams released him ahead of the 2023 offseason because of cap-related reasons.

And then came Robinson, who eventually turned into one of the Rams’ biggest financial mistakes during that era. Los Angeles signed him to a three-year, $46.5 million contract in 2022 after losing Odell Beckham Jr., hoping Robinson could become the WR2 behind Kupp. Instead, he never truly fit McVay’s offensive system, struggled statistically, and by 2023, he was no longer part of the roster either.

So after years of pushing draft capital and massive veteran contracts into building a championship roster, the Rams entered the 2023 offseason financially drained to the point McVay had no choice but to part ways with multiple veterans and pivot toward relying heavily on rookies and second-year players instead.

Which is exactly why, after enduring a miserable 5-12 season and mentally navigating the pressure, exhaustion, and salary-cap fallout of the 2023 offseason, it becomes much easier to understand why Sean McVay seriously considered stepping away from coaching altogether despite already winning a Super Bowl. And according to McVay himself, if not for his wife, Veronika Khomyn, he probably would have done exactly that.

When Sean McVay’s wife’s words hit the Rams’ head coach harder

While battling through the mental exhaustion of a 5-12 season, Sean McVay leaned heavily on the people closest to him. One of those people was his wife, Veronika Khomyn. But after McVay finally opened up to her about everything he was feeling, the Rams head coach received a reality check. A reality check he badly needed at that moment in his life.

“I’ll never forget, I was explaining the situation to my wife,” McVay added. “Basically, I was trying to rationalize and justify why I should do it. It’s like ‘OK, let’s step away, maybe even come back to coaching. We’re going to have a lot of tough decisions to make.’ And it coincided with her being pregnant with our oldest, Jordan. And I remember I was explaining it, and she just kind of looked at me, and it was very loving and supportive, but it was like it is only coming from your wife where it really landed the punch and she’s like, ‘You know, that never really sounded like the kind of leader you wanted to be.”

In that exact moment, his wife’s words completely hit McVay like a ton of bricks. As the Rams head coach further explained:

“And I was like, boom. It landed the punch. … I remember in that moment, it hit me like a ton of bricks and I also remember thinking to myself that the most important thing I’ve always wanted to do was be a father and be a husband. And I’ll never be able to look at my little boy when he grows up and goes through adversity and say, ‘Do as I say, not as I did.’ And that was when immediately, you’re like, ‘I’ll never be able to live with myself if I did this.’ But it took a lot of work.”

Sean and Veronika are now parents to their eldest son, Jordan John McVay, who was born in October 2023, and their youngest son, Christian Alexander McVay, born in December 2025. So it became pretty clear that McVay was carrying significant emotional exhaustion throughout the 2022 season and the difficult 2023 offseason. But at the same time, the Rams coach also realized he did not want quitting during adversity to become the example he set for his sons.

And that is exactly where Veronika’s words ended up helping him push through one of the toughest stretches of his coaching career. And it is fair to say that the decision eventually paid off.

Since the disastrous 2022 season, McVay has not won another Super Bowl, yes. But he has guided the Rams to three straight playoff appearances while also reaching another NFC Championship Game just last season.

Now, McVay is preparing to enter his 10th season as the Rams’ head coach. And with Matthew Stafford widely expected to be entering the final season of his NFL career, it is safe to say the longtime coach-quarterback duo will do everything possible to try making one more Super Bowl run together this season.