Sean McVay and his team had put up a decent season last year, going 12-5, making them the preseason Super Bowl favorites for 2026. Six weeks down, they’re in last place in the NFC West with a 2-4 record. However, McVay has a backup option in case he gets shown the exit door given the reported interest from Amazon. But ESPN play-by-play broadcaster Jon Meterparel did not mince his words while putting the broadcasting platform on high alert for showing interest in McVay.
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“I don’t understand why there’s such a rush to get Sean McVay in a booth,” he said on Andrew Marchand’s podcast. “There was a rush to get Bill Walsh in a booth; he stunk. There was a rush to get Bill Parcells in a booth; he stunk. Not that McVay is a Walsh or Parcells at this point in his career. [Bill] Belichick, okay, nothing great. I don’t know if it’s a guarantee.
“If I’m Amazon, why are you so eager to get Sean McVay? I don’t get it. I know he’s a good-looking dude. I know he has kind of the California lifestyle going on. I know he’ll fit in maybe nicely with a younger crowd. I just don’t get it.”
The talk of McVay stepping into the world of broadcasting has been brewing for a long time now. Ever since the Los Angeles Rams grabbed a Super Bowl LVI victory in February 2022, reports suggested that McVay could pocket a deal as high as $15 million annually if he ever wanted to try his luck in broadcasting.
Back in 2022, it was reported that Amazon was willing to go as high as $20 million per year for five years to land the Rams coach. That’s also when Amazon was on the verge of taking over the rights to Thursday Night Football, and high-profile names like McVay might have been a good fit.
After the Rams finished the 2022 season with a 5-12 record, McVay admitted that he “almost quit coaching.” But ultimately he did not give up on his head coaching job.
“Multiple networks approached him and his agent and said, ‘Well, we’re in this boom time for sports media; would he ever consider doing it and leave and yeah, he considered it for sure and I think at the end of the day it was like there’s still too much meat on the bone with [Matthew] Stafford still there and [Cooper] Kupp still there and Aaron Donald who’s he knew was coming back,” said Peter Schragger in a podcast in 2022.
But years later, Amazon Prime is not ready to give up on McVay. The Athletic’s Marchand shared an interesting update.
“Amazon Prime Video has agreed to an extension with Kirk Herbstreit to remain as its NFL game analyst on ‘Thursday Night Football,'” he shared. “But the terms give Amazon flexibility to move on if one of its top targets, like Los Angeles Rams coach Sean McVay, becomes available, according to sources briefed on the decision who were not authorized to speak publicly.”
Given that over the years they have maintained their interest in McVay and still see him as a top candidate, Meterparel dropped a reality check. No matter how easy the transitions from coaching to broadcasting look, the reality is a lot harsher.
He took the example of Bill Walsh. After retiring as the San Francisco 49ers head coach, he took up the job as an NBC commentator. Walsh was expected to fill the role of an entertaining former coach in the booth. Instead, his analysis lacked energy and often became excessive. That was evident when he took issue with Bruce Smith’s pass-rushing technique and repeated the same criticism five times in a single quarter, reportedly setting a broadcasting record. In 1992, he stepped down from the NBC role and went back to coaching at Stanford.
Bill Parcells followed the same trajectory. The New York Giants head coach debuted as a studio analyst for NBC for the 1991 season. But his stint, too, was short as he left the broadcasting job to take up the head coaching role at the New England Patriots in 1993.
So neither survived the broadcasting role for long. Parcells served as an NFL head coach for 19 seasons, and the Hall of Famer held an overall record of 172-130-1 in the regular season. Walsh, who got enshrined in the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1993, compiled an impressive 102-63-1 in his 10 seasons as head coach of the 49ers and won three Super Bowls.
McVay is yet to reach that level of greatness. Thus, Meterparel urges Amazon to strike off McVay’s name from their wishlist.