Back when Brady won his first Super Bowl, Sean McVay was a 16-year-old sophomore at the Marist School, 15 miles to the north of Mercedes-Benz Stadium. He is now, at 33, the youngest coach in the N.F.L., hired by the Rams two years ago, after they finished their first season back in Los Angeles as a bumbling mess, and tasked with shaping a winning team and energizing a fan base.
One of McVay’s many aphorisms — Sean-isms, as they’re called — is “the standard is the standard.” The Rams won consecutive division titles, but as they gazed across the field Sunday they saw the personification of that standard, a team whose sustained success they hoped to emulate.
Rams quarterback Jared Goff grew up watching Brady, like him a son of Northern California, while McVay exchanges text messages with Belichick. The mastermind outwitted the prodigy, and McVay knew it, blaming his play-calling and an absent feel for the game’s flow.
“There’s no other way to say it,” McVay said. “I got out-coached tonight.”
McVay surrounded himself with sharp assistants, including the defensive coordinator Wade Philips, who, when scheming against a quarterback like Brady, abides by a singular credo.
“You can’t fool the great quarterbacks, anyway,” he said. “You have to outplay them.”
In the A.F.C. championship game three years ago, when Phillips led the Broncos’ defense, Denver’s pass-rush pummeled Brady all game. Brady’s protection in the playoffs had been so good entering the Super Bowl — 90 dropbacks, no sacks, according to Pro Football Focus — that he posted to his Instagram story a photo of his jersey, white and pristine, and tagged his offensive linemen.
Early on, the Rams’ coverage and pressure discombobulated New England. On his first pass, Brady’s wobbly throw was deflected, and then intercepted by Cory Littleton. On the Patriots’ next drive, they called two timeouts before Stephen Gostkowski hooked a 46-yard field goal, missing a kick in the Super Bowl for the third consecutive year. On the series after that, John Franklin-Myers strip-sacked Brady, but New England recovered the fumble.
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