McVay jokes he was the 'dumbass coach' behind Rams' bad Week 1 travel
Rams head coach Sean McVay contrasts a rough Week 1 loss with a better Week 2 by blaming his own travel scheduling, in a line that quickly went viral.
What to know
- McVay's quip explicitly names himself as the 'dumbass coach' whose travel arrangements hurt the Rams in Week 1.
- The line quickly circulated via ESPN's X post, Bluesky, and Reddit within the same night.
- Commenters are split on whether the remark is McVay taking accountability after the fact or an excuse dressed up as humor.
- Some commenters point to genuine logistical issues with international game scheduling and time-zone disruption as context for the joke.
The dispute Whether McVay's line is genuine accountability for the earlier loss or a self-serving excuse dressed up as a joke. · positions read across 16 posts and comments
McVay is appropriately owning the Week 1 loss with self-deprecating humor, not making excuses.
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“That was the right thing to say in the moment. Listing and immediately saying "they didn't deserve this, we're better, blame the travel" would have been insane. A week removed he can own it and it doesn't come across as sour grapes or…”
Micro_mint · Reddit ↗
The joke is actually an excuse for losing, not real accountability.
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“Isn't this the exact opposite of owning a loss? This is making an excuse for losing.”
shoe7525 · Reddit ↗
The international travel/time-zone schedule genuinely was a disruptive factor, independent of the joke.
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“Also the waking up at 3am local time to play a game at 10am just feels wrong. I get trying to stay on your own Timezone but it would be weird sitting around in a hotel in the dark all day”
Nousernames-left · Reddit ↗
Sean McVay Los Angeles Rams head coachESPN Sports media outlet
How it unfolded 3 developments, newest first · click a bar or a number to jump postscomments
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Commenters split over whether the line was accountability or excuse
Reddit commenters debated whether McVay's joke represented him owning the earlier loss in hindsight or was simply a way of deflecting blame for the poor Week 1 performance, with some also noting the unusual demands of the international travel schedule.
“That was the right thing to say in the moment. Listing and immediately saying "they didn't deserve this, we're better, blame the travel" would have been insane. A week removed he can own it and it doesn't come across as sour grapes or being a bad loser.”
— Micro_mint, Reddit commenter · source -
That comes next year, post draft when you hand a top prospect qb again. "They should have tanked right after ben retired!... wait they had the 1st qb off the board... THEY SHOULD HAVE TANKED ONCE THEY KNEW PICKETT SUCKED!" Who would the steelers have drafted with a top 5 pick in 2024? Williams, Daniels, Maye, Nix, Penix, McCarthy?
2 more of the top 3 · 14 posts in this stretch
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Nope. If the Steelers offense looks the way it has these first two weeks we are hands down the worst team in the league. Statistically we are the worst in Yards per play right now. Our defense is solid but it cannot win games alone. We only beat Atlanta because cooper rush is atrocious
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Gotta weigh the cost of 4-7 days of lost time for training and jet lag adjustment both ways vs the value of 1 game. Thats why mlb schedules their overseas games 2 weeks before the season’s official start to not screw over the teams that have to play overseas.
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ESPN amplifies the McVay quote to wide social reach
ESPN's X account posted a clip of the remark, which drew over a thousand likes and dozens of comments within hours, spreading the line beyond Rams-specific audiences.
“Sean McVay on the difference with the Rams between Week 1 and Week 2.”
— @espn -
"Sometimes you win, sometimes you learn and sometimes you have a dumbass coach that makes travel plans that puts you in bad spot." Sean McVay on the difference with the Rams between Week 1 and Week 2.
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McVay jokes about his own travel planning in postgame presser
Rams coach Sean McVay ended his press conference explaining the Week 1-to-Week 2 turnaround by joking that a 'dumbass coach' had made bad travel plans, an apparent reference to himself.
“Sometimes you win and sometimes you learn. Sometimes you have a dumbass coach who makes travel plans that put you in a bad spot.”
— Sean McVay -
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Sean McVay with a mic drop 🎤 to end the presser about why the Rams looked so much better tonight: “Sometimes you win and sometimes you learn. “Sometimes you have a dumbass coach who makes travel plans that put you in a bad spot.”
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What people are saying 10 voices from 1 site · best of 16 · verbatim
- Yesterday
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meh, easy excuse, but Ill need more than the rams beating up on the giants without their QB to accept that week 2 was the truth. staffords throws were not on the mark, the WRs were making a lot of acrobatic catches to keep things moving.
- Sep 22
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It's shocking how few Americans travel IN the country. The amount of people I've met that have never left their own State is mindboggling. And truly mindblowing meeting people that have never left their city of birth.
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Europe is different than se Asia. 6 hour difference is different than an 18 hour difference.
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I’m just tired of the same old failures. I’m not a pitchfork guy but at some point it just gets old.
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Sometimes Aaron Donald just reminds people why he is Aaron Donald... Giants had no gameplan for Aaron Donald blowing up their offensive line every play.
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If they go that far again they should do it like the mlb where overseas games take place a couple weeks before the season starts. I think the staff just thought the one game wasn’t worth sacrificing half a week both ways of training time to adjust to jet lag.
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He made a George Costanza exit, when he starts to leave after making everyone laugh.
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Also the waking up at 3am local time to play a game at 10am just feels wrong. I get trying to stay on your own Timezone but it would be weird sitting around in a hotel in the dark all day
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Isn't this the exact opposite of owning a loss? This is making an excuse for losing.
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What's the deal with airline food, especially when you go to Austrailia for a football game?