Another year, another bright offensive mind choosing to leave the Washington Redskins to coach elsewhere, and likely find great success.
It was reported late on Friday night that The Los Angeles Rams are hiring former Redskins’ offensive coordinator Kevin O’Connell to be the new OC under Sean McVay, a former Redskins coach. The move feels like a great fit for O’Connell, who was given permission to interview with other teams for their job openings after Washington decided to hire Scott Turner, the former QB Coach and interim OC for the Carolina Panthers. Now, O’Connell will reunite with McVay — who he succeeded as the OC in Washington — and they will likely team up to further the Rams’ recent success of deploying a potent offense that keeps defenses on their toes.
This is what makes Redskins fans, and those who cover the team, extremely frustrated. After enduring a 2019 season that was wrought with terrible losses and had injuries and incompetence sprinkled every which way, the 2020 year was starting to look up. A new head coach, a new general manager, and a new coaching staff was expected to right the ship and get things back on track. While many of the coaches in Washington needed to go, there was arguably one coach that nearly everyone wanted to stay, and that was O’Connell. His young offensive mind proved to do wonders with rookie quarterback Dwayne Haskins in 2019, as the two found several things that worked late in the season, and he was said by many respected people to be the next McVay, or Kyle Shanahan, or Matt LaFleur, all of whom came from the Redskins coaching tree. Now, like the aforementioned coaches, O’Connell will realize his success away from Washington D.C.
Of course, none of this is to say that the Redskins made a bad hire with Turner, who could very well be a solid coordinator under Ron Rivera. This is more of an airing of grievances, and something that feels like we should have seen it coming. If you were to build a Redskins coaching staff a month ago, you would bring in a host of new people, and keep the few people who were finding success. That means that KOC remains, and better coaches are brought in around him. Instead, an entirely new staff reigns in Washington, and what feels like the cool-kids club — or maybe the ‘recovering-Redskins’ — are elsewhere, reveling in the joy of realizing success.
Let’s just hope that a bit of that success can be realized in Washington somewhat soon as well.
