Six Things to Know About Sean McVay’s Wild Seven-Year Run as NFL’s Youngest Head Coach

The 37-year-old no longer holds the title after Jerod Mayo's promotion.

Sean McVay has been the Los Angeles Rams coach for seven years, and during that span he’d always been the youngest head coach in the NFL. That changed on Friday, when the New England Patriots reportedly decided to make Jerod Mayo their new coach, replacing Bill Belichick.

Mayo is just one month younger than McVay, but nonetheless, he takes the title of youngest active head coach in the league. McVay held onto that moniker for his entire tenure with the Rams thus far, and his time as youngest head coach alone essentially spanned an entire head coaching tenure.

Here are the six things to know about his tenure as the youngest head coach in the NFL:

McVay was the youngest head coach in NFL history

When the Rams hired him, McVay was a few weeks short of his 31st birthday, meaning he edged out Lane Kiffin as the youngest ever NFL head coach. At the time, he was six years younger than the next-youngest coach in the NFL, Kyle Shanahan.

Sean McVay spent seven seasons as the youngest head coach in the NFL :: Kyle Terada/USA Today network

He is the youngest head coach to reach a Super Bowl

The Rams won the NFC in 2019, McVay’s second season, meaning he beat Mike Tomlin’s record as youngest to lead a team to the Super Bowl by four years. While Los Angeles didn’t win that game, McVay was already on his way to breaking records.

He later became the youngest head coach to win a Super Bowl

Los Angeles would make it back to the Super Bowl three years later, and this time McVay won it all to beat Tomlin’s record for youngest Super Bowl-winning head coach at 36 years and 20 days old, doing so in his final opportunity to break the record. 

He almost retired after the 2022 season

Last offseason, McVay actually considered retiring after a disappointing 5–12 record in his title defense. The coach ultimately chose to stay in his role, though, leading the Rams back to the playoffs this year.

He is the fourth-longest tenured coach

Only John Harbaugh, Mike Tomlin and Andy Reid have been with their teams longer than McVay, while Sean McDermott and Kyle Shanahan were also hired the same year as McVay.

He beat out 60 coaches for the record before Mayo was hired

Including 2017, 45 different coaches have been hired to take head coaching roles, and another 15 coaches became interim head coaches midseason. That means McVay was younger than all of them until Mayo took the Patriots job, which ended McVay’s seven-year run.