NFL analyst casts doubt on Sean McVay's QB whisperer reputation

Los Angeles Rams head coach Sean McVay is considered one of the best offensive and all-around head coaches in the NFL heading into the 2026 season. He's already the franchise's winningest coach, has been to multiple Super Bowls and has been to the postseason in eight of his nine seasons in L.A.

One of the hallmarks of his tenure has been how he's run his offenses through his quarterback. Jared Goff went from a first-round bust to a Super Bowl contender before McVay traded him for Matthew Stafford, with whom he won a Super Bowl in the same year he joined the team.

And now, McVay will — presumably, at least — get the chance to develop Ty Simpson over the next year or two as the successor to Stafford. Based on his track record, many experts are confident McVay can turn Simpson into a viable solution.

However, NFL analyst Bomani Jones doesn't completely agree with the notion that McVay is a "quarterback whisperer." He said on an episode of "The Dominque Foxworth Show" that McVay's reputation is built mainly by what he did with Kirk Cousins in Washington and then how he turned Goff around in L.A.

"There is no evidence that Sean McVay is going to whisper [Simpson] up to being a Super Bowl winner," Jones said. "When it was time for Sean McVay to go win the Super Bowl, what did he go get? The generational physical talent [in Stafford], right? He did not go get somebody for him to whisper up. He went and got the dude who is, and I mean this positively, a poor man's version of Patrick Mahomes. So, I'm just saying, what this ceiling is for Ty Simpson? Nothing of the McVay track record indicates that the ceiling is going to be higher than a pretty good quarterback ... and saying you can win with Matthew Stafford and really good receivers is not saying that much."