Sean McVay admits he was "grumpy" on Thursday night

At a time when too many people in positions of prominence want us to not believe our lyin' eyes, Rams coach Sean McVay admits that, on Thursday night, what we got was what we saw.

In comments to reporters after the second day of the 2026 draft, McVay acknowledged that he was "grumpy" the night before, following the selection of quarterback Ty Simpson with the 13th overall pick in round one.

McVay had some fun with the situation from the outset of his comments.

"What do you guys think?" McVay said, in a joint press conference with G.M. Les Snead. "Am I angry right now? I will say this, though, the one thing that would never be doubted is we couldn't be any more lockstep in every decision that we make. I get my demeanor last night, but we’re excited about it. There are different things. I always want to be mindful of how things come off and things like that. I’m very excited about last night and very excited about today. We couldn't be more excited about us continuing to lead together, but every decision that we make is collective and collaborative. For any of the questions or misunderstandings just based on my demeanor or disposition last night, I did want to get that out of the way. This is my buddy right here. That was brought to my attention because I got so many texts. That was never my intended way to be able to come off, but sometimes I can be a little grumpy.”

Which raised an obvious question. Why was he grumpy?

“Well, there were other things that had nothing to do with that, which that’s normal life," McVay said. "The main thing was . . . I couldn't be more excited about being able to add him, but also understanding how much I love Matthew Stafford, how respectful you want to always be and to the way things can be interpreted. The demeanor would've been stoic by nature because you are excited, but by no means — it is Matthew's football team.

"I’m excited to be able to add Ty. What a blessing it is for him to be able to learn from Matthew and to be able to come into this atmosphere and environment. Whenever that time comes for him to get an opportunity to be Matthew's successor will be on Matthew's terms. I think that's really what the important thing was. I didn't want that to ever be misunderstood while not minimizing the excitement for Ty and the buy-in. Les and his group really liked him. As soon as we started really studying him, there was a body of work, like I talked about, that was a good, fun evaluation. A lot of the concepts that we would activate. The guy is a football junkie and plays with the timing and rhythm. You can see that he's a coach's son. His journey is a fun one that he's been through."

As we discussed McVay's way on Thursday night on Friday's , we eventually got around to the idea that McVay calibrated his demeanor as a message to Stafford that he's not being replaced or even nudged. The notion that the reigning MVP would have his successor taken in the first round of the next draft — with a pick only three spots out of the top 10 — is borderline laughable. It puts the move in the category of Cousins-Penix and Rodgers-Love.