Sean McVay stood 10 toes down when questioned about his special teams coordinator Chase Blackburn at the Rams’ Thursday press conference. Despite the multitude of poor play and failures from the Rams’ special teams unit in 2023, McVay continues to believe in Blackburn, citing Blackburn’s “accountability and ownership” as reasons for his return in 2024.
Evaluating more than just the results, McVay is keen to surround Blackburn with better players, thus giving the Rams a better possibility to improve in the special teams aspect of football.
“I believe in Chase and what I think I saw is that in the midst of a lot of those things, you’re evaluating not just the results, but the process and what the week looks like and the way that those players continue to believe in him,” he said. “And then you’re saying, ‘Alright, where are some of the things that we can identify to improve?’ And I do think there’s the solutions from Chase and from being able to play better, to be able to tackle better, to be able to consistently figure out, alright, where can we take the next steps? But you look at some of the different things that we had to navigate with new players at key and critical spots and I appreciated just how steady he was in what was a challenging year.”
Blackburn was dealt a bad hand with a young roster and a team that was still trying to get out of the position they put themselves in during GM Les Snead’s “F them picks” campaign. With a year under his belt, new players heading his way and the support from his head coach, Blackburn has a new life to properly develop as a coach and build a special teams unit to mirror the success of former special teams coordinator John Fassell.
To help Blackburn, the Rams have hired Chili Davis as special teams assistant coach, replacing the outgoing Jeremy Springer, who took a promotion with the Patriots.
Davis has over 10 years of coaching experience and fitting with Sean McVay’s love of college coaches, this will be Davis’ first pro job. Coming from Kansas State, Davis’ entire coaching history is with the special teams and when asked about his hire, Sean McVay stated that he’s “really excited” about working with Davis.
With a fresh start, perhaps 2024 may be Blackburn’s year to break out as one of the NFL’s premier special teams coordinators.