Sean McVay's Unlikely Streak
The former youngest coach in the NFL sets a new record with his luck
After defeating the Minnesota Vikings 27-9 in the wildcard round of the 2024 playoffs, the Los Angeles Rams will face the Philadelphia Eagles in the divisional round. This will be the first time the Rams will face the Eagles in the playoffs under Sean McVay. Preparing for a new playoff opponent is nothing new to McVay, it’s all he’s done in his entire career. As first noted by the Twitter/X account Dov Kleiman, McVay has faced off against 13 different teams in his first 13 playoff games as a head coach. This is an incredible streak, but can we quantify just how unlikely it is?
Of course it is. Why would this post exist if we couldn’t? That doesn’t make any sense, you buffoon.
Using data available in the nflreadr dataset, we find that 2024 Rams under McVay are the only NFL team to have a streak of 13 different playoff opponents in the row since at least 2002. They’re just one of three teams to have a streak of at least 12 different playoff opponents, with the others being the 2010 Steelers and the 2018 Patriots. One could hypothetically estimate theoretically how likely that is by assuming some normal distribution of team quality and running it through many, many seasons of a MCMC simulation. But we can leave that bigger scope project to somebody else. For this silly little question, I am satisfied with the empirical answer that a given team has a 0.5% chance (1 in 200 odds) of facing a streak of 13 different teams in any given 13 playoff game stretch.
Unfortunately, if McVay’s Rams upset the Eagles on Sunday his streak is likely to come to an end. The Lions are heavily favored to beat the Commanders (-520 ML or roughly 80% according to Vegas), and they faced the Rams in last year’s Wild Card round. McVay’s galaxy brain bet to maximally extend his streak would be to lose this weekend then shoot for the #1 seed in 2025 to play a newly ascendant or surprise #5-7 seed with a whacky NFC bracket that includes the Commanders, Giants, Panthers, and Bears. The bet he’s almost certain to take is to try and befuddle Jalen Hurts and pray for a Commanders upset, thus guaranteeing the potential to extend the streak to an unprecedented 15 with a Super Bowl appearance.
I don’t have a strong rooting interest in these playoffs, so I guess I’ll root for the Rams to extend their very silly nonsense record. Who’s house? Ram’s house.
If you enjoyed this post, please subscribe so that you can receive emails updating you upon every post and share this with others who you think might enjoy. This is a free newsletter, but if you are feeling so generous you can buy me a coffee.