Sean McVay will be the youngest coach in Super Bowl history

Mike Tomlin is having a rough year. His Steelers crashed out of playoff contention. His star wide receiver wants out of Pittsburgh. And now, after the Rams’ NFC Championship Game win Sunday, he’s no longer the youngest head coach in Super Bowl history.

That record now belongs to Sean McVay, who guided Los Angeles to a comeback victory in the hostile confines of the Superdome to send the Rams back to the promised land for the first time since the Greatest Show on Turf was disbanded. The 32-year-old head coach needed only two seasons to turn LA from a 7-9 non-threat into one of the final two teams standing in February.

Tomlin was only 36 years old when he led the Steelers to a world championship in 2009.

This lends credence to the rash of head coaching hires that’s gripped the league in January. Franchises have been more willing than ever to bet on inexperienced assistant coaches with innovative offensive backgrounds in hopes of finding the next McVay.

In Arizona, that turned Kliff Kingbury from a guy who’d been fired at Texas Tech into the Cardinals new sideline general. In Wisconsin, the Packers turned to McVay’s former offensive coordinator, Matt LaFleur, in hopes of riding out the final years of Aaron Rodgers’ peak. Even Adam Gase was granted a second life after being fired by the Dolphins, landing in New York for a job with the Jets.

Those hires were all made, in part, due to McVay’s astronomical rise in Los Angeles. The 34-year-old is 24-8 in the regular season as a head coach and needed just two seasons to put Jeff Fisher’s “7-9 bullshit” so far in his rear view it’s barely a speck in the horizon. Now he’s just one victory away from adding another record to his mantle; youngest head coach to win a Super Bowl.