Sean McVay: Rams' minicamp in Hawaii is about quality time together

The Rams made the unusual decision to have this week’s mandatory minicamp in Maui, and coach Sean McVay said the trip was as much about togetherness as it was about football.

Players were encouraged to bring their families with them for a Hawaiian vacation, and McVay said that meant a lot for the team’s bonding. McVay also said that Los Angeles and Maui have in common that they’re rebuilding from wildfires, and that the Rams wanted to bring some goodwill to the area.

“It’s about connection and being able to get some time,” McVay said, via Sarah Barshop of ESPN. “It’s cool to be able to really, for me, meet a lot of these guys’ families that maybe I haven’t met quite yet or see their wives or girlfriends or their kids, and so that’s been a really cool thing so far. This is about being able to get some good quality time with each other and then being able to use the platform that we’re blessed with to be able to get back to a community that went through some similar things that we can all understand and kind of empathize with, and you see how excited they are to see our players and that’s fun.”

There was a time when summer practices in the NFL were brutal, and coaches were taskmasters. McVay represents a new generation of coaches who see the summer as a time to build camaraderie and make sure players are taking care of their bodies so they’re healthy when the season starts. That buys him plenty of goodwill with his players.

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