Sean McVay Compliments Assistant, Talks About Enduring the Hard Times

And Shula gets it. The defense creates four turnovers against the Raiders, including a fumble recovery for a touchdown by Kam Curl, and the Rams win the game. The week after, the defense gave up two early touchdowns but virtually shut out the Minnesota Vikings for the rest of the game to secure the team's second win within four days.

A week after, the Rams intercept Geno Smith twice in the red zone, including a 103-yard pick-six by Kam Kinchens and a fourth-and-short stop in overtime to beat Seattle.

The defense continued to roll, becoming the force that propelled the team to Sean McVay's fourth division title.

Now Shula, entering year two, has been smiling, joking, and celebrating as he defense is out for blood. After practice on Thursday, McVay made sure to let everyone know exactly how valuable Shula is to him and the team.

“One of my favorite things about Chris is that he is mentally tough," stated McVay.

"He's been brought up in a football family where he knows not to ride the wave. There are ebbs and flows that go on throughout the course of a season, but I think he understood that his players, his coaches, he knew that I did, had his back. What I like is he was solution-oriented. It was a humbling start for us. But you can either do one of two things, you can either feel bad for yourself or you can say, ‘I'm going to swing. I'm going to fight and I'm going to figure out what's the next best thing to try to do right by these players and by these coaches.’ That's exactly what he's built on."

"That's what he's all about. I think the number of experiences that he got in his first year as the defensive coordinator was invaluable because it wasn't easy, because there were some things that you worked through and that's when you find out about people and that's why you know him. A lot of people that we have on this team are made of the right things. That's what we're looking for and that's what we want to be about because adversity is going to be inevitable and our ability to handle it the right way will hopefully be a separator for us.”

McVay did have Shula's back with Shula crediting a candid conversation between the two during the team's week six BYE as the catalyst to the defense's sudden turnaround. Two coaches that know how to adapt under pressure.