Sean McVay likely to call plays from field after experimenting in coaches’ booth

RICHMOND — During the Washington Redskins’ preseason loss to the Atlanta Falcons last Thursday, offensive coordinator Sean McVay was calling plays from the coaches’ booth rather than the sidelines.

It’s something the Redskins may continue to experiment with in the preseason following a rule change that allows offensive and defensive play callers to use the coach-to-player communication system whether they are on the field or in the coaches’ booth. NFL owners voted on the change during the annual league meeting in March.

In previous years the play caller had to be on the sideline to be allowed to communicate with the designated player, which on offense is the quarterback, who has a speaker, but not a microphone, in his helmet to hear the play call.

Cousins only played the first series last Thursday, but even in his limited role said having McVay call plays from the booth does not really change things while the quarterback is on the field. The bigger adjustment, Cousins said, is not being able to communicate with McVay on the sidelines in-person after a series.

“When I’m on the sidelines, it would be very different obviously,” Cousins said on Sunday. “Sean used to be sitting right next to me on the bench and now being up in the booth he would have to call me on the phone. That’s the difference.

“I know Sean’s still experimenting with it. I don’t know come the season if he’ll be in the box or on the sidelines but it’s worth giving it a try. Obviously you can see things very, very clearly in the box that you can’t as clearly from the sidelines and that’s the advantage. That’s the reason you would do it, not to mention the fact that it’s a very sterile environment. You can be very organized. You’ve got all of your information right in front of you. So there’s advantages to that.”

Since Cousins didn’t play a second series against the Falcons, he didn’t quite get the full experience of trying to communicate with McVay on the phone in between possessions so the team may experiment with it again throughout the preseason.

Coach Jay Gruden said he felt it went smoothly when calling the plays, but that McVay also prefers to be on the sideline so he can communicate with Cousins in person.

“Just a trial thing, I think he’s going to stay on the field,” Gruden said. “I think the negative will probably outweigh the positives as far as he’s concerned. I don’t care either way. I think it went pretty smooth in the game against Atlanta. But I think [McVay] feels strongly about the ability to talk to Kirk and go over the plays next to him as opposed to on the telephone.”