Sean McVay says he watched too much tape before Super Bowl

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Rams coach Sean McVay often gets credit for his encyclopedic memory of play-calls,.

But if he ever gets a chance to coach in another Super Bowl, he said he’d probably try to commit a lot less to memory.

In an interview with Sports Illustrated (via the Los Angeles Times), McVay said he went overboard by analyzing every game the Patriots played last season, including the playoffs, and their previous two Super Bowls — a total of 20 games.

“You see stuff that worked in, say, Week Three, but you forget about the amount of stuff that’s taken place since Week Three,” McVay said. “You can watch so much film that you lose perspective.”

With two weeks to prepare, saturation is normal, and McVay said he fell victim to that prior to heading to Atlanta.

“I operated knowing I had another week,” McVay said. “That urgency to completely finalize the game plan wasn’t quite there, and that led to me watching so much film that you can almost water down your thought process. . . .

“You have so much time that you can over-prepare and get away from some of the things that helped you get there.”

McVay admitted after the game that he was out-coached by Bill Belichick (and if that’s a sin, every coach in the league is guilty), and in hindsight he says he wishes he’d have spent more time soaking up the experience, instead of grinding through so much game film.