Earlier this week, NFL Films released a clip of some of the league’s current coaches speaking about their all-time favorite players, including Los Angeles Rams head coach Sean McVay.
McVay shared that as a child his grandfather worked with the San Francisco 49ers organization. Therefore, the Rams coach got to enjoy some of the perks of his granddad’s job, including going to games with his family. The NFL Films clip even shows a picture of a young McVay holding an NFL football on the 49ers sideline. In addition, the photo includes who is presumably his grandfather and father.
McVay admits how lucky he is to have grown up around the game of professional football. Additionally, he says that his family lived in Atlanta, GA at the time, so he became a huge Deion Sanders fan as a kid. The Hall of Fame cornerback played for the Atlanta Falcons for five seasons from 1989-1994.
Sanders was all the rage in the early ’90s after coming out of Florida State University. He not only played football but played baseball too as one of the only two-sport athletes in professional sports history. In fact, for a time, he played for two teams in the same city when he played for both the Falcons and Atlanta Braves.
McVay Says Getting to See Sanders’s Pick-6 ‘Was Awesome’
“Prime Time” – or “Neon Deion” if you prefer since he had two nicknames – eventually signed with the 49ers and arguably had the best season of his career. McVay vividly remembers how great Sanders played that year, and witnessed it firsthand.
“I was a huge fan of Deion Sanders,” McVay says emphatically. “We lived in Atlanta at the time, and that was the one year he spent with [San Francisco], but he was the Defensive Player of the Year [that season]. I used to wear that throwback jersey all the time. I was at the game when he ended up taking the interception back for a touchdown against the Falcons. To see Deion Sanders get an interception against his former team – it was awesome.”
In the NFL Films footage, Sanders is seen intercepting Falcons quarterback Jeff George’s pass deep in his own team’s redzone. The cornerback turns on the jets as he runs down the Falcons sideline. In true “Prime Time” form, he taunts his former team while returning the pick-six interception and makes sure to throw in his signature high-step celebration as he enters the endzone.
There have been many great secondary players over the decades that have copied Sanders’ style and swagger on and off the football field. However, there is only one “Prime Time,” and McVay would surely agree.
