How Les Snead built a Super Bowl-winning Rams team using stoic principles

Executive overview

Most NFL GMs optimize for job security, making conservative moves to avoid blame. Snead and coach Sean McVay chose the opposite — playing to win rather than playing not to lose, including trading for a veteran quarterback mid-window.

The core discipline: focus on what you can control (the quality of your decisions and your work), subordinate individual interests to the institution, and resist the reactive noise of media and social media.

If you put the institution first and commit to doing the work well, individual success tends to follow.

Playing to win vs. playing not to lose

• Taking the lead at halftime triggers loss-aversion — players and coaches shift to protecting, not attacking
• Rory McIlroy laying up at Augusta illustrates how a lead changes decision-making under pressure
• The Rams' philosophy: make the move you believe in, even if it looks bad the next day
• Trading for Matthew Stafford mid-window was high-risk; not all GMs would have made that call
• GMs face a longer judgment horizon than coaches — a single move may take years to vindicate
• Avoiding social media keeps focus on the decision itself, not public reaction to it

Reframing setbacks

• Losing the 2019 Super Bowl was reframed as "the end of the beginning, not the beginning of the end"
• Jim Collins framed the loss as proof of good — now the task was to become great
• Kara Snead's view: they may not have won in 2022 if they'd won in 2019
• Being slightly behind at halftime can be an advantage — you know you're in contention and play to win
• The Rams crashed after the Super Bowl win but rebuilt and returned to the playoffs two consecutive years

Retooling without collapsing

• After the Super Bowl window, the Rams rebuilt the defense on rookie contracts while keeping veterans on offense
• Knowing Aaron Donald would retire forced deliberate long-term planning
• The "can't put life in a microwave" rule: some things need to bake — earned experience becomes wisdom
• Telescope vs. microscope: GMs must think long-term while coaches manage play to play

Putting the institution first

• Level 5 leadership (Jim Collins): the institution comes before the individual
• If the team succeeds, individual success follows — trying to engineer personal survival usually backfires
• Political game-playing is exhausting and often counterproductive; just try to play good football
• Applies equally to writing, business, or any craft — chase quality, not the external marker

Focus on the verb, not the noun

• Aspiring to "be a GM" is fragile — there are only 32 seats and you don't control access
• Aspiring to be excellent at the work keeps you in the mix long enough to get a shot
• "So good they can't ignore you" — compound excellence over time is the more reliable path
• Moving goalposts on "enough" prevents people from ever doing the work they actually care about
• Spend finite energy on getting good at the thing, not on navigating the politics around it