TEMPE, Ariz. -- In a typical week, Arizona Cardinals wide receivers coach Shawn Jefferson will talk to his son, Los Angeles Rams wide receiver Van Jefferson, two or three times. They exchange the usual pleasantries when a father calls a son. They also talk some football.
Shawn, in typical dad fashion, tries to help his son, passing along tips and tendencies about upcoming cornerbacks or defenses that he’s coached against or studied.
But when the Cardinals face the division-rival Rams like they do on Sunday (4:25 p.m. ET, Fox), things change.
“It's silent,” Shawn said. “Even like pregame and stuff like that, we’ll dab each other up, [say] ‘Have a good game,’ and stuff like that.
“It is weird, man.”
It’s not just Shawn and Van who act differently during Cardinals-Rams week. It’s the entire Jefferson family. The house is quieter, Shawn said. Allegiances change. Certain topics are avoided.
Shawn is left on an island by his own family. His wife, Marla, and two daughters, Paige and Faith, become solely Rams fans.
“My mom got to root for the son and my sisters, they gotta root for their brother,” Van said.
Shawn has tried to ease the tension, telling his family he knows who they’re really rooting for and that it’s OK -- he gets it. They try to respond diplomatically, telling him they just want a good game or, for example, when the Cardinals won the first meeting last year and Van scored a touchdown, the game was a win-win.
“I’m like, ‘No, no, no, no. I know exactly who you guys are rooting for," Shawn said with a laugh. "You guys want [the Rams] to kick our ass. I know for sure that game I’m on my own."
Shawn didn’t expect it, though. He figured his daughters would side with their brother, but Shawn thought his wife would be on his side.
“I told her, ‘So much for that until-death-does-us-part thing,’” he quipped.
One day she showed up at the Cardinals’ practice facility wearing a Rams shirt. She forgot she was wearing it. Shawn looked at her but didn’t say anything before turning to a security guard.
“See, look at what my wife has on,” she remembered Shawn saying.
The first game where Shawn and Van faced each other in 2021 was a stressful day for Marla.
“I was in angst over what do I wear,” Marla recalled.
She originally planned on wearing a Rams shirt in Los Angeles and a Cardinals shirt in Arizona, but at some point settled on something in the middle: She just wears an NFL shirt to games.
During Cardinals-Rams week, Van will FaceTime his mom knowing Shawn is sitting right there and the urge to indirectly talk trash is too great for Van to suppress. He’ll ask how his dad is and then ask if he’s ready to take the loss.
“During the week, it's no friends,” Van said. “He's not my pops no more.”
FOR SHAWN, WHO was a wide receiver for four teams from 1991 to 2003 and played in two Super Bowls, there’s not one emotion or adjective to describe facing his son. He is 3-1 in games against his son. He gets asked about it often, and the assumption might be that Shawn enjoys it.
“It's pure hell,” Shawn said. “I mean, the emotions and stuff like that that I deal with on game day. If he does anything good, I can't … If he does something wrong, I can't go out there and coach him. So, the emotional swings, the emotional roller coaster I’m on -- it just kills me. I go home, I'm totally spent after that game.”
It’s not just the game that drains Shawn. The whole week isn’t easy because he wants to win so badly. He’s on pins and needles from the time the previous game ends until kickoff because of how torn he is. He wants Van to do well but “I want to kick his butt.”
The first time Shawn faced Van was when Shawn was coaching for the New York Jets in 2020.
It, to say the least, wasn’t easy.
“I'm like, ‘Wow, this is it,'" Shawn said. "I'm on the sideline, like every time they're up, I'm like watching to see what he does.”
Nothing encapsulated Shawn’s struggle between coaching against his son and wanting his son to succeed more than Week 14 of last season when Arizona hosted Los Angeles on Monday Night Football. Early in the third quarter with the game tied at 13, Van got behind the Cardinals’ secondary to catch a 52-yard touchdown. Cameras quickly panned to Shawn, who was visibly annoyed but privately ecstatic.
Father and son. Opposing sidelines.
— NFL (@NFL) December 14, 2021
Shawn Jefferson is the @AZCardinals' WR coach and he just watched his son @VanJefferson12 score a 52-yard TD.
📺: #LARvsAZ on ESPN
📱: https://t.co/Z9HeRUNm0d pic.twitter.com/nBWJvJy4xO
“I was so pissed. But at the same time -- again, that's that emotion I was talking about -- in the back of my mind, I’m like, ‘Holy s---, he just scored a 52-yard touchdown on Monday Night Football," Shawn said. "How f---ing cool is that?’ I can't celebrate that, though.”
When Van saw his dad’s reaction, he started laughing. And then posted it on his Instagram.
“I was like, on the outside he's acting like he's mad but deep down he's smiling, he's happy,” Van said. “I just know how my dad is and what he's thinking like that. So, it had me crying, man.”
Van gave his dad the game ball and his jersey from the game as a gesture to say thanks.
“I think he's the reason that I'm there,” Van said. “He's the reason that I pursued to play the game ,and he taught me a lot of things, and growing up he was hard on me. He was always very strict on me, but at the end, I could see the lessons that he taught me and how they come to fruition.
“So I'm grateful to have my pops, and he's been helping me. So, to give him that game ball it meant everything.”
Shawn wasn’t expecting it and, at first, thought it was a way for his son to showcase his win. But Marla said Shawn was “over the moon about it.”
“He doesn't show his emotions as much as others,” she said, “but he was really moved by that, and that was really special.”
SUNDAY WILL BE the first time Shawn and Van are back in SoFi Stadium together since Super Bowl LVI, which Van’s Rams won over the Bengals, 23-20.
It was one of the few times Marla has seen see Shawn watch a game in person. And it was everything she expected.
“He is wringing his hands, he's rubbing his knees, he was so freaking nervous,” Marla said. “I had never seen him like that ever before. And he was more elated than, I think, any of the football players that won the Super Bowl that day. I'd never seen him that way. ... I think it was like he won it too. It was beautiful.”
When Paige, who interned for the Rams last season, saw her father on the field after the game, she wasn’t sure who was more excited -- him or Van.
Van Jefferson had a historic night 💍🚼 pic.twitter.com/yFs2SeMxpK
— SportsCenter (@SportsCenter) February 14, 2022
Yet, the emotions around the game Sunday won’t be all revisiting that Super Bowl win. That undoubtedly will be part of it, but Van’s wife, Samaria, went into labor with the couple's second child during the Super Bowl. She left midgame on a stretcher while in labor.
By the end of the game, one of Shawn’s sisters -- who’s a nurse in Jacksonville, Florida, and was at the game -- along with Faith were already at the hospital. Marla had decided that if Samaria went into labor during the game she wasn’t leaving the stadium until after the game was over -- a decision that didn't surprise Van.
“My mom is a football junkie, she loves football,” Van said with a laugh. “I mean, she loves it."
Van ran to the locker room and changed quickly. A car was waiting and Van, Shawn, Marla and Van’s two children -- daughter Isabella and son Vanchi -- were off for a 30-minute drive to the hospital. They didn’t make it on time and had to watch the birth on FaceTime -- a baby boy named Champ -- minutes after winning the Super Bowl.
“That experience was crazy. It was two wins in one day,” Van said. “Probably the best day of my life, for sure.”