To the devoted, live-and-die-with-the-team fan – or, for a more extreme example, those who bet on the Rams against the Philadelphia Eagles on Sunday – the ending was crushing. They’re one kick away from winning, from stealing a game from the champs on their own turf, only to have that field goal attempt blocked and returned for a superfluous touchdown and a 33-26 loss.
Stunning, and borderline devastating. I mean, if you’re a Rams fan who works alongside an Eagles fan, were you even able to show your face at the water cooler Monday morning? For the diehards it’s a body blow, a hurdle that their team almost cleared only to be smacked back down.
And this is the time when that devoted fan might wonder if the athletes care just as much. Spoiler alert: They do, and probably more so. It’s their livelihood, in a sport where career spans are short enough that you had better care – a lot – if you want to keep your job.
But players also realize, or at least learn quickly enough, that such highs and lows are part of the business and overreaction is counterproductive. For them, it’s on to Week 4.
Short-term memory is essential for a professional athlete, particularly an NFL player, in times like this. Yes, there are only 17 opportunities in an NFL regular season, and it feels like there’s a lot riding on every week. But brood about this one and all of a sudden your season is in danger of spiraling downward, one loss having the potential to damage you this coming week and the next one and maybe the one after that.
So, for the Rams, it is on to the Indianapolis Colts this Sunday at SoFi Stadium. Learn from the loss, correct the mistakes and move forward.
For those who missed it, the Rams had a 26-7 lead early in the second half while keeping Saquon Barkley under wraps, in the defending champs’ building, and seemed poised to wipe out the memory of two losses to the Eagles last season, one at home in the regular season and the other at Philly in the divisional round of the playoffs.
And then Jalen Hurts threw for 209 yards and three touchdowns in the second half. His 4-yard scoring pass to DeVonta Smith with 2:16 left in the game put Philadelphia ahead for the first time since the first quarter, 27-26, but a two-point conversion try failed. The Rams then drove nine plays in the final 1:48 to the Eagles’ 26-yard line, where Joshua Karty had a 44-yard field goal attempt for the win with four seconds left.
But Karty, who’d had a 36-yarder blocked earlier in the fourth quarter, had this one batted away, too. Jordan Davis, a 6-foot-6, 336-pound defensive tackle, not only got a hand on it but picked it up and rumbled 61 yards for a walk-off (?!) touchdown, to the slack-jawed surprise of viewers in both L.A. and Philly. (And there were likely screams of anguish from those, in Las Vegas and elsewhere, who took the Rams plus 3½.)
McVay explained in detail what happened in his Monday postmortem via Zoom.
“If you’re looking at it from the kicking lens, just over the left side, right next to the long snapper, (we) gave up just a little bit of penetration, where two of their big guys … (were) able to get some momentum, get up underneath, get penetration, and be able to get their hands up on both of those kicks,” McVay said. “We were just a bit high with our pad level. Didn’t necessarily execute with the techniques and the fundamentals that we’re capable of. And they ended up making those plays, and they do a great job.”
Those plays almost certainly will be addressed in special teams meetings this week if they haven’t already, and likely more than once.
But at this point McVay looked for positives, another way of moving on.
“It just so happens we didn’t make that play,” he said. “But there was 160 plays that led up to that point.
“I was proud of our group. I was proud of how I felt we were steady, even in spite of them (the Eagles) making some plays to get back in it. But ultimately we didn’t do enough right there – and I like the resolve and I like the look in guys’ eyes right after the game.”
Right here, maybe, is the residue of coming back from rough starts the last two years. The Rams were 3-6 going into the bye week in 2023 and almost knocked off Detroit in the wild card round. They started 1-4 last year, finished 10-7, won a wild card game against Minnesota that was relocated to Glendale, Arizona, because of the fires, and almost pulled off the divisional round upset in frigid Philly.
And now?
“As a team, we’re more connected than ever,” safety Jaylen McCollough said Monday. “We’re ready to go back to work, just understanding that we did do some of the negative stuff that we put on tape. But (this is) just another opportunity to go back to work and put our brand of football on tape and on film.”
Added running back Blake Corum:
“We played a great game. We capitalize on a couple more plays, we win. But, you know, no excuses. … Our mindset in the building today is, we have what it takes. It’s just fixing some minor things here and there. Keep playing hard. We played hard all game, man, especially in the trenches. So just learn from some of our mistakes and keep pushing.”
Yeah, it’s basic stuff. But inside the room it can have an impact, especially when it’s a common mindset.
There are reasons why certain coaches can establish a culture and a mindset that endures, and enables their players to shrug off those adverse moments and carry on. It’s one more reminder of what a wise choice it turned out to be when the Rams picked McVay back in 2017.
Then, he seemed frightfully young for a head coach at 31. Now, at 39, he has an 82-53 record, six playoff trips in eight seasons, a Super Bowl ring and his very own coaching tree, with five former assistants running their own NFL teams: Matt LaFleur (Green Bay), Zac Taylor (Cincinnati), Raheem Morris (Atlanta), Kevin O’Connell (Minnesota) and Liam Coen (Jacksonville).
And if you’re a Rams fan, consider: If McVay’s not discouraged, why should you be?
jalexander@scng.com