The Los Angeles Rams were thoroughly dismantled on the road by the Dallas Cowboys in Week 15 to effectively have their playoff hopes dashed.
There was little for the Rams to hang their hat on after essentially being outplayed in every phase of the game in the abysmal 44-21 loss. Aside from being exposed once again on the defensive side of the ball, head coach Sean McVay struggled to get the offense into any kind of rhythm.
Los Angeles knew full well they needed to win out in order to have any chance of securing the second Wild Card spot. To make matters worse, the Minnesota Vikings created some more distance by taking care of business and beating the Los Angeles Chargers.
Regardless, McVay says the team is still focused on bouncing back rather than their slim playoff hopes during his< a href="https://twitter.com/RamsNFL/status/1206376657675620352" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">postgame press conference:
“We’re not really worried about that, we’re worried about playing better football next week. What’s been surprising about today is I felt like we were ready to go, didn’t play well enough. You do give them credit, they created a lot of the things that didn’t work out in our favor but just typical things that we have been accustomed to doing, we didn’t do very well.”
McVay added that he was confident there was a sense of urgency within the team until they started to fall behind versus the Cowboys:
“I had a good feeling all week and the guys had a good look in their eye but once the game started, you could just feel that there was some momentum that they ended up creating on their own as a result of making some plays and getting some stops and we didn’t do that.”
Whether or not the Rams seemed ready beforehand no longer matters since it led to such a one-sided result. McVay is now left with even more questions going into the offseason than he did to start the 2019 NFL season.
It is no secret that expectations were sky high in Los Angeles coming off a trip to the Super Bowl and this team failed to avoid the dreaded hangover that comes with such a deep playoff run. The Rams have invested plenty of capital to secure their key pieces and have little to show for it now that they are on the cusp of missing the playoffs.
All McVay can do now is get the Rams back on track and let fate run its course until he is forced to make some crucial decisions in the offseason.
