The Los Angeles Rams continue to be competitive on both side of the ball, but they ultimately came up short against the Philadelphia Eagles in Week 5 to drop to 2-3 on the season.
The Rams had several opportunities to put pressure on the Eagles, but they just couldn’t capitalize in the second half.
Sean McVay had a great first half calling plays before the wheels fell off the second half, allowing Philadelphia to seize control of the game.
Afterward, McVay reflected on the loss and came away determined to get his team back on track. “You give Philly credit. They did a great job being able to make enough plays. They possessed the football. They were really efficient on third downs. I thought we came out ready to go and I thought we had a good momentum. [Head] Coach [Nick] Sirianni and that group, they do an excellent job.
“We got to play better complimentary football. That’s one of the things that I thought was really reflected. It’s one thing to say, we have to be able to do it, but I believe that this team is capable of making those plays. I know they’re capable of making those plays.
“I’m excited about going back to work with these guys and figuring out how we can continue to demonstrate the resilience, the response that’s in alignment with what we want. There’s a lot of learning opportunities and that’s going to be consistent with any team, but I think especially a lot of guys that are going through things for the first time. I’m not making excuses at all because we expect to accelerate our progression and I believe in this group. (I’m) disappointed with the inability to be able to play off one another, but we’re going to come back. We’re going to look at this film, we’re going to figure out where we can be better and we’re going to respond, I can promise you that.”
It was a tale of two halves as Los Angeles moved the football well to open the afternoon before stalling out. McVay credited Philadelphia for their ability to control time of possession and acknowledged that there is a premium on drives afterward.
“When you look at it, you have three drives in the first half. You have a 14-play opening touchdown drive. You have a six-play drive on your second one where you end up having a drop on a third down where it’s a situation where a guy has made a lot of plays for us that doesn’t end up bringing that in. And then you end up scoring where he comes back, he responds and that’s your three possessions and that’s it.
“You know they’re going to slow the game down. They do a great job of being able to sustain possession. That’s why they’re at the upper echelon of the league when they’ve been able to win these games. And that’s why, even in the second half, those opportunities when you get those possessions are just so important because you might punt the ball away and it might be seven or eight minutes until you get the ball back and then you’re looking up and you’re saying, ‘I can’t believe it’s already the fourth quarter.’ That’s what it kind of felt like today.”
Taking down the reigning NFC champions was going to be a tall task, but McVay and the team have definitely put together flashes of a competitive team. Hopefully they learn from this and right the ship in Week 6 against the Arizona Cardinals.
Sean McVay on second half offensive struggles
The Rams have looked great in almost every first half, but for whatever reason the offense takes a dive in the latter half. McVay tried to explain the imbalance and emphasized that there’s no clear reason for it.
“Every single play has a little bit different narrative. Sometimes it might be the protection, we might end up just missing an opportunity to be able to connect. It might be a bad play call and so there’s not one consistent thing. We were fortunate to overcome where we even got the first down when we were backed up after we got the illegal lineman, ineligible players, downfield on the screen. We ended up just running it on the third and long and got the face mask on…I think it was a third-and-27, but ended up hitting explosive to [WR] Puka Nacua and it’s being able to continue to capitalize off that. The margin for error and the opportunities were very limited today. There’s not one answer, I can promise you that.”
