If Sunday’s loss to the Philadelphia Eagles felt familiar, it’s because the Los Angeles Rams lost a similar game to the San Francisco 49ers just three weeks ago. The score wasn’t the same but there were a lot of familiar frustrations from that game that popped up again on Sunday in the Rams’ 23-14 loss to the Eagles.
For starters, the Rams held a second-quarter lead against both teams: 14-10 over the Eagles and 17-10 over the 49ers. Both of those leads were with less than two minutes remaining in the first half, and in both games, the Rams went into halftime without a lead.
Against the Eagles on Sunday, they gave up a four-play, 75-yard drive that ended with a Jalen Hurts touchdown as time expired. Against the 49ers, it was a seven-play, 75-yard drive that was capped off by a Brock Purdy touchdown with no time left on the clock.
In their loss to the 49ers, the Rams were outscored 13-6 in the second half, and three of those points by Los Angeles came on a meaningless field goal as time expired with the game already out of reach. It was a similar story against the Eagles, with Philadelphia outscoring the Rams, 6-0, in the second half to win 23-14.
So in each game, the Rams were outplayed by their opponent after grabbing a late first-half lead, getting outscored by a combined total of 33-6 with zero touchdowns.
Sean McVay said Sunday that it was like déjà vu between Weeks 2 and 5, particularly with the Rams allowing late touchdowns in each game.
“That was tough and those will be things that we’ve got to be able to look at and it was almost identical to the way that things played out against the 49ers. It was, in some instances, déjà vu. We got to figure out, alright, how can we be better in some of those situations? Like I said, you got to play four quarters. No matter what the heck happened in the first half, it’s alright, well how do we figure out how to sustain a drive, score points offensively when we get the ball coming out in the second half? How do we play off one another? You look at it, in the third quarter, when you see a play by Ahkello Witherspoon when they’re going in to take it as a potential two possession lead. He makes a big-time pick. It’s a six-point game at that time and we had some chances. I’m excited about figuring out how the hell we get some of this stuff fixed and I’m not sitting up in here having to rationalize all the stuff that goes on throughout the course of a game because I know we can get this stuff done.”
McVay was uncharacteristically frustrated during his postgame press conference Sunday, at one point even slamming his fist on the podium. His biggest gripe is the Rams’ inability to play complementary football. The defense couldn’t hold a first-half lead in either game, and the offense failed to capitalize on second-half takeaways by Witherspoon against the Bengals and Eagles.
The Rams have plenty to fix in the coming weeks and thankfully, the schedule lightens up with the Cardinals and Steelers coming to town. But at 2-3, they don’t have the luxury of time because a few more losses before the bye could significantly hurt their playoff chances.