Sean McVay is always quick to take the blame for his team coming up short. Sometimes he falls on the sword when his players don’t execute, and other times, a loss really is mostly his fault.
Monday night was certainly a case of the latter.
McVay deserves the bulk of the blame for the Rams’ loss to the Bengals. There was poor execution on both sides of the ball, from the pass protection up front to the tackling in the middle of the field to the coverage on Ja’Marr Chase. But nothing was worse than McVay’s game plan against Cincinnati.
It all started in the first quarter when the Rams had first-and-goal from the 2-yard line after Tutu Atwell was ruled out of bounds on his 22-yard end-around. Rather than running it with Kyren Williams, who had three rushing touchdowns in the first two games, McVay called three straight passes: a sack on Matthew Stafford and then two incompletions.
The Rams settled for a field goal, going up 3-0 after it seemed like they would take an early 7-0 lead over Cincinnati.
It wasn’t the only time McVay inexplicably abandoned the run, either. He went away from Kyren Williams and the ground game all night long. Williams finished with 10 carries for 38 yards, but six of those carries came in the first half, going for 26 yards. At halftime, the score was 6-6, so it’s not as if the Rams had to abandon the run to play catchup.
This was against a bad Bengals run defense, too. Cincinnati allowed the most rushing yards in the NFL through the first two weeks and gave up an average of 5.0 yards per carry, which ranked sixth-worst. Yet, McVay did what he’s done so often as the Rams’ head coach and skewed heavily toward the pass.
Yes, there were situations where the Rams were behind the chains and had to try to get into more manageable third downs, but not enough to only warrant 10 runs by Williams, one of which came in the final two minutes.
To make matters worse, McVay put the ball in Stafford’s hand when it was obvious that the offensive line couldn’t hold up against the Bengals’ pass rush without Alaric Jackson at left tackle. Zach Thomas was getting beat on just about every rep, allowing constant pressure and a few sacks after taking over for the injured Jackson.
One of the best ways to neutralize a fierce pass rush is by running the ball or calling screens. McVay rarely did either of those things. So, the Bengals kept pinning their ears back and Trey Hendrickson kept beating Thomas with the greatest of ease, disrupting everything the Rams tried to do on offense.
At the very least, McVay should’ve tried to chip the pass rusher across from Thomas with a tight end or running back. He didn’t have to go max protection, but a simple chip or keeping one tight end to help block would’ve been a big help for the struggling left tackle.
And last but not least, there was the clock management. McVay had already burned two of his timeouts earlier in the second half, so on their last-ditch desperation drive at the end, they were up against the clock. A completion to Tyler Higbee gained 15 yards, but he decided not to go out of bounds. A catch by Tutu Atwell on the next play went for 7 yards, but he also chose to cut inside instead of getting out of bounds. That’s not completely on the head coach, but everyone should know to get out of bounds to save precious time.
Worst yet, McVay finally decided to run the ball with 1:35 left in the game from the Bengals’ 3-yard line, which wasted 22 seconds. It’s not the fact that the play milked the clock. It’s that McVay waited until then to finally run the ball.
There were a lot of reasons the Rams lost this game, from Stafford’s inaccuracy and turnovers to the defense’s inability to cover Ja’Marr Chase. But McVay’s game plan and refusal to run the ball against a defense that couldn’t stop the run in the first two weeks – and his baffling decision not to give Thomas help at left tackle – were perhaps the primary reasons for the loss.
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