It seems like the story of the season for the Los Angeles Rams has been one step forward, two steps back. They’ve won three games, but each of those victories has been followed up by a loss – and in one instance, back-to-back losses.
They’ve yet to win consecutive games, and as a result, they’re now 3-4 on the year. They lost their fourth game of the season on Sunday, a 24-17 defeat that came at the hands of the Pittsburgh Steelers. The Rams led the game 17-10 into the fourth quarter, but the offense went ice cold and the defense had no answer for a suddenly effective Steelers passing attack.
It was a frustrating loss to a team that they should have beaten, but Sean McVay remains encouraged. In fact, he said after the loss that he’s more encouraged by the Rams now than he was at the start of the season.
“I think the biggest challenge is the consistency,” McVay said. “Through four quarters, the complementary football. You look at it, there’s some really good opportunities for us to be able to run away with games or extend some leads and we haven’t been able to do that. When we get into some of these tight games, how do we figure out a way to finish and get some of the results that we’ve gotten, whether you look at the Indianapolis game, being able to pull away from the Cardinals in the second half and being able to pull away against Seattle in Week 1. Those are things we want to be able to replicate, but easier said than done. We have to figure out how to be able to do it collectively, but I love working with this group. I’m more encouraged now than I was at the very beginning of the season and you know I’m an optimistic guy, but I see enough good stuff that I know a lot of the stuff that went down today, we’ve done it at a better level. It’s just, how do we figure out a way to reach our guys, how do we make better decisions in these critical moments? And how do we play off one another. That’s all you can do and that’s all I know how to do.”
The Rams looked like a playoff team when they steamrolled the Seahawks in Week 1, 30-13. Since then, it’s been a mixed bag. They held their own against the 49ers but lost by seven. They faded down the stretch against the Bengals but only lost by three. They allowed the Eagles to pull away in the second half after grabbing a lead just before halftime, and now they blew a fourth-quarter lead to the Steelers.
They’ve had some very winnable games but this is a young team that can’t seem to close out games.