The Rams scored a season-high 38 points in their win over the Giants on Sunday afternoon, but you’d never know that by the way Sean McVay was talking after the game. He was frustrated with the way the offense played despite scoring five touchdowns and gaining 365 total yards, a nice balance of 234 net passing yards and 131 yards on the ground.
Make no mistake, he was pleased to get the victory in blowout fashion, but McVay wasn’t nearly satisfied with the way his offense played. Here’s how he opened his postgame press conference, crediting the defense while simultaneously saying the offense didn’t play well enough.
“Good team win. Really pleased with our defensive effort today,” he said. “I thought they were outstanding. They got a bunch of short fields. A lot of credit for the first-half points goes to them. Taylor Rapp, Rochell. I thought our rush was outstanding. I thought the defensive coaches put together a good plan. I thought we flew around and I was really pleased with that. I think we can be a lot sharper offensively. We’ve got to start faster. There’s no excuse, got to be better than that. But we’ll take the win and I thought our guys did a nice job.”
McVay was asked what about the offense he wasn’t happy with. Understandably, he wants to see the Rams start much faster on that side of the ball after scoring zero points in the first quarter and falling behind 3-0. They finally got into the end zone with about 10 minutes left in the first half, the first of four touchdowns in the second quarter.
McVay didn’t blame any players specifically and admitted he needs to be better himself, but he wants to see the offense start faster instead of falling behind the way the Rams did on Sunday.
“I just think the slow starts, it’s not good enough,” he said, visibly frustrated. “Not pleased with it. I really liked the way we came out in the second half and were able to have two 14-play drives to control the game. I thought our running backs ran hard. I thought our offensive line did a great job being able to come off and set the line of scrimmage against a very physical defensive line and a physical front as a whole. But again, I don’t want to come up here and continue to say the same things. We’ve just got to do a better job, I’ve got to do a better job. It was a great job by our defense getting us in position to be able to score points as a team, but we’ve got to be better.”
The Rams will have another opportunity to fix things next week against the winless Lions, who boast one of the worst offenses and defenses in football. That’s a game Los Angeles should certainly win, especially being at home.
But if the offense doesn’t grab an early lead against Jared Goff and Detroit, McVay will continue to echo the same frustration that he shared following the Rams’ win over New York.
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