Rams don’t convert in loss to Eagles

INGLEWOOD, Calif. – For a half, the Los Angeles Rams played the Philadelphia Eagles close to the vest. One play into the third quarter, the Eagles took a Saquon Barkley 70-yard touchdown run and rode that play all the way to a 37-20 win against the Rams at SoFi Stadium in a Sunday Night Football game. 

“There’s humbling nights like this in football,” Rams head coach Sean McVay said after the game. “It’s all about how you respond. I do know that this team has the capability to be able to respond and we’ll get ourselves up off the mat and we’ll have a good week of preparation this week.”

After falling to the Eagles, the Los Angeles Rams didn’t gain ground on the Seattle Seahawks and Arizona Cardinals in their chase to win the NFC West Division. 

The good news is that the Rams are just one game back of the Seahawks and Cardinals and still have six games left on their schedule to make a move. That might be easier said than done, but the Rams have a legitimate chance to make it to the postseason. 

“You get yourself up off the mat,” McVay remarked. “You look at the things that we can control, you look at the things that we can correct, and you just go back to work. I don’t know any other way to go about it other than to say, ‘Tonight it didn’t go down for us and there are a lot of reasons for it.’ You do give Philadelphia the credit that they deserve. But we’re going to come back swinging. I know that much.”

With regular season games scheduled against the Cardinals and Seahawks at SoFi Stadium and a divisional contest against the San Francisco 49ers, the Rams control their own playoff destiny. 

That would mean that they would have to win ballgames. More specifically, the Rams would have to run the table and win all six games or go at least 5-1 the rest of the way to either win their division or inch their way into the playoff scene. 

To make this happen there are a couple of takeaways from the defeat to the Eagles that the Rams absorbed. Sustaining drives would be the first thing on the list. That would mean converting third downs. In eight attempts, the Rams did not convert a single third down. 

“We didn’t put ourselves in a lot of favorable ones today so you don’t do that against a defense, it’s going to be difficult,” Rams quarterback Matthew Stafford said. “No doubt there are some that we can convert on, look back on, but it takes great execution by everybody to convert on third down, we got to do a better job.”

Without the success of converting third-down attempts, the run game was not effective enough to keep the Eagles defensive line from teeing off on Stafford. Stafford completed 24 of 36 passes for 243 yards and two touchdowns. 

However, the Eagles would sack Stafford five times in the ballgame. 

“They rushed four  the majority of the night,” Stafford added. “That’s kind of what they do. [They] didn’t do anything that we didn’t expect just executed a little better than we did. Had to stay ahead of the chains a little bit better than we did.” 

Football games are won and lost when one team sets the tone. The Rams appeared to be setting that tone on the team’s opening drive of the game. Kyren Williams, who rushed for 72 yards and scored a touchdown for the Rams, was zipping his way  through the Eagles’ defense like scissors to paper. 

Unfortunately, a fumble by Williams in the red zone knocked down a potential score by LA. More importantly, the turnover, as early as it was in the game, felt like a game-changer.    

“I thought our guys continued to battle,” McVay said. “We ended up getting a scoring drive right after that but it did take the… it was tough because I thought our offensive line came out ready to go.”

“I thought (RB) Kyren (Williams) was hitting those holes and that play, you’re in scoring position already right there. You felt good about some different options and for us to turn it over there when we did, it was costly for sure,” McVay added. 

Top Image Caption: NGLEWOOD, CA – NOVEMBER 24: Los Angeles Rams quarterback Matthew Stafford (9) hands off to Los Angeles Rams running back Kyren Williams (23) during the Philadelphia Eagles vs Los Angeles Rams NFL game on November 24, 2024, at SoFI Stadium in Inglewood, CA. (Photo by Jevone Moore/Icon Sportswire)