Rams have found ‘different ways to win,’ says McVay

(News4usonline) – The true measure of a team is what they do in a crisis. How a team responds to adversity reflects on their mental toughness. The Los Angeles Rams answered that bell a couple of times against the Baltimore Ravens.

Rams head coach Sean McVay had every confidence in his team that they would pull through after trailing most of the game on the road.

“I did. I don’t know that I’ve ever been a part of a game where we trailed for the whole game and then you find a way to take the lead with as little time as what was left, but I did have a belief,” McVay said. 

For a while, it sure didn’t look like the Rams were going to push through with anything. The Rams had every reason to lose their Week 17 road game against the Lamar Jackson-less Ravens. Quarterback Matthew Stafford didn’t start off having the best of days at the office, throwing two interceptions, including misfiring on a throw that wound up being a pick-six touchdown for the home team.  

Even without Jackson taking the field, the Ravens still managed to run the ball effectively, going for 165 yards on the ground. And late in the game, Baltimore stood inside the Rams’ territory in the red zone, looking like they would come away with a surprise upset win.

Trailing 16-14, a touchdown by Baltimore would have ended the Rams’ win streak at four.

But the defense held the Ravens to a field goal. The domino effect was starting to take place. Okay, with that out of the way, the next thing was to have Stafford lead the Rams down the field for the go-ahead score. Check.

Considering that Baltimore had limited Stafford and the Rams offense to just one touchdown through the first three quarters and putting into the context that the Ravens were fighting for their playoff lives, that task of pulling a rabbit out of a hat was going to prove to be easier said than done.

But as great ballclubs do, the Rams pulled it together to finish off the Ravens.

The first order of business was Stafford doing his job. He did that by leading the Rams on a nine-play, 75-yard scoring drive, capped off by his 7-yard touchdown toss to Odell Beckham with 57 ticks on the clock. Just a play before, Stafford found Beckham for five yards on a 4th-and-5 play.   

“I think the thing that says as much that to me about Matthew is anything that I continue to say is, if there’s one thing you can say about our football team, we’re a mentally tough football team that has some resilience,” said McVay. “And that serves us really well. I think that’s embodied as much by anybody as our quarterback. That’s a trait that is a huge thing. I think any great quarterback has that mental toughness, that resilience, goes 14-for-14. The ball never touched the ground in the second half. He ended up leading two touchdown drives when we had to have it the most. And that’s what it’s about.”

In a cleanup act, Von Miller recorded a huge sack on Baltimore backup quarterback Tyler Huntley on the next series. Miller’s play helped seal the deal for the Rams, a team riding the crest of a five-game winning streak entering the season finale against the San Francisco 49ers.  

As it was, the Rams defense came through twice in the waning minutes of the game, thus sealing a tough 20-19 win against a decimated Baltimore ballclub. The tide turned in their favor when the Rams kept Baltimore out of the end zone and held them to just a field goal on their next-to-last possession.

“I thought our defense, I thought the stand, when it’s second-and-two on the two or first-and-five on the five and they’re up two points with the chance to really make it a two-possession game, you’re thinking, ‘Alright, this is a challenge,’ but I had real belief and conviction that our defense would make a stop,” remarked McVay over Zoom during his weekly press conference. “I thought the play on second-and-two that (S) Taylor Rapp and (DL) Greg Gaines made to get that tackle on the back field to get it to a third-down-and-four, and then ultimately, they take a delay to go to third-and-nine, play the game without a doubt.”

McVay continued, “And I felt like the way that the Matthew had gone in the second half, the way that the offense was moving the football, if we kept it to a one possession game and made them settle for a field goal – which is exactly what our guys did – felt very confident that Matthew and the offense would go lead a touchdown drive. And they definitely answered the bell in a big way.”

After all that was said and done, besides engineering the game-winning drive, Stafford went 26 of 35 for 309 yards and a pair of touchdowns. And when it came down to it, Los Angeles managed to walk away with a gutsy win, the team’s fifth in a row. The last four have been dogfights with three being one-score games.

So has that been a matter of game experience showing up or the team’s mental makeup coming into play down the stretch of these ballgames?

“I think both, I think both,” McVay said. “I think you develop a mental toughness through that experience and through those opportunities if you use it the right way. I think we’ve found different ways to win football games. I do still think (despite) of us turning the ball over the last three weeks and finding a way to win, I think that’s outstanding. I think that shows great resilience, mental toughness.”

“I think the experience that a lot of our key players have developed over the course of their career has led to that mental toughness,” McVay added. “I do think it’s going to be important for us to make sure that we minimize those to be able to play our best ball, to try to win this division against an excellent opponent this weekend.”    

Featured Image Caption: Los Angeles Rams head coach Sean McVay in game mode. Photo by Mark Hammond/News4usonline