INGLEWOOD, Calif. – Every play factors into the outcome of a football game. However, some plays factor more heavily than others. For the Los Angeles Rams, many critical plays helped them record a 30-22 win against the New Orleans Saints at home on Dec. 21.
The victory against the Saints means the Rams have won five of their last six games. With two games left on their schedule for the regular season (New York Giants, San Francisco 49ers), the Rams are now in a position to earn a Wild Card playoff spot.
Going into this game, the Rams knew the Saints would be a tough opponent.
“It’s a team that applies a lot of pressure to you,” Rams head coach Sean McVay said during a Dec. 18 press conference leading up to his team playing the Saints. “I think they’ve got a lot of guys that have played in a lot of big-time games and this is a team that knows how to play winning football in the month of December.”
Both the Rams and Saints entered their Week 16 matchup with identical 7-7 records. Both teams needed to win this ballgame. A victory meant getting a leg up in the postseason chase.
The Rams wound up prevailing thanks to a defense that smothered Derek Carr and the New Orleans offense for three quarters.
The peak play of the offense since their bye week has turned the Rams into a formidable challenge for any team. That starts with quarterback Mattew Stafford who has picked up his play in recent weeks.
Against the Saints, Stafford threw for 328 yards and two touchdowns. It is the fifth straight week that Stafford has thrown for two touchdowns or more in a game. Stafford said working in concert with his teammates has been key.
“That’s everybody, right? Anytime we put the ball in the end zone, whether it’s through the air on the ground, it takes everybody,” Stafford said. “Guys up front got to protect, guys on the outside got to win. Our coaches are doing a great job of giving us answers. I felt ultra-prepared going into a game on a short week that whatever they wanted to do, we were going to have answers to go after them.”
Stafford’s production was aided by the running of Kyren Williams, who gained 104 yards and a score in the Rams win. McVay and the Rams would need both the offensive and defensive units to work in sync to create some separation against the Saints.
This happened late in the second quarter with the Rams tediously holding onto a 10-7 lead. Following a sack of Stafford on a third down, the Saints got the ball back and moved down the field for a potential to score before the half.
A field goal would have knotted the game at 10-10. Worse, a touchdown would have given New Orleans the lead at intermission. The Rams defense shut that down.
On fourth down, the Rams held serve and gave the ball back to their offense. Taking over at their 42-yard line, the Rams drove down the field and hit paydirt when Stafford connected with Demarcus Robinson to complete a 4-yard touchdown pass with 21 seconds remaining in the second quarter.
During a Zoom press conference, McVay, starting with the key stop by the defense, talked about that sequence of plays in the second quarter and how they altered the game.
“That was huge,” McVay remarked. “A lot of people talk about the middle eight, especially because we were getting the ball coming out of the second half and I think we’ve done a really good job of being able to lap people the last couple weeks, take advantage of getting points at the end of the half and then being able to get points coming out of the second half as well.
“And so that was a key and critical stop by the D, outstanding job. And then for us to be able to go punch that thing in with the touchdown to be able to take that lead into the half and then be able to get points coming out in the start of the second half was huge.”
Rams defensive tackle Kobie Turner was just as McVay in describing that sequence of plays that took place in the second quarter.
“I think it was really big,” said Turner. “Just getting the ball back to the offense. The offense was rolling. Any time you get the ball back to an offense that’s on fire like that it’s always a really good thing. Definitely, you know, a little momentum booster, and just letting Matthew do his thing is huge.”
The Rams called the Saints’ bluff on fourth down two other times in the game. New Orleans tried three times to convert on fourth down. All three times, the Rams stuffed the Saints. None, however, was as big as the fourth down stop the Rams made in the second quarter.
“It’s huge, it’s huge,” Rams defensive back Quentin Lake said. “When you get defensive stops like that it’s big momentum shifts. And the fact that we were able to do that and create a momentum shift for our offense…just keep going and fighting throughout the game, is huge. It’s big time.”
Dennis has covered and written about politics, crime, social justice, sports, and entertainment. Dennis currently covers the NFL, MLB, NBA, NCAA, and Olympic sports. Dennis is the editor of News4usonline.com and serves as the publisher of the Compton Bulletin newspaper. He earned a journalism degree from Howard University.