Rams outlast Cardinals

Inglewood, CA (News4UsOnline) – It wasn’t easy, but the Los Angeles Rams got the job done. The Rams needed to win their season finale against the Arizona Cardinals to finally seal their playoff seeding. Thanks to four touchdown passes from quarterback Matthew Stafford, the Rams defeated the Cardinals, 37-20. 

“I think Matthew’s the MVP of the league,” Rams head coach Sean McVay said after the game. “He played that way. I wouldn’t want anybody else leading the way. I got a lot of respect for a bunch of people in this league, but there’s nobody I’d rather have be the quarterback of the LA Rams than Matthew Stafford. His play speaks for itself.”

The outcome was not as easy as the final score might indicate. The three-win Cardinals actually made it a ballgame and jumped ahead of the Rams 20-16 in the third quarter. That seemed to light a fire under the Rams. LA then outscored Arizona 21-0 the rest of the game to secure its No. 5 seeding in the NFC playoff scenario. 

The Rams play the Carolina Panthers, who beat them in Week 13, in an NFC Wild Card playoff game next. On the road. 

“Really good defense,” Stafford said. “Timely guys make big plays on offense for them too in the skill position area so it’ll be a big challenge. We’re going to play as well as we can.”

With three wins on the season, the Cardinals had one of the worst records in the NFL coming into the game. Yet, the Rams still found themselves being tested. Despite their lowly record, the Cardinals showed the Rams this was not simply going to be a walk in the park. Far from it. 

There were a few takeaways from this game. The first is that Stafford reaffirmed his case as a top league MVP candidate by throwing his 43rd, 44th, 45th, and 46th touchdown passes on the season. 

“I’m just trying to do as best I can, man. Trying to play the game the way I know how to play it. I felt like I had a nice season and really just proud of our team,” Stafford remarked. 

The importance of beating the Cardinals had a lot riding on it. A playoff seeding was on the line for the Rams. The Rams entered Week 18 of the NFL’s regular season having dropped their last two games. 

Both defeats were losses against NFC opponents. The Rams lost in overtime to the Seattle Seahawks, then found themselves on the losing end to the Atlanta Falcons. So, losing to the Cardinals was not an option for the Rams. 

“I really liked what our team did,” McVay said. “We faced some adversity. Part of the reason that we wanted to play is to figure out how to be able to dig deep, play some complimentary ball. We go down three points and then we end up getting stop after stop. The kicking game was doing what they’re supposed to do. You get three touchdowns. Next thing you know, you look up, you’re up 17 points and that’s how you close the game out.” 

Just a few weeks back in Week 14, the Rams demolished the Cardinals, winning 45-17. And the game wasn’t even that close. By all accounts, the Rams’ second encounter with the Cardinals figured to be a cruise walk. The game turned out to be a lot tighter and more contested.  

The Cardinals have struggled all season. So when they took on the Rams for the final game of the regular season, Arizona had lost its previous eight games. The last time the Cardinals claimed a win was in November. That was Week 9 against the Dallas Cowboys.  

By halftime, the Rams appeared to be halfway to their goal, methodically building a 16-6 lead into intermission. Arizona came out in the third quarter and briefly took the lead by scoring 14 points in the period. 

With the Cardinals up 20-16, that seemed to light a fire under the Rams offense, which had been stagnant in the quarter. Colby Parkinson caught Matthew Stafford’s second touchdown of the game, a 21-yard run-and-catch, to give LA the lead back with 42 seconds remaining in the period. 

The touchdown toss by Stafford was his 44th on the season, good enough to surpass Dan Marino at No. 7 on the all-time touchdown passes mark. Stafford then connected with Tyler Higbee for his third touchdown of the game, and 45th scoring pass on the season with a 22-yard strike to the veteran tight end. 

The Stafford-to-Higbee touchdown padded the Rams’ lead to 30-20 with a little over 10 minutes left in the fourth quarter, and finally gave Los Angeles some separation from their pesky NFC West rivals. 

Stafford completed his big afternoon with a 1-yard scoring pass to Parkinson late in the fourth quarter to put the game to bed.