Rams running out of time to fix offense after loss to Eagles – Orange County Register

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Rams Kyren Williams, #23, gets pulled down by. Eagles Chauncey Gardner-Johnson, #8, during first quarter action at SoFi Stadium on Sunday, Nov. 24, 2024. (Photo by David Crane, Los Angeles Daily News/SCNG)

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INGLEWOOD — It was all set up for the Rams. Their jumbled, indecisive division, was there for the taking. A win over the Philadelphia Eagles on Sunday, and the Rams would move into a first-place tie in the NFC West with the Seahawks and Cardinals, the former of which beat the latter earlier in the day.

Instead, as it’s been for much of the season, it was one step forward, two back for the Rams (5-6) in a 37-20 loss.

The offense that moved in the first quarter like it was on the I-110’s ExpressLane, with nine first downs, zero third downs and a Kyren Williams touchdown? Replaced in the second quarter by a group that went three-and-out three times and totaled negative six yards in four drives.

This allowed the Eagles (9-2) to possess the ball for 10:57 in the second quarter, and slowly begin to wear out a Rams defense that had played feistily to start the game. But most good feelings evaporated when Philadelphia went back ahead with an A.J. Brown touchdown with 1:27 left in the second quarter.

The rest were gone when running back Saquon Barkley popped off a 70-yard touchdown run on the first play of the third quarter, his first of two 70-yard touchdown runs.

“They had a lot of long drives, and that’s kind of been indicative of how our season has kind of gone recently,” defensive tackle Kobie Turner said. “At some point, we gotta stop letting them drive the ball so much, right? Like, they possessed the ball 11 minutes in the second quarter, they’re driving, they’re driving, and then when we get to the fourth quarter and we have to have a stop, they’ve been driving the ball the entire game.”

Given the Eagles were set to receive that second-half kickoff, you’d think the Rams would have wanted to be aggressive to end the second quarter after getting the ball back with 1:27 to play.

But after quarterback Matthew Stafford was sacked for the second of five times, head coach Sean McVay opted to let the clock run before rushing the ball on third down instead of taking a chance on 3rd-and-long with his offense, you can kind of understand why.

Williams fumbled the ball twice. The second was recovered by the Rams, but the first went back to the Eagles and ended a promising Rams drive on their opening possession. Williams now has four fumbles in the last four games.

“That’s the ball, that’s the most important thing,” Williams said. “We gotta be able to take care of that no matter what the situation is.”

The offensive line emphasized stymieing defensive tackle Jalen Carter and did a good job for the most part. But that left the rest of the Eagles’ four-man rushes with one-on-ones against the rest of the Rams line, matchups that Philadelphia took advantage of.

“If I can just get [Carter] on my own that opens some help for the guards on the other side, but sometimes that’s what you need, you need that help,” right guard Kevin Dotson said. “We just had to get it done on first and second down and it wasn’t all coming together the way we wanted it to.”

The team went 0-for-8 on third down and 2-for-4 in the red zone. Puka Nacua was flagged for a push-off penalty on a play that would have converted 3rd-and-9 in the fourth quarter with the Rams trying to make it a one-possession game.

So after the first Barkley back-breaker, one of 26 carries for 255 yards on the evening, the Rams responded with a drive down the field for a Demarcus Robinson touchdown. But the defense was already gassed and quickly allowed the Eagles to respond, with Barkley and Kenneth Gainwell continuing to take bites out of the Rams before swallowing them whole with a 13-yard touchdown carry by the latter.

Rams kicker Joshua Karty missed his third field-goal attempt in as many games on the ensuing drives, and there was nothing to hold the Eagles back at that point.

It was not a completely cataclysmic weekend for the Rams; they dropped to third in the NFC West, tied with the 49ers. One game back with six to play, including one against each divisional rival, is not an impossible hole to climb out of.

But it’s getting late in the season for the Rams to keep fixing the same mistakes that recur week to week, and have the potential to sink their playoff dreams.

“There’s humbling nights like this in football; it’s all about how you respond. I do know this team has the capability to be able to respond,” McVay said. “I don’t know any other way to go about it than to say tonight it didn’t go down for us, and there was a lot of reasons for it. … But we’re going to come back swinging, I know that much.”

Originally Published: November 24, 2024 at 8:45 PM PST