Before Saquon Barkley and the Philadelphia Eagles came to town, the Los Angeles Rams had gained some confidence with four wins in their past five games.
However, all the progress they made, especially with their young defense, was quickly undone when Barkley rushed for 255 yards and scored two long touchdowns in the Eagles’ 37-20 blowout win on Sunday night.
The Rams (5-6) allowed the largest performance by an opposing running back in the history of the franchise, which started in 1936. This loss showed just how far they are from being serious title contenders.
Coach Sean McVay didn’t have much to say that wasn’t obvious after his defense gave up 481 yards to the 9-2 Eagles. The Eagles are a team that has veteran leadership and depth, which the Rams had three years ago during their championship run but haven’t been able to rebuild since then.
“There’s humbling nights like this in football,” McVay said. “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.”
The Rams would do well to keep in mind that playoff contention is still very possible in the weak NFC West, where Los Angeles is only one game behind first place.
However, everything McVay wants for his team is still a long way from being achieved, despite a few solid wins in the last six weeks.
Not much went right against the Eagles, who seemed to have an answer for almost everything the Rams tried on both offense and defense. Los Angeles’ offense had some good drives, but the Rams’ defense allowed points in every quarter.
“You’ve got to look at the tape of this one (and) figure out where to go from there, as far as what you did wrong,” Matthew Stafford said after throwing two touchdown passes. “How can you correct those things? Not going to let these guys beat us twice. This is the NFL. You play the game long enough, you’re going to have unfortunate nights. You’re going to have nights where you don’t play as good as you possibly can. You don’t ever want them to get out of hand like they did, but you’ve got to move on.”
