National Football League

Is it time for Sean McVay, Rams to turn the page to 2023 season?

Published Nov. 11, 2022 8:00 a.m. ET

While Los Angeles Rams head coach Sean McVay acknowledged more has gone wrong this season than the previous five seasons combined, he's still not willing to shovel dirt on his expectations for the 2022 season.

And why should he? While the defending Super Bowl champs certainly have not played up to expectations this year, at 3-5 they are just a game out of the final spot in the NFC playoff field behind the 4-4 San Francisco 49ers.

And McVay only needs to glance back over his shoulder to last year when San Francisco scuffled to a 3-5 start before turning things around and reaching the NFC title game -- where they almost defeated the Rams at SoFi Stadium.

"All you can do is compete to the best of your ability," McVay told reporters this week. "I know this — we have high expectations and standards. But all we can do is say, ‘Hey, let's try to look at what our role is — whether that be coaches or players — compete, approach it with an enthusiasm and a hard-working mindset and mentality. Embrace the challenges that accompany it, and what else the hell can you do?"

Rams defensive co-captain Jalen Ramsey provided an example of those challenges, calling out the offense after his team's last-second loss to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers last week.

"We have so many games where the defense will get a stop and then we'll go to the sideline, and they'll be like: ‘Y'all stay locked in. Y'all stay locked in. You're going to have to go back out there again,'" Ramsey told reporters after the game. "It shouldn't be like that. We've got to have some dogs who are going to be like, ‘We're going to close this mother---- out.'"

Ramsey took things step further this week on his Straight Off The Press podcast.

"People are pissed off on the defense obviously, because we feel like we've been playing well enough to win some games," Ramsey said. "They feel like they've not been able to do what they know that they can do and be a high-powered offense. Definitely, this one hurt. This one hurt just because we felt like we really had the game in control, especially like toward the end of the game, and we still came up losing."

McVay and Ramsey point to what the rest of the league has observed on a weekly basis — the Rams are playing their worst football on offense since McVay took over as the team's head coach in 2017.

Injuries along the offensive line are the main culprit. The Rams have started a different offensive-line combination each of the team's eight games this season, including three different left tackles, five different right guards and three different centers.

That lack of cohesion has led to L.A.'s inability to run the football and protect aging quarterback Matthew Stafford, who's been sacked 28 times this year.

Cooper Kupp finished with 128 of L.A.'s 206 total yards in the loss to the Bucs last week. The Rams went three-and-out on eight of the team's 12 total possessions.

The Rams are No. 29 in the NFL in scoring (16.4 points per game) and they're No. 31 in rushing offense (68.4 rushing yards per game. The Rams have been outscored 71-10 in the fourth quarter.

And they could be starting a new quarterback this week. McVay said Stafford entered concussion protocol on Wednesday. If he's not cleared by Sunday, backup John Wolford would get his first start in two years.

"John's a guy that when he's been in these situations, he's stepped in and has done a really good job," McVay said. "It wasn't too long ago that he had to come into a game that we had to have to be able to get into the playoffs. And he performed incredibly well."

Wolford is 2-0 as a starter and provides a little more mobility than Stafford. The Rams could also look to get Bryce Perkins, another athletic quarterback out of Virginia, in the game for snaps in near red zone where he can make some plays with his feet.

Whatever McVay's long-term view is on the season, the Rams apparently are not playing out the string, and remain focused on getting back in the playoff hunt.

"As leaders, you try to make sure there's no separation, which there's not," Rams linebacker Bobby Wagner said. "There's so much confidence with everybody in the organization that we can turn this thing around. It's enough words, we have to go out and do it. The first game is Arizona and then we take it from there."

Added defensive tackle Aaron Donald: "We ain't out of it. Obviously, we've got to get better, play better as a team. But you've got to keep working. That's what it comes down to. My main purpose of playing football is to win. We're still alive."

Eric D. Williams has reported on the NFL for more than a decade, covering the Los Angeles Rams for Sports Illustrated, the Los Angeles Chargers for ESPN and the Seattle Seahawks for the Tacoma News Tribune. Follow him on Twitter at @eric_d_williams.