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The Rams Played Like Ass and Still Beat the Eagles
By Matt Schultz
Published:
That sucked! The Rams beat the Eagles 24-20 despite Los Angeles playing some pretty bad football. I don’t understand how that happened. How did that happen?
The Rams did just about everything wrong on Sunday. They looked sloppy and disjointed and undisciplined. They had their coach so baffled and frustrated that he was doing pee-wee football stuff like this:
Here’s a running list I had going of everything the Rams did poorly. I planned on running this list to dunk on LA in a “This is your super team, national media?” type of way. But now I guess I am just dunking on the Birds.
Penalties
The Rams committed 8 penalties for 100 yards. That’s the 4th most in the NFL so far in Week 4. This has been an ongoing issue for the Rams, too. After committing 10 penalties for 93 yards across Weeks 1 and 2, the Rams have piled up 21 penalties for 191 yards in Weeks 3 and 4, pushing their season totals to 31 penalties (tied for 6th most) and 284 penalty yards (7th most).
This is losing football type stuff. Even the Rams’ coaches were getting called for momentum-killing penalties:
Matt Stafford Played Bad
Matthew Stafford on the day: 32 of 51 (62.7%) for 317 yards, 2 interceptions, zero touchdowns, a 63.9 passer rating, averaged just 6.2 yards per attempt. That’s a bad Stafford day. Beyond the stats, he also just looked out of rhythm. He seemed rushed and uncomfortable in the pocket. He sailed a bunch of balls like this:
Maybe that’s a credit to the Eagles secondary, which played really solid and broke up some big chunk plays (10 passes deflected). The Eagles’ pass rush kept him off balance too — the Birds registered 1 sack (by Nolan Smith Jr. for an 8-yard loss) and 5 QB hits (2 by Jalyx Hunt, and 1 each by Nolan Smith Jr., Jalen Carter, and Moro Ojomo).
And yet, Stafford walks out of Philly with a win. Not good.
Dropped Balls/Incompletions
The Rams had 19 incomplete passes on 51 attempts. Davante Adams dropped a ball in the end zone. Tyler Higbee dropped this one on 4th and 8:
At the time I’m writing this blog, the Rams lead the NFL with 44 total incompletions (on 106 pass attempts, a 41.5% incompletion rate) across Weeks 3 and 4. And somehow, some way, the Rams still scored 14 unanswered points in the fourth quarter on Sunday to secure the win over the Eagles. Awful.
If the Birds see the Rams again down the line, I doubt we’ll see LA play this bad again. Really blew this one. That sucked.
Matt Schultz is a comedy and sports writer from Philadelphia. He’s written extensively for ClickHole, The Onion, and Conan O’Brien’s Team Coco. His work has been featured in Vulture, Deadspin, The A.V. Club, Paste Magazine, and other publications. Much of his sports journalism can be found on college basketball websites that don’t exist anymore (PhilaHoops Heads rise up…) email: M.Schultz@sportradar.com