The Los Angeles Rams pulled off a stunning comeback against the San Francisco 49ers on Sunday afternoon, erasing a 14-point first-half deficit at home. It was the biggest comeback of Sean McVay’s career, which is both surprising and a testament to how rare it is for his team to trail by a wide margin.
Falling behind their opponents has been the story of the Rams’ season thus far, and while they did manage to come from behind in Week 3, that’s not the way McVay wants his team playing all year.
Against the Lions, the Rams were down 17-3 early in the third quarter and they still took Detroit to overtime thanks to a late-game surge. In Week 3, they tailed the Cardinals 21-0 early in the second quarter. And against the 49ers, they were down 14-0 only 13 minutes into the game.
Sean McVay acknowledged the Rams’ need to start faster and avoid falling behind by such wide margins, which completely changes the game plan on offense. The formula is simple: “just playing better.”
“I think being able to (pick up) first downs, to be able to stop people from scoring on opening possessions,” McVay said. “I don’t think there’s any magic formula. It’s let’s get some stops, let’s play complementary football, let’s try to be able to get on the scoreboard and try to be able to establish a little bit of a lead. We haven’t done that nearly good enough, but it is about how you finish, but I would like us to start better. I definitely am really proud of the resilience and the grit of the group. You’d prefer not to find out about it being down 14-0 and putting ourselves in some of the holes that we’ve been in, but they continued to battle, they continued to fight and for that I was proud of them. I think starting fast is simply as clear as let’s just play better, let’s play complementary football, let’s get stops and then let’s turn those stops into points from an offensive perspective.”
Though the Rams were still able to run the ball successfully despite being down 14-0 to the 49ers, the first two games yielded a pass-heavy game script because of the hole the offense was in. It made the offense one-dimensional, allowing the opponent to rush the quarterback without much threat of a run game.
Against the Bears in Week 4, the Rams should be able to avoid an early deficit. Both teams have averaged just one point per game in the first quarter, second-worst in the entire NFL. The difference is the Rams are allowing 9.3 first-quarter points per game (fourth-worst) and the Bears are giving up just 3.3 points per game in the opening frame (eighth-best).
