The Rams squeaked by the Bears in the divisional round of this year’s NFL playoffs on Sunday night, beating Chicago 20-17 to advance to the NFC championship game. As the score reflects it was a tight contest that could have gone any number of ways in the final minutes of regulation and overtime. But Los Angeles was able to withstand the shock of Caleb Williams’s ludicrous game-tying touchdown throw, intercepting the Bears QB on his first OT possession and kicking the game-winning field goal a few minutes later.
After the exciting win, Rams coach Sean McVay lauded his team for gritting out a tight win, as expected. But, rather unexpectedly, the 39-year-old also called out his own “bad coaching” as one of the obstacles L.A. had to overcome to win the game.
“Offensively, man, I did not do a very good job for our group tonight,” McVay said to reporters. “But I thought our guys were able to overcome it.
“I did not like the feel for the flow of the game that I had outside of the first series, where our guys did a great job. Defensively, it kept us in it in spite of how poor of a job I did for our group. But like I said, I'm really grateful for this group being able to find a way, stick with it and be able to overcome some bad coaching by me tonight.”
It’s unusual to see a coach so quickly and openly acknowledge he struggled, especially following a huge playoff game. But McVay obviously felt like he didn’t do his best work in Chicago and wanted to give credit to his guys for fighting through self-inflicted setbacks.
It is a fair assessment, too. The Rams scored a touchdown on their opening drive and did not see the end zone again until the fourth quarter. It was very cold and windy at Soldier Field, to be sure. And the Bears’ defense was no pushover. But McVay clearly struggled to get into a rhythm with his playcalling. Furthermore, the coach did not exactly nail the endgame scenarios.
The Rams faced a third down just before the two-minute warning and a three-point lead; Chicago had one timeout remaining. They could have allowed MVP candidate Matthew Stafford to drop back and pass the ball to cement the win. Instead McVay called a run play, which normally is a fine decision to force the losing team to take a timeout. But it was so close to the two-minute warning that the Bears did not need to take a timeout, which rendered the play useless. It also meant McVay wasted an opportunity to try to get a first down and effectively win the game given the lack of timeouts on the opposite sideline. The Bears got the ball back and scored a TD to tie it up with 18 seconds left.
At that point Los Angeles elected to kneel the ball and embrace overtime, but that’s another decision worthy of examination from McVay. The Rams had two timeouts left and arguably the best QB in the NFL this season. There’s a strong argument to be made they should have played for the win instead of just heading to overtime. It’s less of an obvious error than the third-and-10 rush McVay called in the above scenario but it nevertheless was a conservative decision that left a lot up to chance.
Both calls by McVay paid off in the sense that the Rams won the game. But the coach knows he didn’t put his best foot forward on Sunday. McVay’s team will need him operating at an elite capacity next week in Seattle if they are to best the Seahawks and head back to the Super Bowl.
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This article was originally published on www.si.com as Sean McVay Called Out His Own ‘Bad Coaching’ After Rams Beat Bears.
