Thursday Night Football is a different animal. Players are coming off a game that was played just four days earlier and coaches have had much less time to game plan for their opponent.
Winning on a short week isn’t easy, but Sean McVay has had a ton of success in Thursday night games during his career with the Rams. Ahead of this week’s game against the 5-1 Vikings, that should give the Rams some hope despite being home underdogs.
Since 2017, McVay has led the Rams to a 6-2 record on Thursday Night Football. Their record gets even better when you focus specifically on short-week games, excluding their Week 1 matchup with the Bills in 2022 when the Rams lost 31-10 at home.
In Thursday night games outside of Week 1, the Rams are 6-1 and their only loss was a 30-29 defeat against the Seahawks in 2019. Los Angeles led that game for most of the second half, only to give up a touchdown catch to Chris Carson with 2:28 left in the fourth quarter.
| Tot. | Tot. | Tot. | Tot. | Tot. | Tot. | Tot. | Tot. | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Rk | Team | Date | Day | G# | Week | Opp | Result | Tot | Ply | Y/P | DPly | DY/P | TO | ToP | Time | |
| 1 | LAR | 2023-12-21 | Thu | 15 | 16 | NOR | W 30-22 | 458 | 67 | 6.84 | 58 | 5.84 | 0 | 34:18 | 2:52 | |
| 2 | LAR | 2022-12-08 | Thu | 13 | 14 | LVR | W 17-16 | 282 | 61 | 4.62 | 58 | 5.21 | 1 | 29:39 | 3:03 | |
| 3 | LAR | 2021-10-07 | Thu | 5 | 5 | @ | SEA | W 26-17 | 476 | 67 | 7.10 | 60 | 5.90 | 1 | 33:03 | 3:05 |
| 4 | LAR | 2020-12-10 | Thu | 13 | 14 | NWE | W 24-3 | 318 | 62 | 5.13 | 58 | 3.79 | 1 | 31:46 | 2:47 | |
| 5 | LAR | 2019-10-03 | Thu | 5 | 5 | @ | SEA | L 29-30 | 477 | 67 | 7.12 | 67 | 6.40 | 2 | 24:42 | 3:27 |
| 6 | LAR | 2018-09-27 | Thu | 4 | 4 | MIN | W 38-31 | 556 | 55 | 10.11 | 71 | 6.28 | 0 | 27:46 | 3:07 | |
| 7 | LAR | 2017-09-21 | Thu | 3 | 3 | @ | SFO | W 41-39 | 418 | 60 | 6.97 | 74 | 5.69 | 2 | 29:43 | 3:24 |
In their seven Thursday night games with short rest, the Rams have outscored their opponents 205-158, the fifth-best scoring margin of any team since 2017 in such games. Their six wins are tied for the third-most in non-Week 1 Thursday night games and their average of 6.8 yards per play is by far the best in football; the 49ers are second at 6.36 yards per play.
The team the Rams are facing this Thursday, the Vikings, are 4-2 in TNF games, so they’ve also been good in these contests since 2017. Kevin O’Connell is 1-1 in Thursday night games since he was hired in 2022.
The Vikings may be the better team right now but the Rams have a better track record on Thursday Night Football in the last eight years.
