The 2025 season for the Los Angeles Rams ends here. They fell to the Seattle Seahawks on the road 31-27. Seattle will face the New England Patriots in the Super Bowl.
This is a numbing loss that will require weeks of reconciliation to move on from. The Seahawks are a young team with a wealth of salary cap space. They aren’t going anywhere.
Meanwhile, the Rams—while they have plenty of salary cap of their own—are approaching significant paydays for their developing stars. LA has a short window of contention
for as long as they remain tied to Matthew Stafford and sticking the landing to their next quarterback will be easier said than done, even if they hold two first-round picks in the draft.
The shortcomings of the current state of the roster were on display in Seattle. Let’s take then one at a time.
Winners
NONE
Losers
Xavier Smith, PR
Xavier Smith will turn into somewhat of a scapegoat for this loss, and to an extent it’s deserved. He strangely attempted to field a punt while falling backwards and gave Seattle the ball in the red zone. They scored shortly after.
The Rams benched Smith as a punt returner and inserted Kyren Williams. This maybe cost them field position later in the game as Williams doesn’t do much besides cleanly field the ball. It might have been better to stick with Smith, even if he should immediately be replaced for next season.
Don’t get me wrong. Smith probably deserves the largest share of blame for this loss. It’s pure poetry that the Rams season ended with a major special teams blunder, as it was a common theme throughout the year.
Secondary
The Rams have no answers in the secondary. Nearly everyone played poorly with the lone exception of second-year safety Kamren Kinchens. Kinchens took Sam Darnold down on a deep sack to help the Rams get the ball back in the fourth quarter.
Even last week’s hero. Kam Curl, was inept in coverage in this game. He allowed a deep pass to Jaxson Smith-Njigba and gave up multiple first down conversions when the Rams were desperate for a stop.
Quentin Lake is not free from criticism either. He was fortunate to not be flagged on a late force out on Rashid Shaheed. If the Rams won this game, it could have been viewed as his Nickel Robey-Coleman moment.
But the most glaring issue, of course, was at corner. It’s baffling that the Rams are 20 weeks deep into their season and still don’t know their best combination of players on the perimeter. They started the game with Cobie Durant and Darious Williams. Williams immediately allowed a deep shot to Shahid and Seattle often picked on him. Roger McCreary seemed like the best option after last week’s win over the Bears. He had a relatively quiet night, which is better than what Williams contributed. Emmanuel Forbes did not play much but didn’t seem to make a memorably positive play.
The frustrating part is the fact the Rams did nothing to improve the secondary over the offseason. They spent their first draft pick on their third-string tight end. LA banked on improvement from Forbes which worked well until the wheels came off.
The Rams made this bed and paid the consequences. They also exacerbated the problem by not putting their best options on the field.
Sean McVay, head coach
In my view this loss boils down to the following key situations. There’s no denying this was a sloppy game for a usually well-coached team. There’s no one to blame other than LA’s leading man.
- Settling for two field goals in the first half
- Approaching the final offensive possession in the first half very conservatively
- Targeting the third-string running back on third down on this drive
- Letting Seattle score before the half
- Xavier Smith’s muffed punt in the early third quarter
- In the fourth quarter with the opportunity to take the lead, Stafford targeted two rookies (Mumpfield and Ferguson) against the Seahawks’ best corner (Witherspoon)
- Calling a timeout and not challenging Cooper Kupp’s odd catch for first down
- The inability to figure out a plan at corner
Tonight, the guilt is by association. Too much went wrong for the Rams to win this game, and McVay must shoulder the loss.
Colby Parkinson, TE
The Rams still made their way to the goal line in the fourth quarter with a chance to take the lead, but Parkinson’s third down drop could have scored and it forced LA to go for it on fourth down. Stafford broke out of a defender’s arms to reach the line to gain, and that is not a high probability play for the Rams.
If Parkinson makes the catch, we might not have to play “what if” on the penultimate offensive possession of the game.
