With all the pre-game talk about how late the Los Angeles Rams arrived in Australia, it was bound to be brought up again in the event that they lost to the San Francisco 49ers. And sure enough, the Rams laid an egg in the season opener on Thursday night, losing by 20 points, 27-7.
It was as embarrassing a defeat as the Rams have had under Sean McVay and Matthew Stafford, looking like a team that was disorganized and out of sorts on offense. And while jet lag very well could have contributed to the loss, Sean McVay is confident that wasn’t the case.
“I don’t believe that’s why we didn’t play well enough. I really don’t,” he said. “That’s something that I’ll always make decisions that I think are best for the football team. It’s easy in hindsight
to say it was a miss, but those are responsibilities that I’ll take.”
As he usually does, McVay took the blame for the loss by saying he didn’t coach well enough and put his players in position to succeed – a patented phrase from the Rams coach. And while there’s no denying the game plan was poor, players didn’t execute.
There was a bad interception by Stafford, a fumble by Tyler Higbee, a failed QB sneak and receivers who struggled to get open.
“I think the first thing I look at is where can I improve?” McVay said. “How can I put our players in better positions to have successful outcomes? I love that locker room, I love those guys, and this story is far from written. I know there’s going to be a lot of narratives that appropriately put the blame on me and then we’ll move forward the right way.”
McVay called it a “humbling” loss, saying it was one of those days where the Rams didn’t have their best stuff. He credited the 49ers for playing better in the three-hour window, but it may not be a coincidence that the team that arrived a week earlier looked sharper on Thursday night.
This article originally appeared on Rams Wire: Sean McVay doesn't think Rams' late arrival is to blame for ugly loss
