The Los Angeles Rams (5-5) came through with a big win on Sunday afternoon with a 28-22 win over the New England Patriots (3-8) to keep their playoff hopes alive. Head coach Sean McVay recapped the performance and how his team was able to respond after a tough loss last week.
"I thought offensively, after we have nine plays in the first quarter, end up not converting on a third down, even though we had had explosives in between there," McVay said. "Then we got rolling. It was a quick drives. A one-play scoring drive, a two-play scoring drive. I thought Matthew [Stafford] was in command the whole day. They did a good job of possessing the football so we didn't have that many snaps, even though we were able to get good positive yardage. Would love for us to have come away with points at the end of the half. You get all the way down, there's a great drive by the offense. For us to not come away with anything, that was frustrating."
It was an all-around complete performance with big time plays being made on both sides of the ball. The Rams' defense had a clutch interception on the final drive of the game to kill a potential game-winning drive with three sacks and four touchdowns on offense.
McVay could not have received a better response from his group after their uncharacteristic performance in last week's loss to the Dolphins.
Quarterback Matthew Stafford reached another milestone as he threw his 367th touchdown pass. It puts him 10th all-time in career touchdown passes, passing legend Eli Manning. McVay gave praise to several players and recognized Stafford's milestone.
"Overall, I'm proud of this group," McVay said. "They are resilient, and they had some good momentum going, and then our defense does a great job getting a stop right there. [Safety] Kam Kinchens coming up with another big play. Seems like [DE Braden] Fiske made his presence felt. [WR] Puka [Nacua] was big-time today. And then congratulations to [QB] Matthew [Stafford] being top ten in touchdown passes all time. That's a major accomplishment. I thought he was lights out today. Really, if it wasn't for a couple of those third downs where we just missed, even in the last drive where we're trying to be able to run the clock out, we had a big play to [WR] Demarcus [Robinson]. They did good job being able to get their hands up. But he was in command. Unbelievable job of just kind of I thought he saw the field really well. Recognized the zero, ended up hitting Cooper on the 69-yard touchdown. He did a great job today."
The run game also had a bounce back performance as second-year rusher Kyren Williams earned 86 yards on 15 carries. Rookie Blake Corum added 21 yards on five carries. Their success helped open up the passing game for Stafford to sling four touchdown passes and 295 yards of air offense.
McVay knows that a solid rushing performance is a great sign, but keeping it going and building off a good game is the key. The Rams' toughest games are ahead of them and the importance of a strong run game will determine wins and losses that will be pivotal to their playoff hopes.
"When you're able to run the football, other things can come off of it," McVay said. "It's what offensive ball should look like when it's quality. And I thought there was a lot of examples of that. We have to be able to build on this. I was proud of that group. It was a weird day, like I mentioned, because some of the minimal opportunities. And then some of the snaps we had in the first half were more situational ball or a sudden change in the red area. They did a good job. The one drive we're talking about where Kyren got a couple of runs, I thought our left side did an excellent job. You can see Alaric was really coming off the football. Steve did a great job. I was proud of the group overall. They did give us a couple different things. They'd shown some stuff. I thought we held up really well in protection."
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This article was originally published on www.si.com/nfl/rams/ as Rams' Coach Has Perfect Reaction to Week 11 Win.