Make California Post a Preferred Source PHILADELPHIA — Sean McVay had seen enough.
He had seen enough interceptions. Enough dropped passes. Enough drive-killing penalties. Enough special teams mistakes. Enough missed opportunities. He had seen enough of the Los Angeles Rams finding more and more creative ways to sabotage themselves on a rainy afternoon at Lincoln Financial Field.
So late in the third quarter, with the Rams trailing the Eagles 20-10 and their season seemingly circling the drain, McVay gathered the entire offense together around him on the sidelines and delivered an impromptu sermon that sparked a fourth quarter comeback that we could be talking about come January and February as the moment that changed the season.
“It was just more of what was on my heart, to just say, ‘Guys, we’re capable. You’ve got to believe. And we’ve got to just string good plays together,” McVay revealed after the game of what he told his team in that conversation.
Whatever was on McVay’s heart apparently traveled directly into the Rams’ bloodstream.
Los Angeles scored two fourth-quarter touchdowns, both on Kyren Williams runs, while its defense delivered the stops necessary to complete a stunning 24-20 comeback and snap a four-game losing streak against an Eagles franchise that has tortured McVay throughout his tenure as head coach.
The Eagles have been a thorn in McVay’s side for the last 10 years and the city of Philadelphia has been a house of horrors for the youngest head coach to ever win a Super Bowl in NFL history. McVay entered Sunday 1-6 against the Eagles, including the heartbreaking divisional-round playoff loss in the snow two seasons ago and last year’s special-teams catastrophe featuring two blocked fourth-quarter field goals.
For three quarters Sunday, the curse appeared alive and well.
The Rams couldn’t get out of their own way. Even when Williams ripped off a big run, a Rams quarterbacks coach collided with an official and helped wipe it away. Puka Nacua was flagged for a block that erased another big play. Matthew Stafford threw two interceptions. Harrison Mevis missed a field goal. Passes were dropped.
The wheels weren’t wobbling. They were coming off, and that’s exactly when McVay decided to intervene with his motivational speech.
“Our defense is doing everything that they can to keep us in this game,” McVay recalled telling his offense. “I believed. I believed in our ability to execute and come back and win that game.”
“He said it’s just believing,” Williams said. “He was just like, ‘Stay connected. This is what we do. We worked for this. We worked for this moment.’”
Williams took the words to heart and after the Rams defense produced a monumental goal-line stand, Los Angeles marched 98 yards down the field and punched in the touchdown that cut the score to 20-17. After another defensive stop, the Rams marched down the field again and Williams scored his second touchdown that proved to be the game-winner.
“I was so locked in that all I saw were people coming at me, and I had to get them off of me,” said Williams of the winning score that saw him break several tackles. “When the play came in I thought to myself, ‘this is my opportunity to go make something happen.’ I stiff-armed a guy and I just smelled the end zone.”
Tyler Higbee said McVay challenged them to forget everything that had gone wrong.
“He said, ‘Make this thing go! Wipe it and get to the next play,’” Higbee recalled. “It rallied us. He’s the best leader I’ve ever been around. He’s got confidence in us, and we’ve got confidence in each other.”
Nacua remembered McVay trying to restore the offense’s “synergy” and “camaraderie.”
“Coach [came] out and [was] like, ‘Hey, this is what we’re planning to do,’” Nacua said. “I feel like we went out there on those last two drives and did that.”
Stafford, the veteran quarterback who had endured his own miserable afternoon before finding his rhythm late, understood exactly what McVay was doing.
“He was just trying to motivate us,” Stafford said. “Sean’s a fantastic leader. … It was great to hear from him, how much he trusts and believes in us.”
Football speeches are romanticized because we want to believe games can turn on words.
Not because McVay suddenly discovered some magic phrase, but because he reminded a talented offense that three miserable quarters didn’t have to dictate the fourth. That they had to believe they could come back and win.
The Rams walked into that huddle looking like a team headed for 1-3, but they walked out of it believing they would be 2-2 after the clock hit zero. And they did it.
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