Late-season collapse for Rams raises concerns ahead of NFL playoffs

Life comes at you fast. And there are few better current examples in the sports world than the Los Angeles Rams.

On December 18, the Rams held a two-score lead over the Seattle Seahawks in the fourth quarter of a Thursday night NFC West clash. The franchise was already having visions of claiming the divisional crown and their first No. 1 playoff seed under head coach Sean McVay – but those visions were premature, as a late-game collapse have way to a Seattle overtime win.

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Then, the Rams followed up that heartbreaking loss with a 27-24 defeat at the hands of the Atlanta Falcons on Monday. Now, they have lost three of their last five games and will likely spend their entire postseason slate on the road – and it's not quite clear anymore that their postseason will last too long. Meanwhile, the 49ers and Seahawks will duke it out in Week 18 for the NFC West title and top playoff seed.

McVay pulled no punches with the media about what he thought about his team following the loss to the Falcons, and has announced he will be foregoing his traditional policy of resting his starters in the regular-season finale in order to get his team another game to get back on track. The Rams will instead roll out their starters in Week 18 against the Cardinals.

“We need to play better football,” McVay said. “So I don’t know what the consequences are and those different types of things, but we’ve got to play better.”

The Rams still possess the top-ranked scoring offense and the second-ranked total offense in the NFL, but have had a bottom-five scoring defense in the past five weeks. And the normally steady veteran presence of starting quarterback Matthew Stafford took a hit on Monday as he tossed three interceptions against Atlanta.

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For now, Stafford is taking it game-by-game and believes that ups and downs are normal, and that if the teams continue to embrace what brought them this far, they'll be fine. But he also knows his team needs to do a better job making big plays than they have in recent weeks, himself included.

“Just because you play good one week doesn’t mean you’re going to play good the next, and vice versa,” Matthew Stafford said after passing for 269 yards with two touchdowns and three interceptions. “So I’m just going to go out there and continue to trust what we’ve done all year, and then we’ve got to just show up and make the plays on game day.”

This article originally appeared on Touchdown Wire: Late-season collapse for Rams raises concerns ahead of NFL playoffs