{"id":460621,"date":"2026-09-11T14:58:14","date_gmt":"2026-09-11T14:58:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/460621\/"},"modified":"2026-09-11T14:58:14","modified_gmt":"2026-09-11T14:58:14","slug":"sean-mcvays-travel-gamble-turns-rams-opener-into-a-jet-lagged-flop","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/460621\/","title":{"rendered":"Sean McVay’s travel gamble turns Rams’ opener into a jet-lagged flop"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The Rams<\/a> did worse than arrive late.<\/p>\n

They didn\u2019t show up at all.<\/p>\n

Amid a weeklong barrage of criticism, the Rams didn\u2019t land in Melbourne for their season opener Thursday until 28 hours before kickoff while the San Francisco 49ers had been there all week.<\/p>\n

Turns out, the 49ers were smart, and the Rams were sorry.<\/p>\n

The 49ers were terrific, and the Rams were terrible.<\/p>\n

The 49ers energetically dominated in a 27-7 victory<\/a> while the Rams exhaustedly despaired in front of more than 100,000 fans at the Melbourne Cricket Ground<\/a>, a venue that hosts Australian rules football games that aren\u2019t this ugly.<\/p>\n

What idiot recently wrote that these Rams were going to go undefeated<\/a>?<\/p>\n

This idiot, and don\u2019t dare say you thought that prediction wouldn\u2019t last one game. One game?<\/p>\n

Who knew that football\u2019s super team was capable of being super bad?<\/p>\n

Who could have guessed that football genius Sean McVay<\/a> would be so badly outplanned, so badly outcoached, and so unimaginably wrong on the game\u2019s transformative play?<\/p>\n

Who could have predicted that defending league MVP Matthew Stafford<\/a> would throw high, throw short, and basically throw an array of balls that landed down under?<\/p>\n

Who knew that star offseason addition Myles Garrett<\/a> would get pushed around, thrown down and eventually turned into human Vegemite?<\/p>\n

G\u2019night, mate!<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a humbling day for us,\u201d said McVay, who knows what\u2019s coming. \u201cThere\u2019s going to be a lot of narratives that appropriately put the blame on me.\u201d<\/p>\n

As if being ripped nationwide for his travel plans wasn\u2019t painful enough, McVay will also be skewered for a baffling decision on a third-quarter play that could have rescued the Rams but instead doomed them.<\/p>\n

With the Rams trailing 17-7, they marched to the 49ers\u2019 one-yard line, where they faced fourth-and-goal.<\/p>\n

Do they pass to football\u2019s most prolific red-zone receiver in Davante Adams<\/a>? Do they run the ball with scoring machine Kyren Williams<\/a>?<\/p>\n

Neither. McVay called a quarterback sneak for 38-year-old Stafford, despite the fact that he had not scored a rushing touchdown in four years and was 0-for-2 on fourth-down sneaks last year.<\/p>\n

The 49ers unsurprisingly held and promptly drove 99 yards to score on a 15-yard pass from Brock Purdy<\/a> to Deebo Samuel<\/a> between three confused defenders to clinch it.<\/p>\n

\"San <\/p>\n

San Francisco 49ers wide receiver Deebo Samuel scores a touchdown in the third quarter against the Rams on Friday in Australia.<\/p>\n

(Asanka Brendon Ratnayake \/ Associated Press)<\/p>\n

\u201dThe first thing I look at is where can I improve?\u201d said McVay, admirably accountable as always. \u201cWhere can I put our players in better positions to have successful outcomes?\u201d<\/p>\n

Stafford blamed himself, saying, \u201cI\u2019ve just got to find a way to get in.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s hard to fault Stafford for not making a play that his body just can\u2019t make, but it\u2019s fair to wonder if the travel and short turnaround impacted his worst big game in several years.<\/p>\n

He was held under 10 points for just the second time in his last 85 starts. He missed on seven of his first 11 passes, threw for just 155 yards and had no touchdown passes with one interception.<\/p>\n

\u201cObviously not the way you want to start the season,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

While it seemed obvious that he was jet-lagged, Stafford rejected the notion that the Rams\u2019 unique travel schedule \u2014 engineered to keep their body clocks on California time for a 10:35 a.m. Melbourne start \u2014 was the reason for his malaise.<\/p>\n

\u201dWhen the ball was kicked off we were ready to play,\u201d he said. \u201cWe just didn\u2019t do it at a high enough clip today.\u201d<\/p>\n

Many critics have called the Rams crazy since they announced the schedule last week. This is even though a similarly quick stop in London last year led to a waxing of the Jacksonville Jaguars.<\/p>\n

But, bottom line, this game proved those critics \u2014 and the early-arriving 49ers \u2014 right.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t believe that\u2019s why we didn\u2019t play well enough, I really don\u2019t,\u201d protested McVay. \u201cThey outplayed us in every phase.\u201d<\/p>\n

Perhaps nobody was outplayed worse than Garrett, the two-time Defensive Player of the Year who was arguably The Most Irrelevant Player Of This Game.<\/p>\n

\"\" <\/p>\n

Share via Close extra sharing options <\/p>\n

The Rams lose to the San Francisco 49ers 27-7 in the 2026 season opener at Melbourne Cricket Ground in Australia on Friday.<\/p>\n

He had no sacks or quarterback hits. He was shut out in those two categories for only the third time in two years. He was so invisible, his name was never called and the TV cameras never focused on him until he was standing on the sidelines.<\/p>\n

No, Garrett also wouldn\u2019t publicly say that the trip timing was a factor despite loads of evidence to the contrary.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t doubt the decision making of my coach and organization, I think they did what was best for us and we didn\u2019t execute on the field when we needed to,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

To add injury to insult, Garrett acknowledged he was affected by a sore left knee that apparently isn\u2019t healing.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis was the worst version of myself that I put out there,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019ve got to find a way to recover and get back to the player I can be.\u201d<\/p>\n

Recently un-retired star Aaron Donald didn\u2019t make the trip, but here\u2019s guessing he\u2019ll be by Garrett\u2019s side in 11 days for the home opener against the New York Giants, so that will help. The extended rest afforded the team will also help.<\/p>\n

The Rams aren\u2019t this bad. In fact, they\u2019re still loaded and worthy of their status as Super Bowl favorites.<\/p>\n

But this will be forever known as a day when football\u2019s smartest organization got outsmarted, when football\u2019s best coach fumbled and when the San Francisco 49ers turned football\u2019s giants into so much shrimp on the barbie.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Rams did worse than arrive late. They didn\u2019t show up at all. Amid a weeklong barrage of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":460622,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[181625,11856,4472,2730,42215,181627,48,52,51,47,50,49,4606,1768,9442,11706,10947,43889,181626,8843,72],"class_list":["post-460621","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles","tag-38-year-old-stafford","tag-49er","tag-ball","tag-football-game","tag-garrett","tag-humbling-day","tag-la","tag-la-headlines","tag-la-news","tag-los-angeles","tag-los-angeles-headlines","tag-los-angeles-news","tag-mcvay","tag-organization","tag-player","tag-ram","tag-rams","tag-sean-mcvay","tag-travel-gamble","tag-way","tag-year"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/460621","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=460621"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/460621\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/460622"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=460621"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=460621"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=460621"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}