Davante Adams<\/a> put it: \u201cThey were just singing our praises a week ago, and now, \u2018We suck\u2019 just because we go out and don\u2019t win the game.\u201d<\/p>\nBarring a complete collapse, the Rams appear on their way to the postseason. But the Seattle Seahawks (9-3) and the San Francisco 49ers (9-4) \u2014 also of the NFC West \u2014 are among the teams that remain in contention for the top seed.<\/p>\n
This is the time of year when playoff projections are omnipresent.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m not naive to the fact that every time you flip on NFL Network or ESPN or you\u2019re watching games\u2026 and it pops up,\u201d McVay said. \u201cOur guys see it, but I think they\u2019re also smart enough and humble enough to know that none of it really matters. \u2026 It\u2019s something that you\u2019re aware of, but it doesn\u2019t move the needle for us at all.\u201d<\/p>\n
In his first eight seasons with the Rams, McVay led them to the Super Bowl twice, and neither road included home games for every round.<\/p>\n
In 2018, the Rams had a bye in the wild-card round, and then defeated the Dallas Cowboys at the Coliseum and the New Orleans Saints in the Superdome en route to Super Bowl LIII, where they lost to the New England Patriots.<\/p>\n
In 2021, the Rams did not have a bye. They defeated the Cardinals at SoFi Stadium, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in Tampa and the San Francisco 49ers at SoFi Stadium to advance to Super Bowl LVI. The Rams defeated the Cincinnati Bengals at SoFi Stadium to win the title.<\/p>\n
After Sunday\u2019s game, the Rams play host to the Detroit Lions and then play a \u201cThursday Night Football\u201d game at Seattle. They travel to Atlanta to play the Falcons, and finish the season at home against the Cardinals.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you said, \u2018would I be happier if we ended up being able to be in a position where that means we won more games that maybe gave you a chance to get an automatic bid to the Division Round?\u2019 Yeah, of course,\u201d McVay said.<\/p>\n
The last two seasons, the Rams were eliminated from the playoffs on the road.<\/p>\n
In 2023, the Lions beat them in a wild-card game at Ford Field. Last season, the Rams lost in the divisional round at Philadelphia to the eventual Super Bowl-champion Eagles.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t think being on the road had anything to do with us coming up short in those games,\u201d McVay said.<\/p>\n
If the Rams have clinched the No. 1 seed or a playoff spot before the finale against the Cardinals, McVay, as he did the past few seasons, might opt to rest most starters.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re trained to do whatever is right in front of us and if that is to go play a game for this seed, all the marbles or whatever it is, we\u2019ll go do it,\u201d Stafford said. \u201cIf it\u2019s to sit, rest and take care of yourself, you do that.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re not anywhere near that conversation at the moment. We\u2019re laser focused on Arizona and trying to get the result that we want.\u201d<\/p>\n
Note: McVay did not travel with the Rams to Arizona on Saturday after feeling ill, according to the team. He will travel to Arizona on a separate flight.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Who\u2019s No. 1? Not the Rams. Not for now anyway. Before last Sunday\u2019s game against the Carolina Panthers,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":84759,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[47802,423,48,52,51,47801,47,50,49,47800,18158,8841,11706,10947,14310,27628,43889,278,15192,5712,11730],"class_list":["post-84758","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-los-angeles","tag-cardinals","tag-game","tag-la","tag-la-headlines","tag-la-news","tag-last-sunday","tag-los-angeles","tag-los-angeles-headlines","tag-los-angeles-news","tag-nfc","tag-no","tag-playoff","tag-ram","tag-rams","tag-road","tag-san-francisco-49er","tag-sean-mcvay","tag-season","tag-seed","tag-sofi-stadium","tag-super-bowl"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84758","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=84758"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84758\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/84759"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=84758"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=84758"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=84758"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}