The Los Angeles Rams are no longer the runaway Super Bowl favorite they were when the season opened. After losing to the Arizona Cardinals last week, Sean McVay’s team is 2-4, and the gap between expectation and reality has become the story around Los Angeles.
That is why people are asking, Where is the Super Bowl this year, and why the Rams suddenly look like a team trying to recover instead of one built to cruise. Three of L.A.’s four losses came in the final moments, and one of them turned on a blocked game-winning field goal attempt by Harrison Mevis in an overtime loss to the Buffalo Bills. In a season defined by thin margins, those are the kind of defeats that change the mood fast.
The numbers still explain why the team has not completely fallen apart. Three of the Rams’ four losses came against playoff teams from last season: the San Francisco 49ers, the Denver Broncos and the Buffalo Bills. Over the next four games, they face opponents with a combined record of 6-17-1, a stretch that could either pull them back toward the top of the NFC West or leave the slow start looking far worse than it already does. That schedule is the immediate reason this month matters so much.
The injury picture complicates the read on the season. The Rams have the fourth-oldest roster in the league, and they have lost a handful of foundational players to injured reserve, including Myles Garrett, Davante Adams and Kobie Turner. One longtime scout said the pressure from going all in for a Super Bowl run was intensified by the team itself, its fans and the media, and added that the Myles Garrett trade and injury, Puka Nacua’s offseason antics and the unretiring of Aaron Donald only made the burden heavier.
That is the part that keeps the Rams from fitting neatly into the collapse box. Eric D. Williams said the team was loaded this summer and called it a Dream Team, but he also pointed to the age of the roster, bad luck, poor special teams play and a lack of depth as the reasons the record looks worse than the performance. He said the Rams easily could have won the last two games and that they should be 3-3 or 4-2, not 2-4, while also noting that they have mostly played good teams and still have an elite coaching staff.
The problem for McVay is that the next stretch offers both relief and risk. A 3-3 or 4-2 team can still sell the idea that the season is on course; a 2-6 team turns every explanation into an excuse. The Rams have not been buried, but the margin for recovery is shrinking, and the coming four games will decide whether this remains a stumble or becomes the season’s defining turn.
