“An Absolute Clunker” - Rich on What the Rams Can Learn from Their Week 1 49ers Rout

Rich had the Rams at the top of his power rankings. They won't be next week. He still thinks they may win Super Bowl 61. But he did not sugarcoat the opener in Australia. "Game one was an absolute clunker. And they'll admit it."

He started with the travel, since everyone else will. Last year, Rich called the Rams in London against a Jaguars team that had been there a full week. The Rams showed up last minute, played the game, went home, and punked Jacksonville. Going west to east worked out swimmingly. Going east to west, apparently, is not the same. Rich noted Peter Schrager reported the Rams had been working on this for two years.

The bottom line for Rich is that travel doesn't explain everything. No matter how great Garrett is, the Rams don't get to skip pass rushing against Trent Williams. No matter how great their offense is, they don't get to skip the 49ers defense.

Rich knew what the Rams would say, because it's the only thing they can say. Flush it, learn from it, move on. What mattered was whether they took responsibility, and Matthew Stafford did.

"We didn't play well enough, obviously," Stafford said. "Never got into a rhythm. Only had probably two good drives, honest with you, the entire day." He pinned the communication problems on himself. "Too many times we were on different pages. That starts with me. You know, I'm the guy that's communicating all that stuff." He added that it "felt like we were fighting ourselves a little bit today," but that there's a lot of football left.

The numbers were ugly. The Rams had scored double digits in 42 straight games. Stafford has now started 75 games for the Rams, and the seven points were his fewest, beating the previous low of nine in a week four loss to the 49ers.

Myles Garrett was shut down. Rich pointed out he had as many tackles, sacks and quarterback hits as Aaron Donald, who didn't play. Someone on set, printing out the box score for Rich, said he went looking for Garrett's name and couldn't find it. Garrett finished with three pressures on 25 pass rushes and admitted afterward that he wasn't 100%.

"This was a worse version of myself that I've put out there," Garrett said. "I got to find a way to recover and get back to the player I know I can be." He was honest about what was going on in his head. "I was a little bit more focused on myself and trying to stay healthy. I wasn't who I needed to be for my team."

That raised a question for Rich. If Garrett is hurt, why is he out there on special teams plays? "He certainly didn't look himself," Rich said.

Neither did the offense. It took Stafford a while to find Davante Adams. Puka Nacua made his first Puka play of the year, catching a contested ball and bouncing off people, and then was stopped at the 1-inch line. Stafford couldn't punch in the quarterback sneak, the defense went back on the field, and the Niners drove out of danger and took over. "They got dominated," Rich said. "There's just no other way to put it."

Sean McVay rejected the travel excuse. "I don't believe that that's why we didn't play well enough. I really don't," he said. He owned the decision anyway. "It's easy in hindsight to be able to say it was a miss, but those are responsibilities that I'll take." His verdict on the game was blunt. "They outplayed us in every phase. They deserve the win."

He also framed what comes next. "This will only define us if we allow it to," McVay said, calling the day humbling.

Rich loved that approach. Someone on set asked what else McVay was supposed to say, and Rich's point was that this could be the most beneficial thing to happen to the Rams. If anyone in that building was believing the hype coming from Rich's chair and others nationally, "then this punch in the mouth is exactly what they need, and you might as well get it out of the way right away."

He also found a silver lining in the international date line. The Rams were returning home the day that was technically already tomorrow for them. "Some people bury the tape," Rich said. "They have the benefit with the international date line of burying the day."

The reality is still harsh. The Rams are 0 and 1 and one game back of two teams in a very deep division, including the team that eliminated them last year and went on to win the Super Bowl in the home of the team that just beat them.

Someone at the table suggested McVay might have been better off leaning into the travel explanation, because without it, all that's left is looking at the film and admitting you were really bad. Rich disagreed. "They're owning it. They should."

And the schedule doesn't ease up. The home opener is against the Giants, and if the Giants show up vastly improved, better coached and feeling good about themselves, "that could be another punch in the mouth nobody sees coming." After that, the Rams go to Denver and Philadelphia. That makes holding serve against the Giants a must.

That led the table to a what's more likely question: which team is more likely to start 1 and 3, the Rams or the Patriots? One vote went to the Patriots with A.J. Brown going on injured reserve, which drew the reminder that New England didn't have Brown last year either. Rich noted the Patriots also have tough road games at Jacksonville and Buffalo, and a home opener against Pittsburgh that looks harder than what the Rams face.

Whatever the Rams' record looks like in a month, Rich was clear about week one. "They look tired, they look jet-lagged, they looked off, and you can hang your hat and say it's the way that they traveled to the game and that's it," he said. "But it's definitely more than that."