Turf Show Times
The Rams have to play their starters against the Cardinals in Week 18 and the reason has nothing to do with playoff seeds. It’s because Sean McVay, Matthew Stafford, and the Rams can’t go into the playoffs having lost four of their last six games with handouts to teams like the Panthers, Falcons, and Cardinals. Just imagine how bad that’s going to look for Stafford and McVay in January if L.A. ends up losing their first playoff game.
That’s when fans start asking if Stafford should return next season. Yes, Stafford. The potential MVP. The Rams can’t go two months without a win over a playoff team and multiple losses to bad teams and expect everyone to believe they should “run it back” in 2026.
Fans will probably question the direction of the team if the Rams lose in the wild card round regardless of what happens in Week 18, but if Stafford and McVay don’t come out and have one good game in Week 18, then the last positive memory people will have of the team will be at least a month old. And maybe beating the Lions is the only good memory since beating the Seahawks and Bucs in November.
It won’t matter if the Rams lose to the Cardinals with backups in Week 18. Nobody will excuse a loss to the Cardinals, even if it’s with Jimmy Garoppolo or Stetson Bennett. McVay can’t expect to lose to an Arizona team that has lost 13 of its last 14 games and then around to his players and coaches and say, “We’re great! Trust me!”
McVay knows that and emphasized so after L.A.’s loss on Monday:
“Oh, we’re playing,” McVay said Monday night after the Rams’ 27-24 loss to the Atlanta Falcons. “Yeah, they’re playing.”
“No, they were going to play anyways,” McVay said. “We need to play. We need to play better football. So I don’t know what the consequences are in those different types of things, but we got to play better.”
Stafford’s Week 18 game against the Cardinals is still just a tune up for the playoffs because the real stakes are making sure that the Rams aren’t one-and-done when they go to Carolina, Tampa Bay, or Philadelphia in less than two weeks.
If the Rams don’t win a playoff game — really multiple playoff games — imagine the criticisms of the recent past that will come out after a wild card loss:
