\u201cI hate the Eagles,\u201d Rams running back Kyren Williams said.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s because the Eagles are not just a juggernaut team that has won 19 of its last 20 games. It\u2019s because they represent the boulder the Rams are trying to push up the mountain top, back to the Super Bowl stage they reached and became champions in Matthew Stafford\u2019s first season with Sean McVay in 2021.<\/p>\n
The Eagles are the one team that\u2019s had McVay\u2019s number. He\u2019s 1-6 against them in his career and 89-52 against everyone else.<\/p>\n
The Rams\u2019 2021 championship isn\u2019t a distant memory yet, but it came before this latest Eagles run began, before Jalen Hurts emerged, and before A.J. Brown, Jalen Carter and Saquon Barkley arrived to become the nemesis who leave the Rams feeling the sting.<\/p>\n
For so much of Sunday\u2019s game, Los Angeles looked like a team that had grown from January\u2019s divisional-round playoff loss. Its quarterback responded to an interception on the opening possession to lead six straight scoring drives. The rushing attack was gashing Philadelphia on the edge, with a sharp plan to run away from the brick walls of Carter and Davis. The special teams were suffocating the Eagles with Karty\u2019s knuckleball kickoffs.<\/p>\n
The pass rush was ferocious, creating a strip-sack for another week, this time when Jared Verse beat fill-in right tackle Matt Pryor so badly that he nearly took Hurts\u2019 head off. And there was Verse, stomping toward the end zone and barking at Eagles fans. He and Byron Young looked to have an edge duo that was too much to handle, so much so that Hurts finished the first half with minus-1 net passing yards.<\/p>\n
The run defense was everything it never was last season, when Barkley ripped off the two best games of his career with 460 total rushing yards and four runs of 60-plus. And that was the one part of this that sustained, as Barkley finished with just 46 yards on 18 carries and the Eagles had 86 total rushing yards.<\/p>\n
But the Rams lost anyway, and that\u2019s what really stings. They had a counter to what hurt them in January, but something else was missing.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a tough feeling, knowing that we got where we wanted to,\u201d wide receiver Puka Nacua said of the final drive. \u201cSomething we know we have to be better at is scoring in the red zone and being able to finish drives with everybody celebrating in the end zone.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Eagles, once down 26-7 after Verse\u2019s strip-sack set up an easy pitch and catch from Stafford to Williams early in the third quarter, came alive by attacking what the Rams still don\u2019t have on their roster.<\/p>\n
They don\u2019t have cornerbacks who can match up with outside receivers such as Brown and DeVonta Smith. Not many teams do, but that\u2019s the hill the Rams are trying to climb. In the first game after losing Ahkello Witherspoon to a broken clavicle<\/a>, his roster replacement, Tre Brown, didn\u2019t play on defense. Los Angeles instead trusted a 32-year-old veteran it previously benched in Darious Williams, as well as a 24-year-old reclamation project in Emmanuel Forbes Jr. on the outside.<\/p>\n Brown racked up 109 yards and a touchdown against Darious Williams. Smith caught eight of nine targets and the go-ahead touchdown against Forbes. Los Angeles paid for low investments at a premium position that its pass rush can\u2019t forever cover up.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019ve got to stand up,\u201d Forbes said, \u201cand stop them.\u201d<\/p>\n
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