Sean McVay doesn’t usually call out his players publicly for their mistakes, and although he steered clear of doing so after Sunday’s loss to the Eagles, he was clearly unhappy with one play, in particular.
In the fourth quarter with the Rams trying to mount a comeback, they were facing a critical fourth-and-12 from their own 41-yard line. They trailed 23-14 with 2:50 left in the game, so it was unlikely they were going to catch the Eagles anyway, but Matthew Stafford was sacked rather quickly by Haason Reddick for a 13-yard loss.
Buy Rams TicketsKyren Williams was lined up to the right of Warren McClendon Jr. at right tackle to chip Reddick on the edge. It was a poor attempt to slow down the speedy edge rusher, not doing anything to help McClendon out.
McVay was none too pleased with Williams’ performance on that snap.
“I saw us not do a good job of chipping,” McVay said sternly. “We had a chip on that right there, we accelerated Reddick into a rush and that was very poor execution on our part. Those are the things that make me very upset.”
HE'S BIG TIME @Haason7Reddick #PHIvsLAR #FlyEaglesFly pic.twitter.com/tCpLzw2GQT
— Philadelphia Eagles (@Eagles) October 8, 2023
McVay didn’t call out Williams by name, but it was very clear who he was talking about. And the only reason the Rams put Williams in there to help McClendon was because Rob Havenstein got pulled from the game after the previous snap for a potential head injury.
That put the rookie McClendon in a tough spot on fourth down for his first play of the game, and Williams didn’t do enough to assist him.
Williams has been a favorite of McVay’s all season and he’s not going to go away from him because of this one bad play in pass protection, but this wasn’t the best effort by the Rams’ starting running back.
