All Ball Sports:  Rams CSI Los Angeles

NBC camera operator Dan Marinelli scouts out camera positions inside the Los Angeles Rams/Chargers new $5 billion SoFi Stadium. Photo by Bo Bridges

 by Paul Teetor

The Rams are done. Stick a fork in them, and put them next to the roast turkey and mashed potatoes for Thanksgiving.

They’ll be home for the holidays. 

There will be no playoffs for them this year.

We have first-hand evidence for those depressing conclusions, however premature they may seem.

It’s one thing to see a murder or a suicide, or even just a dead body on TV. The raw finality of death is glossed over by the TV screen sheen, the brilliance of the cathode ray tube bathing all the carnage in a soft refracted light that makes it less harsh, less real. Just one more piece of entertainment for the brain-dead masses.

It’s quite another thing to see a murder, or a suicide, or even just a dead body up close and personal, without any filter. As a veteran reporter, I’ve seen all three of those up close and personal.

And let me tell you: it ain’t pretty.

I mention all this CSI: Los Angeles type of stuff because that’s what happened to the Rams Sunday afternoon: they were the victims of a football murder-suicide.

On TV, a viewer would not get the full import of just how bad the Rams were and just how hopeless their short-term future looks.

To understand how it could happen, you had to see it up close and personal, for yourself.

So that’s what All Ball did on Sunday, courtesy of Original Live Oak Legend Berdell “Berd” Knowles, the baddest post player under 6 feet tall, who just happened to have an extra ticket for the Rams-49ers game at SoFi Stadium

We set out for Inglewood so I could see for myself what ails the defending Super Bowl champs who limped into their bye week 14 days ago with a 3-3 record that didn’t really reflect how badly they had played, nor what a do-or-die crossroads they were now facing after two weeks of rest and recovery under their belt.

This was their last chance to change the downward trajectory of their season.                                                                                                                                                                                                                          After all, they had lost seven straight regular season games to the 49ers – although they did beat them in the playoffs on the way to the Super Bowl last season — and San Francisco coach Kyle Shanahan has taken up a rent-free accessory dwelling unit in Rams Coach Sean McVay’s feverish, play-making brain. 

Together, along with 70,000 other rabid fans we witnessed the death of the Rams hopes to, as they have been saying since that glorious day in early February when they won the Super Bowl in this very same stadium, run it back.

And for this Rams fan, at least, it was educational but also painful, and very hard to watch. They didn’t even look like the same team as last year. Oh sure, they were wearing the same familiar blue and gold jerseys, but nothing else looked or felt the same.  

For the 49er fans in their red jerseys with Garoppolo, and Samuel, and Kittle on the backs, it was a non-stop party on the way to a 31-14 San Fran victory that dropped the Rams record to 3-4 and killed their chances of making the playoffs with more than half a season still to play.

First observation on the crime report: while 70,000 fans filled the magnificent $5.5 billion stadium on a brilliant SoCal day of cascading sunshine, and blue skies as far as the eye could see, they were split roughly 50-50 between Rams fans and 49ers fans. That right there was an ominous foreshadowing of what was to come.

Second observation: while some of the Rams fans still recited the ritual “Whose House? Rams House” call and response when commanded to do so by the faceless voices coming at them from the huge, wrap-around video board that dominates the stadium skyline like the mothership in Close Encounters of the Third Kind, it was done with a distinct lack of energy and enthusiasm.

Last year it was a full-throated cry of belief in the team and its championship destiny with a new quarterback in Matthew Stafford to replace the departed, and inept Jared Goff. This year it was a half-hearted cry of hope and desperation as the realization slowly sinks in that Stafford is just a shell of his former self.

As Berd observed when I mentioned the difference in tone and intensity in the “Whose House?” ritual this year, “All those early losses have taken their toll on the fans. How could they not?”

That lethargic tone changed momentarily when the Rams took a 7-0 lead on a Matthew Stafford leap into the endzone for a 7-0 lead, and again when Stafford hit Cooper Kupp on a 16-yard touchdown pass. 

Then came the murder part of the afternoon.

After going into halftime with a 14-7 lead that gave the fans hope that the season might still be salvageable, the 49ers scored 24 straight points to take a 31-14 lead and effectively end the game – and the Rams season right there,        

But it wasn’t just a homicide. It was also a suicide in this sense: the 49ers new star running back Christian McCaffrey could have been the Rams new star running back if only they had been willing to reach a little deeper into their pockets.

In this game McCaffrey recorded the rare trifecta of scoring touchdowns as a receiver, rusher and passer. He also finished with 183 total yards to become the latest headache for the Rams in this one-sided NFC West rivalry.

The ironic part is that the Rams were in the race to acquire McCaffrey from the Carolina Panthers when the Panthers put him on the auction block three weeks ago. The 49ers bid four draft picks, and the Rams were unwilling to match it even though word on the street was that McCaffrey would rather go to LA – who wouldn’t? – and the Panthers were willing to send him here if the Rams would just match the 49ers offer.

Meanwhile the Rams managed only 56 rushing yards while one of their best running backs, Cam Akers, was at home because the team is trying to trade him for “in-house” reasons.

Whatever that means.

Also indicative of suicidal tendencies: Coach Sean McVay’s crazy decision to keep star wide receiver Cooper Kupp in the game long after it was decided. Sure enough, with just a couple of minutes left, Kupp injured his right ankle during one of the final plays of the blowout loss.

The future looks grim for the Rams. The offensive line was decimated, and Stafford missed easy throws wide left, wide right, too high and too low all day long, especially in the second half when he appeared to tire. 

When your passing game is Stafford to Kupp and that’s it, when your running game is non-existent, you’re not going to win many games in the modern NFL. 

The Rams finished with a measly 223 total yards with only a pathetic 58 of them coming in the second half.

If you watched this game on TV, you might still think the Rams are a potential playoff team, and maybe even a viable contender to repeat as Super Bowl champs.

But if you watched it in person, you were an eyewitness to a murder-suicide.

And you couldn’t change the channel.

Contact: teetor.paul@gmail.com. Follow: @paulteetor. ER

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