GREEN BAY, Wis. — The snap slipped out of the hands of Rams backup quarterback Brett Rypien, making his first start of the season against the Green Bay Packers. It fell and hit the ground, and he hunched to pick it up and scramble out of the pocket.
Pressure closing in, Rypien tried to throw the ball away, count the play as dead, start over. But Jonathan Owens’ arm arrived at the same time, hitting Rypien’s before it could move forward. The ball squirted out, and the Packers recovered, leading to an Aaron Jones touchdown carry a few plays later.
Those would have been the only points the Packers (3-5) needed to beat the Rams (3-6) on a day the visitors did not have their starting quarterback. But a couple of Green Bay field goals and a garbage time TD made the final score of this alleged football game, 20-3.
With Matthew Stafford not even making it to the Lambeau Field grass to try out his injured right thumb pregame, the Rams had to turn to Rypien. And head coach Sean McVay watched his offense produce numbers that would have been more familiar to the first teams to play games at the legendary stadium in 1957.
A grand total of 187 yards on offense, 130 of which came through the air as Rypien completed 13 of 28 passes. Just 10 first downs. A 36% success rate on third down.
“I’m not really sure what to think right now; all I know is that was really not good enough,” Rypien said. “It’s frustrating to say the least. I can’t really put my finger on it, but it just never really felt like we were able to get over that hump and get rolling.”
To pin all of this on Rypien, though, would not be fair. It was a failure of the entire Rams offense.
The line missed blocks in both the run and pass games and did little to take pressure off the backup. After 14 yards on their first three carries, Darrell Henderson and Royce Freeman combined for 37 yards on their next 19 carries, including a Freeman stuff on fourth-and-1 in the third quarter.
“You want to be able to help out Brett,” head coach Sean McVay said. “I didn’t think we played very well around him, either. … There wasn’t a lot of good things that you can say we can really be able to build on. There was a lot of different reasons for that, none of which are anything but an excuse.”
Even when Rypien got some momentum, like taking advantage of a free play to hit Cooper Kupp in stride for 34 yards, or throwing backwards to Freeman for a 7-yard gain, the Rams could not capitalize. On the former example, it was an overthrow of Tutu Atwell. The latter, a missed block by Joe Noteboom and OPI by Puka Nacua put the Rams way behind the sticks.
Still, the Rams were in field goal range after those two negative plays. Facing fourth down from the Packers 36 in the third quarter, McVay opted to commit a delay of game penalty and punt rather than have Lucas Havrisik attempt a 54-yard field goal, a quarter after he was good from 52. Even after the Packers declined the penalty, McVay still sent out the punt team.
McVay said the distance of the kick was the reason that decision. To be fair, it made a little more sense after Havrisik missed from 48 yards out a possession later.
That’s just the kind of game it was, for both teams. Neither quarterback was accurate, missing open receivers with under- and over-thrown passes. The Packers negated two fourth-down conversions with two offensive offsides penalties. The Rams had a series of special teams miscues, from missed tackles to penalties, to a big return given up to open the second half.
But after Keisean Nixon used one cut to take the kickoff 51 yards, Packers receiver Dontayvion Wicks fumbled the ball extending for a first down. It bounced up off the turf and into Ahkello Witherspoon’s hands.
That was one of two fumbles the Rams recovered to open the second half as a drizzle turned temporarily to a heavy shower. But the Rams got exactly zero points out of those turnovers, while the Packers got 10 points out of the Rams’ three giveaways.
For the second consecutive week, McVay used the word “humbling” to describe a loss. The Rams now enter their bye on a three-game losing streak, but they said as a group they would not allow it to impact them as they prepare for the final eight games of the season.
“We’ve got the right people in this building that know that this is a bye week, it is not a ‘the season is over’ break,” Kupp said. “This is about getting your mind right, getting your body right for this next push and being critical of yourselves. … If everyone can just be critical of themselves and say, ‘What can I do a little bit better,’ this thing’s going to start moving in the right direction.”
