Three seasons after their Super Bowl triumph, the Rams are no longer a well-oiled winning machine

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Three seasons after their Super Bowl triumph, the Rams are no longer a well-oiled winning machine

2024-10-11 06:18 Last Updated At：06:21

LOS ANGELES (AP) — The Los Angeles Rams' decision to load up their roster for a championship run in 2021 is now the stuff of NFL legend.

General manager Les Snead and head coach Sean McVay famously acquired Matthew Stafford, Von Miller and Odell Beckham Jr. for a full-tilt title chase, and that powerhouse team won it all.

Detractors predicted the Rams would eventually have to pay for their aggression, but Snead and McVay said they felt the “all-in” perception was misleading. Los Angeles had enjoyed five straight winning seasons at the time, and the Rams felt their model was sustainable for near-annual playoff runs and title contention.

Less than three years later, the Rams have gone 16-24 and lost their only playoff game since they raised that trophy. Los Angeles is 1-4 at its early bye week this season, sharing the worst record in the NFC with moribund Carolina.

It's impossible to say that the Rams' struggles are purely the long-term result of their shorter-term decisions in that first half-decade. Major injury woes, Aaron Donald's retirement, the annual pillaging of McVay's coaching staff and simple luck have all played roles as well.

What's clear is that the Rams are no longer the machine that purred with consistent excellence in McVay's first half-decade.

They're at another low point in their bye week, yet plenty of season remains — with plenty of opportunities for McVay to rebuild his team into a winner.

“Before you can start winning games, you have to start learning how to not beat yourself,” McVay said after the Rams blew numerous opportunities in their 24-19 loss to Green Bay last Sunday.

No part of the Rams is playing well this season — well, except the special teams, which were the weakest part of the past two squads.

On offense, the Rams' problems largely appear to be injury-related. They're missing Stafford’s top three targets in receivers Cooper Kupp and Puka Nacua and tight end Tyler Higbee, but also starting center Jonah Jackson and starting left guard Steve Avila in the middle of their rebuilt offensive line.

Despite another dynamic season from Kyren Williams, they're in the back of the NFL pack in rushing offense — a function of falling behind in every game and being forced to throw. They're also a dismal 24th in scoring, largely because their red-zone offense is 23rd in touchdown rate — probably because Kupp, Nacua and Higbee aren't around for Stafford.

McVay seemed optimistic Monday about getting Kupp back from his ankle injury for next Sunday's visit from Las Vegas, but the coach often speaks ambiguously about injuries. The 36-year-old Stafford is also dealing with back soreness after getting hit far too much behind his patchwork line.

The Rams' problems on defense are much more pronounced, yet there also might be more reason for optimism.

Los Angeles has been terrible under new defensive coordinator Chris Shula, McVay's college teammate and his mildly surprising choice to replace Raheem Morris. The Rams are 29th in total defense, 32nd in rushing defense and 29th in points allowed, with opponents scoring at least 24 points in every game.

McVay and Snead still haven't satisfactorily explained why they dumped Ernest Jones for essentially nothing instead of allowing the linebacker to play out his rookie contract. Jones' absence has been glaring, particularly with savvy offensive coordinators targeting his inferior replacements mercilessly each week.

The defensive line is a shadow of last season's group in Donald's absence, while the revamped secondary has been inconsistent — and new signee Tre'Davious White has already been benched.

But the Rams have one of the NFL’s youngest rosters for the second straight season, and that youth includes a few potential future stars like rookie edge rusher Jared Verse — their first first-round draft pick since 2016 — and second-year nose tackle Kobie Turner.

Los Angeles' few remaining veterans and young talent must all come together if this team hopes to escape another early-season hole.

The Rams always started fast during McVay’s first half-decade in charge, going a combined 19-6 in the first five weeks of his first five seasons. They're 5-10 in the first five weeks of the last three seasons — and except for an impressive 7-1 surge after last season’s bye week to sneak into the playoffs, the Rams are 9-22 since winning it all.

No team has made the playoffs after starting 1-4 since Washington in 2020, but the Rams haven't written off this season.

If Kupp and Nacua return soon to bolster the offense — and if this dismal defense finally makes progress on the backs of its young prospects — McVay believes they've got plenty of time to make another charge back to contention.

“We’re a 1-4 football team, (but) three of those four losses come down to one-possession games,” McVay said. “This is where we’re at. What we have to be able to do (in the bye week) is take a step back, and then we’ve got to really collectively figure out, based on the moving parts (and) some of the different things, what have we done well, and what can we do at a better clip.”

Milton clobbers coastal communities in Florida, leaves millions without power and kills at least 6

2024-10-11 06:18 Last Updated At：06:20

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. (AP) — Rescue teams plucked Florida residents from the flotsam of Hurricane Milton on Thursday after the storm smashed through coastal communities where it tore homes into pieces, filled streets with mud and spawned a barrage of deadly tornadoes. At least six people were dead.

Arriving just two weeks after the misery wrought by Hurricane Helene, the system also knocked out power to more than 3 million customers, flooded barrier islands, tore the roof off a baseball stadium and toppled a construction crane.

Among the most dramatic rescues, Hillsborough County officers found a a 14-year-old boy floating on a piece of fence and pulled him onto a boat. A Coast Guard helicopter crew rescued a man who was left clinging to an ice chest in the Gulf of Mexico after his fishing boat broke down off Medeira Beach hours before the hurricane came ashore.

Despite the destruction, many people expressed relief that Milton wasn't worse. The hurricane spared Tampa a direct hit, and the lethal storm surge that scientists feared never materialized.

The storm tracked to the south in the final hours and made landfall late Wednesday as a Category 3 hurricane in Siesta Key, about 70 miles (112 kilometers) south of Tampa. Damage was widespread, and water levels may continue to rise for days, but Gov. Ron DeSantis said it was not “the worst-case scenario.”

“You face two hurricanes in a couple of weeks — not easy to go through — but I’ve seen a lot of resilience throughout this state,” the governor told a briefing in Sarasota. He said he was "very confident that this area is going to bounce back very, very quickly.”

Five people were killed in tornadoes in the Spanish Lakes Country Club near Fort Pierce, on Florida’s Atlantic Coast, where homes were destroyed, authorities said. Police also found a woman dead under a fallen tree branch.

Speaking at a White House briefing, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said there were reports of as many as 10 fatalities from tornadoes, but he cautioned that the number was tentative.

At least 340 individuals and 49 pets have been rescued in ongoing efforts, DeSantis said Thursday afternoon.

South of Tampa, Natasha Shannon and her husband, Terry, felt lucky to be alive after the hurricane peeled the tin roof off their cinder block home in Palmetto. They spent the night in a shelter with their three children and two grandchildren after she pushed them to leave.

“I said, ‘Baby, we got to go. Because we’re not going to survive this,’” she said.

They returned to find the roof torn into sheets across the street, shredded insulation hanging from exposed ceiling beams and their belongings soaked.

“It ain’t much but it was ours,” she said. “What little bit we did have is gone.”

The worst storm surge appeared to be in Sarasota County, where it was 8 to 10 feet (2.5 to 3 meters) — lower than in the worst place during Helene. The storm also dumped up to 18 inches (45 centimeters) of rain in some areas.

Officials in the hard-hit Florida counties of Hillsborough, Pinellas, Sarasota and Lee urged people to stay home, warning of downed power lines, trees in roads, blocked bridges and flooding.

Among the dozens of tornadoes was a twister that hit the tiny barrier island of Matlacha, just off Fort Myers. The fishing-and-tourism village also endured a surge, with many of the colorful buildings sustaining serious damage. Tom Reynolds, 90, spent the morning sweeping out 4 feet of mud and water and collecting chunks of aluminum siding torn off by a twister that also picked up a car and threw it across the road.

Elsewhere on the island, a house was blown into a street, temporarily blocking it. Some structures caught fire. Reynolds said he planned to repair the home he built three decades ago.

“What else am I going to do?” he said.

In contrast, city workers on Anna Maria Island were grateful not to be wading through floodwaters as they picked up debris Thursday morning, two weeks after Helene battered buildings and blew in piles of sand up to 6 feet (1.8 m) high. Those piles may have helped shield homes from further damage, said Jeremi Roberts of the State Emergency Response Team.

“I’m shocked it’s not more,” city worker Kati Sands said as she cleared the streets of siding and broken lights. “We lost so much with Helene, there wasn’t much left.”

Helene flooded streets and homes in western Florida and left at least 230 people dead across the South. In many places along the coast, municipalities raced to collect and dispose of debris before Milton’s winds and storm surge could toss it around and compound any damage.

Power was knocked out across much of the state. More than 3.4 million homes and businesses were without electricity, according to poweroutage.us, which tracks utility reports.

The fabric that serves as the roof of Tropicana Field — home of the Tampa Bay Rays baseball team in St. Petersburg — was ripped to shreds by fierce winds. Debris littered the field.

About 80,000 people spent the night in shelters, and thousands of others fled after authorities issued mandatory evacuation orders across 15 Florida counties with a total population of about 7.2 million people.

In Punta Gorda, a 10-foot surge from the Peace River swept into the historic district, damaging homes and depositing six boats along one riverside street. It was the third surge to hit the neighborhood in three months.

Josh Baldwin said he was leaning toward scrapping his 38-foot boat rather than pay $100,000 to fix it. He couldn’t get insurance because it was moored in Punta Gorda.

“They don’t like to pay out, and this place always gets ruined in hurricanes,” he said.

A half-block away, information technology workers Kent and Cathy Taylor and their son were using an SUV attached to a chain to pull waterlogged drywall out of the bottom floor of their three-story home, which they bought in July. The lower level is gutted, but the upper floors are still structurally sound.

“It will be beautiful again — it’s just a nick,” Cathy Taylor said.

By Thursday afternoon, Milton was headed into the Atlantic Ocean as a post-tropical cyclone with winds of 75 mph (120 kph) — just barely hurricane force.

Crossing the bridge from the mainland to Anna Maria Island early Thursday, Police Chief John Cosby breathed a sigh of relief. Nearly all residents had evacuated. There were no injuries or deaths, and the projected storm surge never happened. After fearing that his police department would be underwater, it remained dry.

“It's nice to have a place to come back to,” he said.

This version removes an erroneous reference to 150 tornadoes. Scientists say it's too early to know how many tornadoes developed.

Payne and Daley reported from Palmetto, Florida. Associated Press journalists Holly Ramer and Kathy McCormack in New Hampshire; Terry Spencer in Matlacha, Florida; Stephany Matat in Fort Pierce, Florida; Freida Frisaro in Fort Lauderdale; Michael Goldberg in Minneapolis; Joshua Boak in Washington and Jeff Martin in Atlanta contributed to this report.