The Los Angeles Rams were billed as the NFL’s Super Bowl favorites entering the 2026 season. So far things haven’t gone according to plan.
Sky Sports NFLNeil Reynolds and Jeff Reinebold discuss where things are going wrong for Sean McVay’s team on the latest episode of Inside the Huddle after the Rams suffered a shock 18-16 loss to the Arizona Cardinals on Sunday.
Their latest record leaves them 2-4 at the bottom of the NFC West, with McVay insisting little will change unless his team finds a way to stop “beating themselves.”
“Think back to the summer. It was a dream team,” Reynolds said on Inside the Huddle. “There is no such thing as a dream team in the NFL.
“I know we’ve had them over the years and they’ve never panned out. It was a dream team. They were the strongest of the Super Bowl favorites.
“The Rams didn’t just lose this game. They looked really outstanding, like they had a hangover from what they might have had against Buffalo on Monday night.”
The Rams made the biggest splash of the offseason this year when they traded for defensive player of the year Myles Garrett, who has been sidelined since Week 1 with an injury. Meanwhile, they lured Aaron Donald out of retirement to bolster a star-studded team already led by MVP quarterback Matthew Stafford, who led the Rams to the NFC Championship game last season after they were narrowly defeated by the eventual champion Seattle Seahawks.
For all their talent, the Rams have seen special teams prove to be a debilitating factor in recent games, and this week they cut kicker Harrison Mevis after a poor start to the year. They replaced him with former New Orleans Saints tight end Blake Grupe, who was injured Sunday while trying to tackle Devin Duvernay on a punt return.
The Rams are last in EPA special teams through six weeks, their struggles coming back to haunt them Sunday when Grupe’s injury forced them to go for two punts on their first punt, which they failed to return. Kicker Ethan Evans later had to attempt the extra point, with backup quarterback Stetson Bennett stepping in as a holder.
“The fact that you throw your pitcher after the Buffalo game, you bring in a young guy, and then he gets hurt because you can’t cover a hit, right? He’s trying to get a shot at first, he gets hurt, and now your pitcher is your hitter,” Reinebold said.
“They’re still very good. And Matthew Stafford throws two touchdowns and no picks and all that, but everything that can go wrong is going wrong.
“Now you can say the Rams are much better, their roster is better than the Cardinals, and that’s an argument you can make, but these are professional athletes. These are the best there are in the world. And if you give them a chance and let them hang around, they’re good enough to beat you. And that’s what happened with the Rams.”
Speaking after the game, McVay took the blame while insisting he needed to do a “much better job”, saying there was nothing positive to take from Sunday.
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Buffalo Bills vs. Los Angeles Rams highlights from Week 5 of the NFL season.
McVay himself has endured a rocky start to the season, criticizing his decision to fly to Melbourne, Australia just a day before the Rams’ loss to the San Francisco 49ers, before leaving a press conference early and then venting his anger after the Week 5 loss to the Bills.
“Sean McVay has had a lot of regrets in recent games that he wasn’t aggressive enough or that his calls weren’t right,” Reynolds said.
“Every bounce seems to be going against them right now, but they just seem out of sync. Sean McVay is intense. He’s a hundred miles an hour. He openly admitted it, he told me this summer after the Patriots lost in the Super Bowl that he prepared so much because he was Bill Belichick.
“He ran his team a lot mentally going into that game, put a lot on their plates. He’s got to balance that now, hasn’t he? To not hit the panic button and just try and methodically work your way out of it.”
The Rams visit the Las Vegas Raiders in week seven before facing Justin Herbert’s limping Los Angeles Chargers.
Watch the 2026 NFL season live on Sky Sports, including every minute of the play-offs and Super Bowl LXI on Sunday 14 February 2027. Get Sky Sports OR transmission without a contract with TANI.
