SANTA CLARA, Calif. – Less than three weeks ago, the Los Angeles Rams were reeling after a stunning loss to the Philadelphia Eagles. And as coach Sean McVay assembled his team to bounce back from the loss that left the playoff odds under 15%, he had a message for how he wanted to attack the final six games of the regular season.

McVay told his players that they had six games and 39 guaranteed days left this season and he wanted “us to do everything in our power to commit to every single thing we can do.” To make the best of our abilities.”

“Let’s see where this takes us,” he said in his Nov. 26 press conference when asked about the NFC West landscape. “We can’t sit and watch other people. If we don’t accomplish what we need to accomplish, everything is irrelevant. I am confident that this approach will give us the best chance of playing as well as we have.” I look forward to learning more about ourselves along the way.

“… We are guaranteed six games and a total of 39 days. We’ll see if we can maximize that. My full concentration and focus will be solely on this.”

That message hit home for the Rams players, who have won three straight games since McVay delivered that message: in New Orleans, at home against the Buffalo Bills and on Thursday night on the road against the San Francisco 49ers.

The last two games were played within five days of each other, and the two victories came in completely different ways: a 44-42 offensive shootout against the Bills and a 12-6 field goal victory in the rain at Levi’s Stadium. According to ESPN Research, the Rams are the first team since the Bears in 1993 to win two straight games by first scoring 40 or more points and then failing to score a touchdown.

The fact that the Rams were able to “find a lot of ways to win football games,” McVay said, was “really cool.”

“I think our team has shown that we can win football games any way we can,” quarterback Matthew Stafford said.

McVay’s challenge to the team lit a fire under running back Kyren Williams, who was coming off a stretch in which he had four fumbles (two lost) in four games, including two (one lost) against the Eagles in Week 12.

“It really hit me when he said that,” Williams said. “And for me, I’m someone who reacts to things like that. I liked things like that. I like to see the reality of the situation. And when he said that, something clicked for me. It clicked that I needed to be able to lock myself in because obviously I was fumbling the ball, all that stuff in those times.

“For me to be who I wanted to say I was, I had to work hard and, as I said, give it my all.”

In the last three games, Williams has had two games with at least 100 rushing yards. On Thursday night, Williams had his second straight game with 30 or more touches. According to ESPN Research, he is the first player to reach 30 consecutive touches in three consecutive games since Derrick Henry in 2022.

And despite playing part of the game in the pouring rain – the weather forced him to take his gloves off before halftime to have every chance of keeping the ball – Williams finished the game with 108 yards on 29 carries and “ran really hard.” “McVay said.

When Stafford heard McVay’s speech, he thought back to all the work the team had done this season. “All the OTAs, all the training camp days in August, all the injuries early in the season, all the issues and things you have to overcome to give yourself a chance to play meaningful football,” Stafford said. The QB pointed to the fact that there have been “quite a few Decembers” in his career when he wasn’t part of a team that played meaningful games this late in the season.

“He broke it down for us and did a great job of saying, ‘Hey, there’s so many days left,'” Stafford said. “It’s a great way to motivate the group. I thought it was a great message. He does a great job in front of our team at all times, but that definitely resonated with the group.”

“People are getting behind it and continuing to do everything we can to win games.”

And with three games remaining – on the road against the New York Jets and at home against the Arizona Cardinals and Seattle Seahawks – the Rams have their playoff fate in their hands as they trail the Seahawks by just half a game heading into the weekend.

And even though the playoffs are within reach, McVay’s message to his team hasn’t changed.

“It’s the same thing,” McVay said. “I don’t know all that. All I know is that we’ve got the next game and we’re going to do our best to prepare, make the right plans and put our players in the right spots, and then ultimately we want to try to create a great opportunity within that three-hour window create and see what it looks like.

“But I think our guys have been really solid and consistent and we can just take it one day at a time, one game at a time. We will continue to do that.”