The Los Angeles Rams beat themselves on Monday Night Football

Even though the Baltimore Ravens won on Monday Night Football, it might have had more to do with the Los Angeles Rams beating themselves than anything.

Good teams do not beat themselves. The Baltimore Ravens might be the best team in football and never beat themselves. The Los Angeles Rams, however, are still dealing with a Super Bowl hangover and found ways to beat themselves in the savage beatdown at home that was Monday Night Football.

On this week’s episode of Stacking the Box, FanSided‘s Matt Verderame and Mark Carman, along with former NFL offensive lineman Geoff Schwartz, discuss what went right for the Ravens on Monday night and what went so dreadfully wrong for the Rams in the same ball game (10:00).

“The Ravens do not beat themselves,” said Schwartz. “I’ll give you two examples last night of the Rams beating themselves, besides obviously [Jared] Goff being terrible. So second-and-5, they’re down 14-0. Second-and-5, ball at the seven. Left guard jumps offsides. They now go to second-and-10. Alright. They then call a terrible screen. Now, it’s third-and-17.”

“They call a play-action screen from the 10-yard line. It’s so stupid. And then they get a field goal, so now it’s 14-3. Should have been 14-7…Then the next drive, they’re down 21-3. They got the ball at about the 18. Robert Woods, false start. Doesn’t motion properly. It was a false start. Now it’s second-and-10. They kick another field goal. I believe that’s when Goff got sacked.”

Schwartz would then add that these compounding mistakes are what ended up making this game a blowout loss for the Rams. He said that teams like the Ravens and the Rams’ division rival San Francisco 49ers don’t do this sort of stuff. These little mistakes seem to be adding up and are a microcosm of why the Rams aren’t as good as they were a season ago.

Now at 6-5, the Rams are still alive for an NFC Wild Card spot, but will likely be on the outside looking in at a playoff berth because both the 49ers and Seahawks are getting in this year and both the Green Bay Packers and the Minnesota Vikings are getting in. This was a tough matchup for the Rams, but this was a game they needed to win to stay alive in the playoff picture.

Here are a few other topics discussed on this week’s episode of Stacking the Box:

• Schwartz: I was very wrong about the Ravens – 1:25
• Verderame: Lamar might fail like RGIII or Kaepernick – 6:58
• Gambling is going to put pressure on changing bad officiating – 15:06
• Patriots offense will be why they don’t win a Super Bowl – 34:44

All this and more!

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