Plead the Fourth: Rams Final Frame Woes Sinking Success

The Los Angeles Rams' Super Bowl defense has featured disappointing finales that have doomed them in the early going.

Los Angeles is known for its thrilling third acts and finales on its endless stream of screens. Nerds and jocks alike still laud the respective endings of "Avengers: Endgame" and "Rogue One: A Star Wars Story."  

Film a bad one, however, and it haunts your studio forever: "Seinfeld"'s fiendish four could tell you that, despite their otherwise beloved debauchery. 

The Los Angeles Rams are learning the latter lesson the hard way: the team's recent Super Bowl run was built on the art of sticking the landing, as the final three legs of their hometown triumph were built on fourth-quarter comebacks. 

Flash forward a year later, however, and the team has forgotten how to end a ball game.

The Rams (2-2) have mustered a mere three points over the last 15 minutes of games, the worst tally in the NFC and besting only the score Tennessee Titans. To make matters worse, Los Angeles is allowing 44 points in return, 10 of them coming in their most recent outing, a 24-9 Monday night defeat at the hands of the San Francisco 49ers. A bulk of that scoring came when Talanoa Hufanga got Troy Aikman to start singing to the tune of a 52-yard pick-six from the hands of Matthew Stafford, creating the final margin. 

Only Cleveland (50) has allowed more final frame points this season. 

The superstitious type would blame the Rams' perplexing struggles with the 49ers, who earned their seventh consecutive regular-season victory in the Golden State civil war. 

But this goes far beyond the red and gold: Los Angeles letting up two fourth-quarter touchdowns to mighty Buffalo on opening night is perhaps understandable, but they nearly let the developing Atlanta Falcons steal a SoFi Stadium victory to the tune of a 15-point run that nearly erased a 28-3 lead. 

Though his group was able to mount furious comebacks last season, Rams head coach Sean McVay believes that undesirable situations established over the first three quarters have become too much for the team to take. 

He was particularly perturbed by the team's lack of pass rush (no sacks on Monday) and big-play names stepping up (Cooper Kupp and Tyler Higbee uniting for 33 targets) and lack of red zone success, forcing Matt Gay into three short field goals. 

By the time the Rams are ready to stage the comeback, desperation, as seen on Hufanga's run to glory, leads to fatal mistakes. 

"The red (zone), to have three good drives and only come away with nine points in a game, that was a back and forth battle like that, that ended up being the difference," McVay said, per NFL.com. "When you do make it a one-possession game, and you got some momentum, a couple game first downs, and we throw an interception for a touchdown on a screen, those are the things that, you know, don't help you win games."

The road gets no easier for the Rams, who face the Dallas Cowboys at home next Sunday (1:25 p.m. PT, Fox). Though Dallas (3-1) is missing its franchise quarterback Dak Prescott, they've ironically contrasted the Rams' late-game woes. 

The previous Monday night game's fourth quarter saw the Cowboys erase a late road deficit to the New York Giants while they put away the Washington Commanders on Sunday to the tune of a 10-0 fourth-quarter advantage.

Comeback ar exciting and account for some of the most exciting moments in franchise history. That, after all, has accounted for each of the Rams' triumphant Super Bowl moments thus far.

Alas for Los Angeles, they realize that not every movie can end with an "Avengers ... assemble" moment. 

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