Sean McVay delivers brutal warning to Rams after embarrassing loss to Cardinals

Sean McVay didn’t bother to search for any silver linings on Sunday afternoon.Not after he witnessed his Los Angeles Rams turn yet another winnable football game into a master class in self-destruction. The usually optimistic head coach opened his postgame press conference with a warning that should send chills through a locker room that entered the season with Super Bowl expectations.“We won’t win a game unless we figure out how to not beat ourselves,” McVay said following the Rams’ stunning 18-16 loss to the previously 1-4 Arizona Cardinals at SoFi Stadium.That’s not an observation.

That’s not a suggestion.That’s an indictment, and frankly, he’s absolutely right. The Rams fell to 2-4 and into last place in the NFC West after another afternoon littered with penalties, turnovers, special teams breakdowns and missed opportunities.“So many unforced errors, so many things that are not in alignment with what we want to do,” McVay said.

“We didn’t do enough.”The Rams don’t even need to rewatch the tape of this game to find the evidence of all of those self-inflicted wounds.They’re everywhere. New kicker Blake Grupe suffered a knee injury making a touchdown-saving tackle after another kickoff coverage breakdown.

Tight end Tyler Higbee fumbled deep in Arizona territory.A questionable fourth-and-1 handoff to Davis Allen went nowhere, and another promising drive unraveled after a false-start penalty.Even Matthew Stafford’s remarkable fourth-quarter touchdown drive couldn’t save them.After punter Ethan Evans improbably converted the go-ahead extra point, the Rams’ defense surrendered enough yardage in the final 47 seconds for Chad Ryland to drill a 43-yard walk-off field goal, aided by an unnecessary roughness penalty on Josh Wallace.“Anytime we string a little bit of momentum, we turn it over, we take a negative, we jump offsides,” McVay said.

“We have a lot to look at ourselves in the mirror, and we need to go back to the d...