The Rams are 10.5-point favorites at Carolina in Saturday’s playoff opener, but Sean McVay says his team knows it has a challenge on its hands. The Rams were 10-point favorites at Carolina in Week 13, but the Panthers won 31-28.
McVay said the Rams respect the Panthers, who taught them a hard lesson about what can happen when they make too many mistakes.
“They did a great job,” McVay said of the Panthers. “They made the plays to win the game and we came up short. We had our chances but there’s a lot of learning opps. There’s a lot of learning opps even when we’ve gotten the results we wanted in those 12 wins we had. But this was a good, humbling day. You don’t take away anything — they earned that win, but we do have a very clear understanding of what’s going to be required for us to be at our best, to do the things that are necessary first and foremost starting with ourselves, and then geared toward the opponent and the scheme. Our players have a lot of respect for these guys. We’ll be ready to go, but we know what a great challenge it’ll be.”
The betting line may not look like the Rams are in for a great challenge, but McVay isn’t going to let his team get overconfident against an opponent that just beat them six weeks ago.