Jared Goff trudged to the Los Angeles Rams' bench, his face a mask of confusion and despair while the Patriots celebrated their interception behind him.
Sean McVay left the sideline and leaned into his ear. The coach didn't say much, but he encouraged his quarterback to learn from the Rams' offensive flop.
McVay and Goff are likely to be together for many more years, and they hope they'll remember their embarrassing 13-3 loss in the Super Bowl on Sunday night as a springboard to the future, not the crushing flop that it felt like immediately afterward.
Goff's 19-of-38 performance for 229 yards and a key fourth-quarter interception played a large role in the Rams' defeat, but almost nothing went right for a team that has been frequently brilliant with the ball in its hands. A remarkable year ended with a big-game performance that looked nothing like most of the past two seasons while the Rams matched the lowest-scoring performance in Super Bowl history.
The Rams led the NFL in points per game over the past two seasons, yet they became just the second team in NFL history to fail to score a touchdown in the Super Bowl.
"It's the toughest loss I ever had," Goff said. "It kills. It's terrible. It's a game I wish I would have played better. I wish I could have a million plays back."
Casual football fans who hadn't watched the Rams during the past two years would have no idea how they got to the Super Bowl after watching this tentative, inconsistent performance.
All of Los Angeles' recent success came to a weird anticlimax at Mercedes-Benz Stadium with its lowest-scoring performance in 36 games under the 33-year-old head coach.
Los Angeles managed just 260 yards, got only 14 first downs - just six in the first three quarters - and punted a season-high nine times. But even putting the raw numbers aside, the Rams' miserable execution left them looking unprepared for a stellar defensive game plan from Bill Belichick.
"I'm pretty numb right now, but definitely I got outcoached," McVay said. "I didn't do nearly a good enough job for our football team. ... This one is going to stick with you. It just stings in your gut."
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