Sean McVay addresses protection of quarterback Matthew Stafford in Week 4 loss

The Los Angeles Rams took a tough loss against the San Francisco 49ers in Week 4, and the play of their offensive line was a crucial aspect of their failure. Quarterback Matthew Stafford was sacked six times, and struggled behind the team’s patchwork front five that wilted against the 49ers’ pass rush.

Head coach Sean McVay addressed the unit’s horrendous showing against San Francisco on Tuesday, telling reporters that they got flat-out best by the 49ers’ relentless attack. Though he stopped short of saying that the line was the only factor in the team’s loss, he made it clear that their inability to keep players like Nick Bosa and Samson Ebukam away from Stafford was their primary dysfunction.

“I think when you look at it, through four games, 14 of those occurred in two of those games,” McVay explained. “The first game was a challenge. Then yesterday, there was a couple where they did a good job winning on a five-man rush, sometimes even on a four man rush when we got into known passing [situations]. Then like I had mentioned, a couple of those were just mental errors that are uncharacteristic for our players to make. We want to try to minimize the amount of times that our quarterback’s getting hit.

“The way that both those games have kind of unfolded, that is not ideal. That is something that we take a lot of pride in and we’ve got to be able to clean it up. But it’s always a team sport. There’s a lot of things that I feel very responsible for. Then each one of those 16 has kind of a separate conversation to be had, but none of which is okay to have that many through four games.  [It] always starts with some of the things that I’ve got to do better job for our players and then collectively being able to execute better.”

When a team gets home with four-man pass rushes, it becomes exceptionally difficult to move the ball downfield. This advantage gives the defense an opportunity to drop seven players into coverage and limits a quarterback’s ability to find open receivers against swarming defenders who only need to cover a limited area.

It would seem that this strategy is the only way to stop Los Angeles after their Super Bowl championship, and with the injuries along their offensive line, it seems likely that they will continue to struggle. It will take a new approach by Sean McVay to game plan his quarterback into better protection next week against the Dallas Cowboys.

Story originally appeared on Rams Wire