Sean McVay and the Los Angeles Rams have a special interest in Sunday night's heavyweight showdown in Minneapolis between the Detroit Lions and the Minnesota Vikings.
After all, the loser of that Lions-Vikings matchup will end up as the Rams' opponent in an NFC wild-card round game at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood. Either way, Los Angeles will have its hands full against a guaranteed powerful team in what will be their first home playoff game in three years.
For McVay, he will have his team ready for anyone in the playoffs.
“We respect all, but we fear none,” McVay said about the Rams' waiting game for their next opponent, per Jourdan Rodrigue of The Athletic.
“These are excellent football teams…we’ve been fortunate enough to get into this thing and you can’t worry about duckin’ people if you want to try to be able to advance.”
The Rams suffered a 30-25 home loss on Sunday at the hands of Geno Smith and the Seattle Seahawks, which dropped LA's prospect of landing a higher NFC seed in the NFL playoffs from No. 3 to No. 4.
They could have also locked up the No. 3 seed with a Tampa Bay Buccaneers loss to the New Orleans Saints on Sunday, but Baker Mayfield and company blocked that route for Los Angeles with a win on Sunday. But with a playoff spot already in the bag regardless of what was to happen in the Seattle game, the Rams opted to rest many of their starters, including quarterback Matthew Stafford. Jimmy Garoppolo started in place of Stafford and looked decent, passing for 334 yards and two touchdowns against an interception on 27-of-41 completions while getting sacked three times for a loss of 15 yards. The Rams will now enter the playoffs having won five of their last six outings.
For what it's worth, the Rams, who turned things around after a 1-4 start to the 2024 regular season, have already faced both the Lions and the Vikings this campaign. They lost to Detroit in a Week 1 thriller at Ford Field via a score of 26-20 (via overtime). In Week 8, Los Angeles dropped the Vikings in a 30-20 win at SoFi Stadium.
