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For the first time as an NFL head coach, Sean McVay won’t be playing beyond Week 17. And he’s ready to approach that challenge the same way he approaches every other challenge: Head on.

“I mean it’s fresh right now,” McVay told reporters after a loss to the 49ers that knocked the Rams out of the postseason. “I think it’s tough because you care so much about these players, the work that they’ve put in and you want to do your part to see those guys have that success, and get an opportunity to compete for a world championship. We’re not going to do that but I do trust that we’re made of the right stuff. I know that once we get through next week I can’t wait to attack the offseason, figure out how I can be better for this football team as we move forward and I think these scars are going to make us better.”

Defensive tackle Aaron Donald sounded equally pragmatic, while also resigned to the fact that his team is on the outside looking in.

“It’s tough,” Donald told reporters. “All we can do now is finish this last game strong and try and prepare to come back better next year. . . . Any time you lose it’s going to be frustrating. No matter how many plays you make, if you’re not winning it doesn’t matter. We just have to find ways to be better.”

Would Donald attribute it to a Super Bowl hangover?

“No,” Donald said. “It was just not being consistent and not playing the game of football like we were supposed to. When you don’t, you lose.”

The offense did it’s part last night; the defense didn’t, especially on the final drive, which resulted in a pair of third-and-16 conversions. Running back Todd Gurley declined to speak ill of his defensive teammates.

“It is what it is,” Gurley told reporters. “I’m not going to point fingers on defense, offense or special teams. We’re all in this together. It is what it is.”

Linebacker Clay Matthews, who joined the Rams for 2019, summed up the struggles perfectly.

“At times, we played like the number one team in the conference, and at other times we played like we had no business being out there,” Matthews told reporters. “Unfortunately, we’re in the position we are today because of that. We go from shutting down the number one seed in Seattle and then coming out here where this game could have gone very much either way, playing them as hard as we did. It just didn’t go our way. Our consistency is probably the biggest message, or the biggest thing that we would probably need to hit on in order to put us in a better position.”

“Tonight summed it up,” tackle Andrew Whitworth added. “It is what it is. It’s just been that way. Really, all year long, it’s been one of those things where you can’t get situations to bounce our way. That’s kind of how it’s gone this year. The thing you’re proud of is that we found spots in the season to respond to these kind of bad moments. Coming up from Dallas and from the Baltimore game, coming from some of those other losses where we lost guys, and just the way that we responded through the year, makes you proud. It shows our character and the men in this locker room, how much it means to them. This is unfortunate because really, I thought the way that we played, we deserved a chance to win that game. This one hurts.”

It surely does, but with McVay running the show the Rams just as surely aren’t going anywhere. The challenge for the franchise will be navigating a division that is suddenly one of the very best in the league — and as Cardinals quarterback Kyler Murray develops, it could get even better.