A herculean defensive effort lifted the Rams over the Bears in the divisional round. Three interceptions and three fourth-down stops gave the Rams a chance to win it in overtime, despite middling offensive production and an unexpected game plan from head coach Sean McVay. Yet, when kicker Harrison Mevis' 42-yard field goal sailed through the uprights, the Rams earned the right to play Seattle in the NFC Championship next week.
Here are five interesting stats from the Rams' 20-17 overtime victory over the Bears.
This was just the fourth game all season where Chicago lost the turnover battle, and the first time they lost it by more than two, according to nflverse data
The Bears led the league in defensive takeaways (33) and turnover margin (+22) in the regular season, so it was rare to see them fall so far behind an opponent in that area. The Rams are the only team this year to win the turnover battle against the Bears by a margin of three or more, and they did so on the biggest stage.
The Rams' nine passes defended added 40.6% to their win probability, according to nflverse data
The nine plays that saw the Rams' defense either break up or intercept a pass increased the team's win probability by 40.6%. That's the 11th-highest mark in the McVay era and second-highest this season after the Rams' four-interception game against the Seahawks in Week 11. Safety Kam Curl defended two passes, as did inside linebacker Omar Speights, while Cobie Durant had three and safeties Kam Kinchens and Jaylen McCollough each got their hands on one.
"It's a game-ball worthy performance for the whole group," McVay said.
Caleb Williams' three interceptions set a new career-high
In the most important game of his career to date, the Rams gave Williams fits. Durant's two interceptions and Curl's diving pick in overtime led to 10 of the Rams' 20 points on the ensuing drives. Durant now has three interceptions in these playoffs and four in his five career postseason games.
"What I was so impressed with in these elements, was our guys' ability to catch the ball," McVay said postgame.
The Rams' seven run plays in the first half tied for the 12th-fewest in a game in the McVay era, according to nflverse data
The Rams ran the ball seven times compared to 27 dropbacks in the first half. That split ended up being a bit more even by the end of the game (31 runs compared to 46 passes), but McVay wasn't shy about criticizing his approach and gave the players credit for executing to make up for "bad coaching" on his part. The Rams often run the ball out of 13 personnel, but only seven of their 77 plays came out of that grouping (9.1%), their lowest rate of the season since before they started leaning into that approach in Week 6.
"I could have done a much better job (calling plays), and then I did think, once we were able to get some success, we settled into a little bit of a different approach," McVay said. "... So I think overall, I did not like the feel for the flow of the game that I had outside of the first series."
The Rams' offensive success rate of 35.1% was their lowest of the season, according to Next Gen Stats
The Rams succeeded on just over a third of their offensive plays, but it was enough to get the victory. Coming into the game, the Rams' lowest offensive success rate came against the Seahawks in Week 11 (38.0%), a game that Los Angeles also won. In fact, its four lowest offensive success rates of the season have all come in wins, a credit to the defense's ability to pick up the slack when needed.
