1. The setup. On Monday night, the Buffalo Bills committed 13 penalties for 112 yards and lost the football two times. In a fair universe, this is where the broadcast cuts to commercial and everyone goes home. The Bills were tied 34-34 in overtime at a point where their own coach was apologizing to the camera.
2. The invention. The Rams then lost 37-34 anyway, which required, by our count, four separate errors performed by four different people in four different phases of the game. Special teams contributed. Defense contributed. Offense contributed. Nobody was innocent, which is the only team achievement the Rams can claim this week.
3. The quote. Sean McVay, whose postgame press conferences are normally 400 words of process talk, said he had not “been this pissed after a game” in “a while,” and looked it. The LA Times reported he used the word “sick.” McVay has won 101 games as a head coach. He was describing a football game against a team that could not stop penalizing itself.
4. The lesson. Overtime rules this season guarantee both teams a possession, and the 2026 season has already produced a tie, a Commanders-Giants draw that ended because Washington forgot to stop the clock. The league has essentially built a machine for producing outcomes that feel personal. The Rams fed it a 13-penalty opponent and the machine produced a loss anyway.
At his news conference, McVay was asked whether the collapse was fixable. “Yeah,” he said. “By not doing it.” The Rams return to practice Wednesday. The Bills, who were bad on Monday and won anyway, are 4-2.