The Los Angeles Rams have stepped forward, one step at a time, after resetting following their Super Bowl LVI victory. After missing the postseason in 2022, it’s been frustrating baby steps. Sean McVay’s team lost in the Wild Card round in 2023, the divisional round in 2024 and the Conference Championship in 2025.
Can they take that next step and make it to the Super Bowl in 2026? According to edge rusher Jared Verse, only the Rams are preventing that from happening.
“We keep beating ourselves up,” he told DJ Siddiqi in a recent interview. “When you stop beating yourself up, you win, it’s easy to win. We got all the pieces we need. We got great DBs, we got great linebackers, our defensive line is the best. We got an amazing outside linebacker. If you ask me, we got the best outside backs. I’m a little cocky about that, bro. We got an amazing running back, wide receiver, back etc. receivers, kickers, snappers We got the best of them.
“The only thing that can stop us is ourselves. After the season, I told everyone when we came back, I said, ‘We have to stop beating ourselves up.’ The first week back, everyone is always ready and everything like that. It’s the second week again, and I wanted everyone to deal with it today, and it was harder than I expected the second week, when we can really measure success and how much you’re willing to work.”
The refrain is similar to what Verse said after the season, when he took the blame for the defensive collapse against the Seahawks in the NFC Championship Game. It’s clear that Verse still thinks the Rams lost that deficit more than Seattle won it.
“They have a good offensive line. I like the defense, they have a great defensive line,” Verse said when asked about the Seahawks. “They got great players. But like I said before, it wasn’t anything we didn’t expect, or they didn’t throw anything at us that was a left hook or anything like that. It was just things where we beat ourselves up. We didn’t do it, we didn’t do it, a drop here, a bad tackle there, doing it after third down. It was just a lack of execution on our part.”
Verse emphasized that in order to go to the top in a division that hosts the Super Bowl champions and the elite team in San Francisco, the Rams can’t keep stubbing their toes.
“It’s easy to face a team you should beat because you have a more talented group,” he said. “When both teams are excelling, the Seahawks have a very talented group. The Niners have a very talented group. When you put two talented groups against each other, or all three of us against each other, it’s whoever does better.
“The second and third time we played the Seahawks, they outplayed them, it’s that simple. That’s why we lost. Against the Niners when we play them in Australia – they meet at the start of the 2026 season – we had to execute better.”