Rams fans will blame Sean McVay for Week 1 disaster, but that's the easy way out

Sean McVay is going to hear plenty about the Los Angeles Rams' travel schedule after losing 27-7 to the San Francisco 49ers in Australia. That's understandable. San Francisco spent more than a week there, while Los Angeles arrived roughly 28 hours before kickoff.

It's also a convenient explanation for a game in which the Rams did plenty to beat themselves.

Matthew Stafford threw an interception. Tyler Higbee lost a fumble. Los Angeles was flagged four times for 43 yards and didn't score after Kyren Williams' touchdown on the first play of the second quarter.

Travel might have had something to do with how the Rams looked. Pinning a 20-point loss on it requires ignoring quite a bit of what actually happened.

Rams couldn't get out of their own way

Los Angeles wasn't buried early, either.

The Rams went into halftime down 10-7 and had the ball near San Francisco's goal line early in the third quarter. Stafford tried to sneak it on fourth down and didn't get there.

Kyle Shanahan's 49ers took over and eventually went 99 yards for a touchdown.

That sequence had a lot more to do with the direction of the game than when either team landed in Australia.

Stafford never found much of a rhythm. He completed 15 of 25 passes for 155 yards, threw no touchdowns and had the interception. The Rams finished with 290 yards and turned the ball over twice.

San Francisco wasn't spectacular offensively. It didn't have to be.

Brock Purdy threw for only 205 yards but threw three touchdown passes. The 49ers also ran for 174 yards and had possession for 33:50.

By the fourth quarter, a three-point halftime deficit had turned into a rout.

Sean McVay gave everyone an easy target

This is the risk McVay took when the Rams chose such a different travel plan.

Had Los Angeles won, the late arrival probably would have been treated like another example of McVay knowing his team. Instead, the Rams lost by 20 and looked bad doing it. Of course, people are going to connect the two.

They might even be right to some degree.

But take the travel schedule out of the story for a minute.

A quarterback threw an interception. A tight end put the ball on the ground. The offense failed on fourth down near the goal line. The Rams went three quarters without scoring while the other quarterback threw three touchdowns.

If Los Angeles had spent a week in Australia before doing all of that, we'd call it a bad football game.

It still was.