The Los Angeles Rams did not give Sean McVay much reason to be confident they can find their Super Bowl-winning form during their Monday defeat to the San Francisco 49ers.
San Francisco rode a dominant defensive performance to knock off the Rams 24-9, extending the 49ers' regular-season winning streak against their NFC West rivals to seven games.
Matthew Stafford failed to throw a touchdown pass having also drawn a blank in the Week 3 win over the Arizona Cardinals. It marked the fourth time in his career that Stafford had gone without a scoring throw in successive games.
Yet even with their offense misfiring, the Rams and head coach McVay have reason for hope heading into Sunday's clash with the Dallas Cowboys.
Since McVay took over in 2017, the Rams have gone 3-1 against the Cowboys, including a win in the Divisional Round of the playoffs at the end of the 2018 season.
Los Angeles' average margin of victory in those successes has been 16 points and, going against a backup quarterback in Cooper Rush, the Rams would appear to be a strong bet for a two-touchdown win in this matchup.
Yet Rush is proving himself a top-tier backup as Dak Prescott recovers from a thumb injury.
He has helped the Cowboys to three successive victories after they lost the season opener to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Having won his first start against the Minnesota Vikings last year, Rush is the first quarterback in Cowboys history to win his first four starts. The only other NFL players to do so since 2005 are Kyle Allen (5), Patrick Mahomes (6), Jimmy Garoppolo (7) and Trevor Siemian (4).
And Rush and the Cowboys may have a formula for making it five wins for their number two signal-caller.
The Rams' nine-point effort against the 49ers marked the second time they had failed to score more than 10 this season. They were held to 10 by the Buffalo Bills in the season curtain-raiser.
Los Angeles had only failed to surpass 10 points seven times in McVay's first five seasons as head coach and have not done so more than twice in one season since doing so nine times in 2016, the Rams' first year back in their Southern California home following the return from St. Louis.
In the Cowboys, however, the Rams are facing a defense that has the talent to match the destruction the 49ers produced against a banged-up offensive line that allowed Stafford to be sacked seven times and pressured on 21 dropbacks.
Heading into Week 5, the Cowboys ranked second in pass rush win rate and boast three pass rushers in Micah Parsons (4), Demarcus Lawrence (4) and Dorance Armstrong (3) who have combined for 10 sacks so far this season.
With the Rams proving incapable of protecting Stafford as they fell to 2-2 on the season in the loss to San Francisco, that trio has a chance to consistently disrupt the Rams' passing game and allow a Dallas offense that has committed just two giveaways this season to control the ball and the clock.
Should that happen at SoFi Stadium, the Cowboys will be in an excellent position to reduce the Rams' reasons for positivity by dealing another blow to their hopes of retaining the Lombardi Trophy.