INGLEWOOD — This could have been a trap game for the Rams, an assignment against a Seattle Seahawks team destined to miss the playoffs overlaid with the complications of a COVID-19 outbreak that forced the game to be delayed two days.

But Tuesday’s 20-10 Rams victory might have come down to a couple of sequences that illustrated why these teams are where they are.

The first came with the score tied, 10-10, early in the fourth quarter. After Sony Michel turned a screen pass into a 24-yard gain, Rams runners moved the pile on three straight plays, turning small gains into bigger ones. Darrell Henderson Jr. turned a 1-yard gain into a 5-yard gain and a first down. Van Jefferson took an end-around handoff and bulled his way for extra yards and a first down, and then Cooper Kupp turned a pass into the flat into another first down, fighting for every inch.

Those instances of grit and determination set up Kupp’s go-ahead 29-yard touchdown catch. But they also might have represented the Rams players’ response to a tremendously challenging week, in which at one point there was some question whether they’d be able to field a full team, much less win.

“I thought it’s been especially relevant these last three weeks,” Coach Sean McVay said Monday night. “When you look at it, our guys tightened up when they had to be at their best. … Guys didn’t flinch. They didn’t blink. They just stayed the course. We stayed connected as a team.”

You can tell when a team cares. And you can also tell when maybe a team cares too much and allows the moment to get away from them.

Consider the 5-9 Seahawks’ final drive, with a chance to tie the score. On a third-and-1 from the Rams’ 45-yard line, with a little more than four minutes left and the Seahawks going for the tying touchdown, running back Rashad Penny was flagged for a false start. Then Von Miller dropped Penny for a 1-yard loss. And on fourth-and-7 Rams linebacker Ernest Jones broke up a Russell Wilson pass intended for DeeJay Dallas … and Dallas kicked the ball away and received a 15-yard unsportsmanlike conduct penalty, directly leading to a field goal to make it 20-10. Two bonehead plays – really, how else can you describe them at that point in a close game? – that basically put the game out of reach.

It secured the Seahawks’ first losing season since 2011, Coach Pete Carroll’s second season in Seattle. Maybe they’re just not used to being out of the playoff race.

But the Rams’ response says something about their fortitude. There have been so many instances of weird losses in this first 17-game NFL season, of favorites stumbling and underdogs rising, where you wonder if that extra game has thrown everything askew. (A prime example: Detroit 30, Arizona 12 on Sunday.)

This would have absolutely followed that pattern, but the Rams didn’t let it happen. And while it’s too soon to proclaim that they again run the NFC West, since the Cardinals still have the tiebreaker advantage even though both teams are 10-4, maybe the hard times of a midseason three-game losing streak followed by the hurdles of the last eight days have forged an additional layer of toughness.

Trap game?

“I don’t know about (that),” Kupp said. “… Certainly coming off of a very big game with the Cardinals, then having all the stuff go on, I don’t know trap game as much as it is just being able to navigate the changes and just be able to still put a game plan together and execute it, when you don’t really know day by day who’s going to be available to play.”

The players are the ones who have to do it on the field, but quarterback Matthew Stafford felt McVay set the perfect tone for an unusual week.

“He’s ultra-resilient,” Stafford said. “He’s really smart and confident in himself, and he should be. You know, he’s got a great mind and a great ability to connect with people.

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“I mean, this whole week was led by him, and some of that is vulnerability too, right? Like, ‘Hey, guys, I don’t know what the answer is. I don’t know what the answer is going to be tomorrow because we just don’t know.’ There were a lot of unknowns this week. And you know, that resonates with us in the locker room, right? Somebody who’s real, someone who won’t sit there and say ‘I’ve got all the answers’ on Wednesday when however many guys hit the COVID list, right? We don’t know. We’re just going to play this thing day by day. Here’s what we can control. We go from there.

“And you know, that’s something that as a player, you love from a coach. You just sit there and go, ‘Perfect. That’s what we’re all thinking, I’m glad you’re thinking the same thing (as) us.’”

Sometimes leadership means not pretending you have all the answers. Sometimes simply creating an environment of stability is the best antidote to a turbulent environment.

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