Who is home?

Nobody home.

The Rams hosted a party on Monday night that filled SoFi Stadium with celebrities, legends, pop stars… almost everything you need for a nationally televised Hollywood football party.

The only thing missing was them.

The stage was set for the Rams to prove their championship legitimacy…but they didn’t show it.

The football world eagerly awaited an electrifying performance from one of the NFL’s most popular and exciting teams… and they accepted it.

Read more: Dolphins score on opening drive and error-prone Rams can never catch them

Putting the struggling Miami Dolphins on a blue-and-gold platter, the Rams fumbled the exchange, dropped the brilliant opportunity with a loud bang, made a total mess of it and limped away with a 23-15 loss that just was as ugly as the score sounded.

“It sucks,” guard Steve Avila said.

It certainly did.

An offense created by the great Sean McVay and engineered by the bright Matthew Stafford scored exactly zero touchdowns. It was the first time in more than two years that that combination was kept out of the end zone.

“Dirty? Yeah,” McVay said.

An offensive line that finally started to make sense with the return of two starters produced four sacks and constant pressure on Stafford, who threw one interception and averaged just five yards per completion.

“Negative play at the wrong time,” Stafford said. “We kind of shot ourselves in the foot.”

A smart Rams culture that rarely makes stupid mistakes committed six penalties for 64 yards, including an illegal procedure by lineman Beaux Limmer that cost them a field goal.

“Too many things where it just seemed like, we were out and we never gave ourselves a chance,” McVay said.

They were gone from the moment the match started.

The Rams allowed the Dolphins to control the field on the first possession of the game, scoring on an 18-yard jet screen run by Malik Washington.

The Rams are playing for the first time? Kyren Williams caught a pass in the Stafford backfield and was immediately smothered for a loss of 10 yards.

“Obviously I didn’t want to lose (10 yards) on the first play of the game… hard to play football like that,” Stafford said.

The Rams seemingly never recovered and looked nothing like the team that had rebounded from a 1-4 start, won three straight games and put themselves in position to eventually take control of an inconsistent NFC West.

Thus dragged back to reality, they will spend the rest of the week at 4-5, behind the Arizona Cardinals and San Francisco 49ers, with games against both plus the Philadelphia Eagles and Buffalo Bills still to come.

Translated: They’re still in the playoff hunt, but their margin for error is diminishing as quickly as McVay’s vote.

“We can’t dwell on this, ‘Oh no, woe is me,’” rookie edge rusher Jared Verse said. “We have to move on.”

Good thing it’s a short week, with a trip to New England this weekend. Indeed, they won’t have much time to reflect on a game in which they had all their attacking weapons to complement their frenetic young defense, a game in which they were rightly favored and should have won.

The Dolphins had lost six of their last seven games, their quarterback Tua Tagovailoa was under investigation for multiple concussions and speedy receiver Tyreek Hill was playing with a torn wrist.

To not only ruin this opportunity, but to do it without even scoring a touchdown? The scene was reminiscent of Arizona’s 31-point outburst earlier this season. Championship teams don’t stumble this bad, not twice in nine games, and you have to wonder.

“Whatever I say will be an excuse,” McVay said. “We have to be better.”

Hey, football aside, it was a pretty memorable night.

Read more: All his players say it: ‘John Robinson was without a doubt my favorite head coach of all time’

First there was a fitting moment of silence for John Robinson, the legendary former USC and Rams coach who died Monday at the age of 89.

Although Robinson rose to greater local fame as the Trojan national championship coach in 1978, he plays a large role in Rams history. He coached more Rams games than anyone (153) and held the record for wins with 79 until McVay surpassed him earlier this season.

As the game progressed, the video board did what the Rams offense couldn’t: went wild with the stars.

Aaron Donald received prominent cheers. Mookie Betts played the lead role, “Moooos.”

LeBron James was featured and Marshall Faulk was interviewed, and the “I Can Make Your Hands Clap” group – Fitz and the Tantrums – rocked the stadium at halftime.

The Rams defense also made people clap, holding the combustible Dolphin offense to 238 yards. However, if the offensive line can’t provide better protection for Stafford, and if Stafford can’t better adapt to the overall coverage of Cooper Kupp and Puka Nacua, this team could be in trouble.

“There was no complementary football whatsoever,” McVay said. “We have to be able to improve there.”

Even when the Rams were good, they were bad. Christian Rozeboom intercepted Tagovailoa early in the second quarter so they could gain momentum… and yet they gave it back moments later on a Williams fumble.

“One action here or there can make a difference, and we just didn’t do enough,” Stafford said, speaking of the entire team.

During his post-game press conference, Stafford wore a blue baseball cap backwards. On the other side was the Dodgers logo.

Yes, after Monday night, this team needs to turn the tide… again.

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This story originally appeared in the Los Angeles Times.