Los Angeles heads into a home game in week 17 with
a ten-point win after a road trip to the East Coast. Last week the Rams beat Aaron Rodgers and his
New York Jets in a game that saw very little offense. There was a total of 563 yards between both
teams. Now the Rams have two regular season
games remaining, both divisional games.
This is the healthiest the Rams have been all season, and it comes at
the best possible time. The Cardinals
are coming into town this week, they last played one another in week two. Next week however will be the most important
week for L.A. regardless of whether they win or lose on Saturday Night.
I guess
I’ll go ahead and address the elephant in the room before I go any
further. Everyone who’s read my articles
knows I have been backing one NFC West team since the beginning of the
season. This team had a rollercoaster of
a season, and it seemed they had turned the corner this time. I really thought this would be their year though
we’ll have to wait until next year to see if the Arizona Cardinals can achieve what
I had hoped to see this season. However,
the Cardinals still showed a lot of perseverance, resilience, and strength as a
team through their ups and downs. I believe
their play this year will only coarsen the entire unit on both sides of the
ball for the following year. Kyler’s back
to his rookie form, this being his first full season since his injury two years
ago. James Conner is still running hard,
plus this was the best O-line play I’ve seen out of a Cardinals team in a
while. Arizona’s second-year head coach Jonathan
Gannon is the right fit for this franchise, and I fully expect him to be there
for the next several seasons.
They say good things will come to those who
wait. Patience is a virtue; this is certainly
the case for the fanbase of these Arizona Cardinals who haven’t seen a single
playoff win in the past nine years. Gannon’s
team may not be eligible to make the postseason, but they can play spoiler to
one of the other two teams in their division.
If the Cardinals beat the Rams on Saturday night it will be a season
sweep for the Cards, although it would also help the Seahawks in a winner-take-all
scenario between them and the Rams in their week 18 matchup. The other side of this would be if the Cards
came up short in a loss, causing the Seattle Seahawks ultimately, to become all
but eliminated from playoff contention.
Next
year should end with better results for Kyler Murray's statistics and the Cardinals'
overall record. Further expectations for
this club lie in the Murray to Harrison Jr. connection, which I firmly believe to
become quite a perilous one. A building block
in tight end Tre McBride has been put in place and they must continue to build
around him. They may draft a younger running back to help keep Conner fresh thus
slightly lessening his workload. For
those that may not remember, in their first meeting in week two the Cardinals
steamrolled the Rams in Arizona 41-10. Though,
in all fairness, Mike LaFleur’s (Los Angeles OC) offense was struggling to
start the year with several key injuries to the O-line, Puka Nacua, and Cooper
Kupp (Kupp was injured in that week two game).
Arizona had a leaky defense for a lot of this season, it looked as
though they were starting to turn it around but that is the side of the ball
that is keeping them from making the playoffs.
CARDINALS OFFENSE:
POINTS PER GAME- 22.9 (12TH)
TOTAL YARDS P/G- 353.4 (11TH)
RUSH YARDS P/G- 145.8 (5TH)
PASS YARDS P/G- 207.6 (20TH)
SACKS ALLOWED- 26 (5TH)
CARDINALS DEFENSE:
POINTS PER GAME- 22.8 (15TH)
TOTAL YARDS P/G- 342.0 (20TH)
RUSH YARDS P/G- 129.5 (22ND)
PASS YARDS P/G- 212.5 (15TH)
TOTAL SACKS – 39 (11TH)
Just
when you think the Los Angeles Rams are down and out, they come back in a major
way, bouncing back after overcoming a season in which they were plagued by
injuries. How do you fight when your top
two wideouts are lost for a lengthy amount of the season? How about when three starters on your O-line
go down? Maybe add in the fact that the Rams'
all-time best defensive player in the history of their team retires leaving your
defense with a bunch of young players with little to no experience, while you
also lose your defensive coordinator of the previous three seasons. It’s seemingly all a part of the Sean McVay
system. They were continuously able to
weather the storm no matter how powerful it became. Sports Illustrated says that only 11.5% of NFL
teams that have started the season with a 0-2 record from 1990-2023 have been
able to make the postseason. While that
is an impressive statistic, I think you’ll like this one better; of that 11.5%
of teams (32 teams) that were able to make the playoffs, just 17 of those 32
were able to win their divisions (6.1%).
If you want to know if any of them have won a Super Bowl, the answer is
yes. Three of those such teams (1.1%) were
able to come away with a Lombardi Trophy.
However, the Rams started this season 1-4. The Statistics for teams that have started 1-4,
yet still made the playoffs are far fewer, with just 6 teams being able to
overcome such a tragic start to their seasons.
Four of those six teams were even able to win a playoff game. The bad news for the Rams is, upon finding such
a comparable team to them in the Tennessee Titans, they did make it out of the
first round of the playoffs, but they did not make it past the Conference Championship
round.
Los
Angeles did not make it back to fall short though and I expect them to win the
NFC West whether they win or lose tomorrow night. I don’t want to start any rumors here, but I
do remember a few weeks ago when a member of the media had asked head coach
Sean McVay about a possible Aaron Donald return if the Rams were able to make a
playoff run. McVay responded in the best
possible way, saying that he respects that man entirely too much to even
speculate on such a matter and that he would never reach out to the retiree,
but that if Donald ever were to reach out to him, he would then and only then take
him back for one last run. It was very
puzzling to witness some of the Rams home games this season and see that there appeared
to be almost as many if not more visiting fans, than Rams fans in Sofi. Maybe they don’t have as many fans as I once thought,
maybe more of the L.A. fanbase belongs to the Chargers, or is it because they seemed
like a doomed and gloomy team early on?
Whatever the case maybe I need all Los Angeles Rams fans to start showing
admiration for this compelling story of a team!
RAMS OFFENSE:
POINTS PER GAME- 21.9 (15TH)
TOTAL YARDS P/G- 331.5 (15TH)
RUSH YARDS P/G- 107.5 (19TH)
PASS YARDS P/G- 224.0 (13TH)
SACKS ALLOWED- 28 (7TH)
RAMS DEFENSE:
POINTS PER GAME- 23.1 (18TH)
TOTAL YARDS P/G- 351.1 (24TH)
RUSH YARDS P/G- 131.4 (25TH)
PASS YARDS P/G- 219.7 (18TH)
TOTAL SACKS – 25 (32ND)
It
may pain me to say this because I have been rooting for Arizona since last August,
but I believe that with the Rams' offense fully healthy they will torch the
Cardinals. Stafford is still one of the
best football QBs. Arizona may have the
edge when it comes to the tight end position and maybe even a slight edge with
their offensive line, but the Rams have one of the very best wideout tandems in
the league. They also possess a younger,
more versatile runner in Kyren Williams.
The Cardinals' defense has also averaged slightly better numbers than
the Rams. However, L.A. has been on the
upswing as of late, while Arizona has faltered the past few weeks. I previously pointed out this game will take
place on Saturday Night at Sofi Stadium and the rallying Rams are being favored
by -6.5.
No comments:
Post a Comment