The Super Bowl-Favorite Rams Just Lost to One of the League’s Worst Teams

But I want to start with the Rams off the top. The Rams lost to the Arizona Cardinals. I can't believe I'm saying this. And they're 2-4. And I like to sometimes, you know, there's a barometer of fan reaction. But it's interesting because you go to like Turf Show Times, for example, which is like kind of the big Rams fan blog. Which is like going back to St. Louis. And I saw a headline from them, which I think you're going to reference here. Is it time to bench Matthew Stafford and start Ty Simpson? But then over on the right in the stack is Sean McVay is a starter, not a finisher. Can we trade him to the Jets for two ones? People, people, come on. Where are we going here? I don't know. I don't know what to say. I don't know what to say. Every fan base is crazy because if they're sick and tired of their head coach, They're like, oh, no, well, you take him. The Packers were doing this for years with Matt LaFleur, and now that the team is fixed and they're putting on a laser show every Sunday, they're like, oh, yeah, we like Matt LaFleur. We should probably extend him another year. If the Rams got rid of Sean McVay, that place would become a non- like, it would become a non-destination. It would be a- I don't even know what to say about that one. But I mean, it's become so much about Sean, you know, and like the whole program and all like, I, you're right. I don't know what they would be without Sean McVay. They would lose so much of their identity and their soul. It's not even worth discussing. So, um, you know, I, I had a conversation with, um, on the air with my buddy, uh, Mark the Beetle Bertrand up here in Boston last week. And, um, I said to him, I'm like, we need to stop assessing like every game, every NFL game like it's a referendum on everyone you know like every single and that's the way we cover it now and then he reminded me that's why we're all employed which like is probably a good point too you know we need to stop doing this also subscribe to the channel where we do this here's what i here's what i want to assess though with them with the rams how much of this do you think is crappy luck tough schedule this one like it's tough too hard to call this a product of scheduling but you know they they have an emotional overtime monday night game and they come back off of that and they come out a little flat like how much of it is that and how much of it is like real football reasons because i'm telling you like this game is over before like you want to talk about stafford he made two of the best throws i've seen anyone make all year through six weeks on the final possession on their final possession that game is over before before before it wound up being over right if he doesn't make those throws yeah and that to me was the that to me was like the the encapsulation of what it feels like is going like so many things look hard for them right now you know and i don't really understand it now i got a couple things in my head that i've that i've thought about with this right so number one and this is something a couple people brought up to me on like in the offseason which i think is an interesting point to consider they don't have great team speed and i think that's part of why they brought Tutu Atwell back and you wonder like does it allow you to play their offense a certain way now yesterday right until the Puka Nacua 43 yard catch and run which wasn't a downfield shot by any measure they didn't have a single play of over 16 yards yeah okay so i think that's one thing to consider do they have enough team speed on offense defensively i mean no Myles Garrett no Trent McDuffie now do we excuse that away because those are two new additions right do we do we excuse away another not great performance from the defense based on those absences which we haven't really seen the rams full-on with Myles Garrett yet right or do we say like no there's a systemic problem here and i don't know what the answer is i i think that you know it's one of those things where i think that the nfl is shallow enough in terms of a talent pool and i say that in air quotes that i mean how reflexively are we now calling the texans a playoff team the texans beat the titans a week ago to move to one and four and i think that they had a 35 percent chance of making the playoffs and they go out and they beat the jaguars the next week i think that ---- talking the rams right now is dangerous bad idea it's a bad idea well i mean like let's just put this let's let's look at this though right okay at raiders chargers commanders at Cardinals, all due respect to the Cardinals, what they just did to the Rams, does that not look like six and four? Yeah, and then they go under by, they can reset. Here's the other thing I was thinking about this when I was getting my coffee this morning, Connor because I knew we were going to talk about the Rams, I we talked about the schedule, right? Like that's all you need, right? I when the schedule came out, I remember like one of my immediate thoughts was how the Rams got screwed and how the Rams are already a little worn out, they look a little beat up already, right? don't forget they don't have a bye week, they don't have a real bye week because they play on that Wednesday, they play on Thanksgiving, oh that's right, they don't have a real bye week so it's just interesting because you look at that four games stretch ahead, then they've got the bye but that's not really a bye, right? That's going into the Wednesday game, so it's just like a funky, it's just a funky scenario overall and their their schedule coming out of that is relatively brutal I mean Packers, Chiefs, Niners, Cowboys, Seahawks Bucks, Seahawks again, so I don't think that like I'm not, I'm not saying their seasons, like I don't I think their season is at a critical point and then I think they have to win the next four I think it's fair for us to be able to criticize Sean McVay a little bit, right? I think that he had a bad game against the Seahawks in the playoffs, and I think he's had a couple of bad moments throughout the season where it's almost like Drake May, right, Albert, where he's brilliant, he's going to play through it, but in terms of the play caller and the flow of the play calling, I feel like he's just calling it a little tight. And, you know, Matt Stafford, you also can't project him as a 50 touchdown thrower of the football every year. When a quarterback is in his mid to late 30s, every iteration of that is going to be a little bit different. And I'll say one more thing about the Cardinals. Great win for the Cardinals. They certainly needed that one off their back. Um, LeFleur is obviously familiar with the operation in LA, which can help to a certain degree. But I think the other part of it is Jacoby Brissett's one of the last pure, like, you know, Brady like, and I'm not saying that he's good as good, you know, anywhere near Tom Brady, but like, there aren't a lot of quarterbacks like Jacoby in the NFL anymore, where it's like two or three steps and the ball's out, you know, and that's hard for a pass rush that you watch what Chris Shula does. It takes a minute to come together and it's awfully destructive for a quarterback that holds the ball for two, seven, two, eight, two, nine, you know, three seconds, but he's got the ball out, but you go for a second. It's the ball. It's sometimes, you know, whatever you said, like a lack of team speed. If you get the ball to your playmaker, there was a couple of bad attempts at tackles on Trey McBride in this game. For example, like it was just a bad tackling game. These can happen. And I know what everybody in the comments is going to say. Trust me. I have this crystal ball vision of what you're saying. Oh, I have media is just making excuses for Sean McVay and the Rams. Okay. Then put your house against it right now. Put your mortgage against the Rams at two and four, because I'm not doing it. This team is going to be good. They're going to be in the playoffs. They're still one of the best teams in the NFL. Miles Garrett's coming, but a nice win for the Cardinals. The NFL is weird. And that was where the weird thing is. And like, I just, it didn't feel fluky, which is a credit to the Cardinals, right? Fair, yeah. but it didn't feel fluky, no, if you look at the yardage you look at the time of possession you look at the, I mean, part of it was the Rams, weren't on the field a lot right so you look at it like the Rams only ran the ball 20 times, that seems really low, right? Like, and I think it is, and to me like my first thought is like when you've got the run game with Kyron Williams and Blake Corum, and you're in this fist fight, you should be leveraging that, and they only ran the ball 20 times, but then you see they only had, I think it was like 53 or 54 plays, and that's a credit to the Cardinals for extending drives and controlling the clock, and so like this did not feel fluky, it felt like the Cardinals flat out beat them, and that's pretty stunning. Um, I'd also mention like, I mean, this isn't the same thing, but the 2021 Rams did hit a rut, and they were at 1.7 and 4, and oh, what's wrong with them? And they lost three in a row, and they didn't win a game in November of that month, right? And they figured it out. So this ain't Sean McVay's first rodeo. I think in the long run, it would be a bad bet to bet against them being a factor in January. Totally agree. um, I mean, we can examine what go, what went wrong, I think that they're kind of analogous to the Texans a little bit in that, you know, we all struggle to not see this as as a year-to-year thing we always think well if the team is this good this year then they're going to be that good this year if the team was this good and then they add these players they're going to be that good no i mean you have to re-figure out every team every season and i think that McVey's in the process of that there's been plenty of crappy patriot starts over the years that they ended up winning the division and i think more so now than ever because i think more so there's teams that are using the early portions of the season yes as like an extended preseason and i've heard a lot of like well why don't these guys play more in the preseason because it ain't maddening and because these guys all have an odometer on their body and like the idea of going out there and creating like three more real games is asinine when you got to get them to january and for two teams into february so like that's that's the whole thing is like how do you get them there and how do you get a team there that's and that's where i think like teams like the the rams and the chiefs and the ravens and the bills like that's where i think those teams have a little bit of an advantage in that like you know you're going to be there at the end so you can manage the front into the schedule a little differently.