I'll go along with "game of the year pre-bye".
A couple reasons I would advise a Hawks win:
The Rams beat up a Colts team to start the year who were playing with a baby NFL QB who was also had been with the team for what? A couple weeks? Maybe a month? We posted a nearly identical victory when that QB had been able to work with the offense for a couple weeks and was coming off a victory.
Then week 2 they lost to the Skins. They needed a classic johnny hekker fake punt pass to keep the final scoring drive alive. They gave up 229 yards on the ground that day and had 3 fumbles and a pick.
Week 3 they gave up 39 points to San Francisco. I don't even feel the need to say anything else. The 49ers put up 39.
Week 4, the supposed coming out party win kinda falls flat when you consider two important elements: Injuries and timing. The cowboys were without Sean Lee, nolan carroll, and Awuzie. Dallas was missing key cogs to the defense and oh by the way, they just played an intense road game on Monday night football, whereas the Rams were coming off a Thursday night game. 3-4 days rest (depending on how you measure it) more than your opponent is going to have its effects.
To summarize, don't expect to see anything different. The Rams are still the Rams. They didn't find magic beans this off season. Their "maturity" will be canceled out by our experience. Book the W!
And my game of the year is Atlanta. It's a Monday night coming off a previous week TNF. Atlanta comes off a late afternoon game with Dallas, so they'll be plenty tested. Our Thursday game we should beat Arizona, and following Atlanta we got San Fran (W), Philly in prime time (you ever bet against SEA in prime time at home?), and JAX. In other words, a win at Arizona which I'm betting on heavily leads to the big game which could be a link in the chain of 5 straight W's. Considering we already have 2 now, a run like that could almost single handedly give us a playoff berth considering we'd only need 3 more wins from any of these games to be looking good at 10: LA next week, NYG, Houston, Washington, LA, Dallas, Arizona. To go 3/7 in these contests would be my measuring stick for this team. Outperform 3/7 and we're contending for a seriously good seed. Underperform and we're barely determining our own fate. Underperform AND not get the big MNF game on lock, and we could easily be on the outside looking in.