Sgt. Largent":10ss63cs said:
Ramfan128":10ss63cs said:
Sgt. Largent":10ss63cs said:
Ramfan128":10ss63cs said:
All in all I'm confident the Rams got better for the regular season, but will be hard to repeat 13-3.
I could see the Rams falling back to a 9-10 win team if Belichick exposed Goff in the SB for what he is, a puppet of McVay's playcalling.
I GUARANTEE you every team that plays the Rams this year is going to copy what Belichick did in the SB, wait until McVay sends in the play to Goff, and then continually change the defensive formations confusing the hell out of Goff.
So this could be a very bad year for Goff.........contract year AND teams now having a tactic to neuter his ability to just rely on McVay's playcall and not have to read the defense correctly with less than 10 seconds left on the clock.
The SB loser hangover is a very real thing.
I agree about the SB loser hangover - it's no joke. I'm counting on McVay living up to his hype as a HC to overcome that. Not a guarantee.
What Belichick did probably doesn't work nearly as well if we had our best WR. Injuries can happen, but if our three WRs stay healthy, I think Goff will be fine. And that doesn't even account for this being Goff's third year with McVay, so an argument could be made that he will continue to grow. There are countless examples of QBs getting better as they gain experience.
For sure, it'll be interesting to see if both McVay and Goff can rebound from their poor SB performances.......and while I love Kupp as a player, I don't think you can say he'll solve all of the Rams offensive woes from the SB.
Add in a HUGE question mark with Gurley, and counting on a bunch of old dudes performing and staying healthy on defense. Talib and Peters both missed time last year.............add in Matthews, Weddle and counting on Gaines for Suh? Might be problematic.
True, I should have pointed out the run game too. That should be better, whether Gurley is healthy or not. Malcolm Brown could rush for over 1000 in this offense, but he was hurt last year too. Henderson is a rookie, but I'm excited to see what he can do.
Watching this defense last year was beyond maddening. They did the job when it mattered for the most part (late in games save for the Saints debacle and in the playoffs) - but they were disappointing in almost every other way when we weren't playing poor offenses. It was astoundingly clear that Talib was the key to Marcus Peters playing good football. Once he came back, Peters played at a near elite level, which includes the playoffs.
Suh was a certifiable disaster. He didn't stuff the stat sheet, but he also didn't flash or do much of anything throughout the season - this is when the "dream team" moniker started to ring true to me. I think a defense needs average players in some cases instead of "stars" - enter Greg Gaines. I know that it sounds crazy, but I really believe if he ends up starting, he will be the main reason our defense actually maintains a top 10 ranking this year. Suh had no interest in playing the run - Gaines only interest would be in playing the run. Adding a full season of Fowler should help too.
Clay Matthews makes three OLB/pass rushers that we will deploy, which I'm happy about - he wasn't great last year so it would not be smart to count on him.
Weddle wasn't great last year either - but what we found out the hard way last year was that LaMarcus Joyner was a black hole in the defense. Just getting him out of here should improve the unit.
The draft this year was about adding depth across the board on defense, in the event that Talib, Weddle, or another key guy goes down. I think the team is a lot deeper this year than we were last.
This is the Seahawk forum and I didn't mean to go into so much detail - and I'm definitely not trying to say that the NFCW won't be competitive. But I am excited to see the Rams field what I think will be a better football team next year, even if it results in a worse record overall.