Seattle Seahawks vs Los Angeles Rams: Writing off the Rams too soon?

How bad was it really?

Obviously, I'm referring to the Rams last week's loss to the Buccaneers. They were defeated 55-40 as a 10-point favorite at home, which is not something that we often see in the NFL league. Jared Goff threw for 517 yards but was heavily criticized despite that. Main reason were the turnovers. He threw 3 interceptions and had a fumble lost. All of those numbers are pretty extreme, but we can better understand them when we mention that he dropped back 68 times in this game!

Problems on the ground were obvious both on offense and defense. Todd Gurley is not 100%. He lacks some of the explosiveness from past seasons, and when you combine that with the loss of the entire interior OL from last year, you get a very mediocre product by the rush offense. The run defense was never really that good under Wade Phillips, while this might be one of the worst performances from their coverage unit.

So what really went wrong here? I read (or heard) somewhere last week, how some of the teams do double preparation the week before if they have an important TNF game scheduled next. Sean McVay's staff being one of those. And Rams seemed to be in a perfect spot for getting caught with their hands in a cookie jar. Completely overlooking the Buccaneers, while prepping for their divisional rival that they are facing on a short week (Thursday).

Improved to 3-1

On the other side, Seahawks had a nice tune-up game to get them ready for this one. They had no problems with the Cardinals in Arizona, winning the game 27-10. They were looking good on both sides fo the ball, but we have to take into consideration that the Cardinals are at the very bottom of the league, when talking about the overall talent on the roster.

After being critiqued in the previous weeks that they are too stubborn about running the ball, offensive coordinator Brian Schottenheimer showed that he can adapt and change. They were passing the ball a lot early on, which is not something that they usually do. And it showed, because they didn't have very much success completing passes outside the numbers. And when you can't do it vs this Cardinals secondary, it's highly unlikely that you can improve vs Talib & Peters.

Defensively, the secondary was better since that lackluster effort vs the Bengals in the opener. Finally, Ezekiel Ansah is on the field after sitting out the first month of the season. Former Lions defensive end will form a pass-rushing duo with Jadeveon Clowney that needs to be accounted for.

Seahawks vs Rams best bet

I feel like people are jumping off the Rams ship way too soon. There is a narrative that Rams have been figured out by Bill Bellichick in the Superbowl and now every defense knows how to stop them. I wouldn't go that far. This team was a popular Superbowl picks just a couple weeks ago. Yes, the opponents have a better idea of how to scheme up against them, but ultimately you still need guys to line up opposite of Cooks, Kupp, Woods and win some of their matchups. That's the difficult part.

And as I already mentioned, we have a case of recency bias on our hands here. People are reading too much into their poor performance vs Tampa on Sunday. It looked like the Buccaneers had a step on them all the time, which is a sign of better preparation. That is not something that happens often to McVay and his staff. Even though they'd probably deny it, they were caught looking ahead to this game and got punished for it.

Getting into a CenturyLink Stadium and stealing a win in primetime will not be an easy task by no means. But at + odds I'm willing to take the risk. They are playing this defense twice a year and know how to find creases in their zone, after averaging 34.5 points per game against them last year.