Los Angeles Rams vs New England Patriots: True test

When the real football starts

Couple days ago, I was listening to a podcast, where LeGarrete Blount was a guest. He talked about his career, during which he also played for the Patriots. One interesting thing he said was that Bill Bellichick preaches to his teams that the real football starts after Thanksgiving day. And it's evident that they live by that motto in New England. We've seen it year after year. Them building some steam getting into the second part half of the season and then playing their best football in december and January.

Although things looked pretty grim for the first part of the season and it seems these Patriots are simply not the same as those led by Tom Brady... Bill Bellichick once again proved that he's the best at what he does. New England won 4 out of their last 5 games, leveling their record to 6-6. They annihilated the Chargers last week 45-0. I know many will say that most of that was the Chargers' fault. But the Patriots did look great in some phases of the game, such as special teams. That phase gets overlooked a lot by the casual fans, but it's usually a good indicator how sharp the team is in terms of coaching, discipline and team effort. And it seems there's no one better in the league right now.

Making their weakness a strength

Their pass offense is definitely still not where they'd want it to be. They lack some playmaking from their receivers, especially now with Julian Edelman out. And Cam Newton throwing from inside the pocket is not something they would want to build their offense around, considering how he did so far. But, they have a solid running game and they run a bunch of stuff out of it, faking the run. Getting Damien Harris going will be the key in this one, to keep their defense well rested and ready for the battle.

On the other side, Rams are playing in a very competitive division where every game could potentially decide the winner in the end. At the moment, they are tied in first place wih Seattle, scoring 8 wins each. Some of the Rams' success this season comes from the fact that they are defending the run way better than before. In previous seasons, they were allowing close to 5ypc, ranking at the bottom of this category in the NFL. This year, they've been impressive, with only 3.9 yards per carry allowed, becoming a Top 5 defense against the run.

Rams vs Patriots betting tips

At first, I was really tempted to go with the Patriots playing some solid football lately and receiving all these points, but  what if they fall behind early? This team is really not good at playing from behind with pass offense being their biggest weakness at the moment. And there's a real possibility they might fall behind in this game, considering the Rams are a well-rounded team that can hurt opponents in many different ways.

One of the ways is through their running game. They have three running backs sharing the playing time, but slowly, we are getting the favorite in that backfield. After returning from injury, Cam Akers has dominated the touches in that backfield rushing 21 times for 72 yards and a touchdown. More importantly, he had 7 touches inside the 10 yards line, being a clear red-zone/goal line back for the LA Rams. That is why I'm going with him to score the first touchdown in this game. Pats are definitely expected to struggle a bit offensively in this game, so will most likely put the first 6 points on the board. It doesn't make much sense to attack them through the air vs their great secondary, so Akers to punch it in is a quite probable scenario.

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