Here me out Bro's. At the end of the game, we all have seen the isolation camera on the coach and his very vocal exclamation he let loose.

Now I'm no prude and my language can be very colorful at times, especially during excitement filled Rams games. But I have never heard anyone say that McVay has used expletives like that in the past. Very much to the contrary, he portrays himself as self-assured, confidence and very erudite. Of course I don't live with him so I wouldn't know how he is when he is in the comfort of his own home, so to speak.

So what concerns me is that he has been holding in all these emotions, through all these games, dealing with the mounting pressures he places on himself to succeed and in this emotional filled game, he finally let it all hang out. Some would say that is not a bad thing but in my eyes, has he been bottling these feelings up? Is it an isolated instance or is he about to "crack" so to speak.

We don't need our boy wonder to go off the deep end and maybe get himself an unsportsmanlike like penalty for saying stuff to the refs during a game. I'm sure he wanted to do just that yesterday, let loose on the ref's for their calls and non-calls. Especially for the non-calls.

Maybe someone with an inside track to his girlfriend can tell her that her man needs a little more stress relief and would she be willing to help out?

Thoughts?

Thanks for your time.

And to say that he's "arrived".

Watching him yesterday has removed any possibility of doubt, it is no longer possible to make a case that he isn't elite. It can't be done. Yesterday in a dogfight with the defense letting the team down and handing points to the opponent because of drive extending penalties he kept his cool under mounting pressure and just went to work.

He's risen to the occasion every single game and without his play the Rams lose the Vikings game, split with SEA, and probably lose to Green Bay. This team could very well be 5-5 or 6-4 without him playing the way he is. At best maybe a shot at 7-3.

That is what an elite QB does.

Yesterday was another 300 plus yard game, he has 7 this year essentially if we give him the GB game at 295 yards. The thing for me is yesterday he did it without any long bombs, he did it in nice size chunks, which is good because it adds confidence that 3rd and long plays aren't daunting. They know they can pick up a 3rd and 12.

His YPA is eye popping. 9.44 per attempt is amazing. At the end of the season he will be on top there, Fitzpatrick is now but he will come back to Earth.

He's on pace to hit 5,000 yards and 35 TD's and is currently 2nd in total yards. Now think about this..........he is 9th in pass attempts so it's not like he's just throwing more than everyone.

Adding to the prolific production are the intangibles. The things that make people say "yeah he has the it factor". His footwork, pocket awareness, accuracy (68.4%), poise under pressure are all flat out fantastic. Plus he takes care of the ball. And by the way, he has 3rd fourth quarter comeback in the 10 games so far and 3 game winning drives.

There's no9 more "well let's see".

We see.

You're an icon you brought a lot of happiness to millions with your work. You will be missed.

Hope a mod can edit that auto corrected title.

Given most feel the officiating has been horrific, through out the league this year, I want to see your overall reaction with a single picture, gif, etc.

Mine...

Me neither. Lol.

No point in rehashing their respective shortcomings, is there? Bottom line is that neither seems good enough.

So, what to do?

If a DC such as Wade is struggling with this then we can assume that the problem is quite serious AND that the solution options are very limited.

But what’s a fan to do but go rushing in where angels fear to tread?

So here goes...

Littleton moved to OLB? What is there to lose, really? A fast, instinctive playmaker at a position that sorely needs exactly that. I think he can do it, certainly better than either Ebu or Longacre. Especially Longacre. Littleton would have to be replaced inside but we have 3 candidates for that. In any order Wilson, Hager, or Kiser could fill in adequately. Wade’s call. The net result of the Littleton move would be a substantial net gain for the D, IMO. Longacre, in particular, is killing us.

Increase Fowler’s snaps as much as possible and as soon as possible. He applies much more pressure and makes many more plays than either Ebu or Longacre, period. I would recommend him in there on both running and passing downs. Almost TOO obvious. Play him until he needs a breather, dammit!

Another possible partial solution would be to give Obo a few danged snaps. Surely he deserves that based upon his college play AND the ineffectiveness of Ebu and especially Longacre. I mean, WTH do we have to lose?

Improved edge play should dramatically improve our D vs both the run and the pass. Contain alone would be huge. Teams have been killing us with outside runs and QB scrambles. And trust me, upcoming opponents will take full advantage until we plug this leak.

Another thing. Our run D should improve if the interior guys don’t have to worry so much about the outside. We allowed 273 rushing yards to the Seahawks, for crying out loud. I can barely type those words. Sigh...

Anybody else have any other suggestions given our current roster, fell free to comment or toss ‘em out there.

http://www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/id/...f-race-bill-barnwell-makes-sense-mess-week-10

Nine teams for four spots: Making sense of the wild NFC playoff race

The NFC is a crowded mess of talented teams. There are five whose playoff chances have basically gone down the drain. Of the other 11 teams, two -- the Rams and Saints -- have basically locked up a playoff spot. The other nine teams are competing for four berths into January football. There are three teams each in the NFC East and NFC North that could either host a home playoff game in the wild-card round or watch the wild-card round at home after missing the playoffs.

With some help from ESPN's Football Power Index (FPI) projections, let's run through those 11 teams by looking at what they did Sunday and what it means for their postseason path to come. We'll begin with the NFC contender that suffered what looked to be the most bitterly disappointing loss of the weekend until we got to Sunday night:

Atlanta Falcons (4-5)
FPI playoff chances: 23.0 percent

The Falcons slipped on the banana peel. Their three-game winning streak came to an end Sunday in Cleveland, as Baker Mayfield posted a perfect passer rating in the first half and Nick Chubb tacked on a 92-yard rushing touchdown after halftime for a 28-16 victory. The loss drops the Falcons below .500 in a wild-card race in which the No. 5 and No. 6 seeds will likely need 10 wins to even start worrying about tiebreaker possibilities.

To pull that off, the Falcons will need to go 6-1 down the stretch while maneuvering road trips to New Orleans, Green Bay and Carolina. They have what amounts to an elimination game against the Cowboys next week at home, but the Falcons have shown little ability to stop offenses of any consequence this season. Dan Quinn's defense ranked 30th in the NFL in DVOA heading into the Browns game and could fall to 32nd after surprisingly competent performances from the Raiders and Buccaneers on Sunday.

As much as the injuries to Deion Jones and Keanu Neal have hurt a Falcons defense built on speed and ranginess, this defense was overrated heading into the year. The Falcons ranked 22nd in DVOA last season, with their eighth-placed finish in points allowed a product of facing the fewest possessions in all of football. Both the Falcons' offense and their defense tended to play out long possessions, so the Falcons faced just 164 drives last season, six fewer than any other team in the league and 20 drives below the league average of 184.

The Falcons were 20th in points allowed per drive last season. This season, facing more drives per game and with a more explosive offense, the Falcons are 30th in points allowed per possession. They're 29th in sack rate, and it's hard not to wonder where the Vic Beasley Jr. who racked up 15.5 sacks in 2016 and looked to be the league's next great pass-rusher has gone. Beasley, who was supposed to be an every-down pass-rusher again this season, has just one sack in nine games. The Falcons did not sack or even knock down Mayfield once on 20 dropbacks Sunday.

As a result, we're seeing Falcons defenders simply end up overmatched one-on-one. Cornerback Robert Alford, signed to a four-year, $38.6 million deal in 2016, has been a liability all season. Mayfield on Sunday extended a play and found Rashard Higgins for a 28-yard touchdown, conservatively the fifth touchdown Alford has allowed in coverage this season. A Mayfield play-fake took three Falcons out of the play and set up Chubb for an easy touchdown. Chubb's 92-yard score came when the Browns were able to get the rookie back matched up one-on-one against backup safety Damontae Kazee, who couldn't make the open-field tackle.

Matt Ryan to carry this team to the postseason on a second-half hot streak. Even that might not be enough.

Seattle Seahawks (4-5)
FPI playoff chances: 29.2 percent

In a former life, the Legion of Boom-era Seahawks seemed to pull out the games Seattle lost over the past two weeks. The team that won the Fail Mary game stripped Calvin Johnson at the 1-yard line in a three-point game with 1:51 to go and launched that comeback against the Packers in the NFC Championship Game doesn't drop the pass David Moore dropped in the end zone against the Chargers last week. You feel like they probably come up with a better drive than the one that stalled out at the 35-yard line against the Rams on Sunday. You don't need me to tell you there were close games that team didn't pull out, but it had as many remarkable comebacks over a five-year stretch as any team west of Foxborough.

This version of the Seahawks seems to have the capacity to surprise us without accomplishing anything meaningful. They can run the ball! Brian Schottenheimer doesn't look over his head! Germain Ifedi has stopped holding anything that briefly passes across his vision! The pass defense has managed to survive -- and even thrive, given that they ranked fifth in DVOA heading into this week -- without Kam Chancellor, Richard Sherman and Earl Thomas! Those are all concepts that might have seemed laughable before the season, and yet they're all true to one extent or another.

Even given those truths, has it left the Seahawks in a positive place? Seattle is 4-5, and its four wins are against the Cowboys, Cardinals, Raiders and Lions, a list that might include three of the five worst teams in football. The Seahawks ran the ball 34 times for a staggering 273 yards against the Rams on Sunday, which was designed to keep Jared Goff & Co. off the field. But the Rams scored on seven of their first eight meaningful drives. Seattle was still running the ball down 12 points with five minutes to go.

Pete Carroll will be happy to see the Rams off the schedule for the remainder of the season, but his team still has the Packers, Panthers, Vikings and Chiefs to come over the next six weeks, along with a home-and-home with the 49ers. The Seahawks' turnover rate is unsustainable; they forced takeaways on 20 percent of opposing drives through Week 8, which was the second-highest rate in the league over that time frame, but they failed to turn over the Chargers or Rams over the past two weeks. Seattle has nabbed 16 of the 24 fumbles in its games, an unsustainably high recovery rate. Wilson's fumble in the fourth quarter on Sunday was a bridge too far. The Seahawks' margin for error against good teams is too small to win consistently this season.

The Hopefuls

Dallas Cowboys (4-5)
FPI playoff chances: 30.4 percent

I'll admit that I had the Cowboys ticketed for the Deep Outsiders section before Sunday night's game against the Eagles, one that seemed like it could end Jason Garrett's nine-year reign in Dallas. Things change. The Cowboys rode an outstanding defensive performance and a Todd Gurley-esque performance from Ezekiel Elliott to top the Eagles 27-20 and throw the NFC East race into further chaos.

It was a surprise to see this from a Cowboys defense that couldn't stop the Titans for most of their Week 9 loss. The Cowboys ranked 26th against the pass in DVOA before Sunday night, and while Carson Wentz finished the game with 360 passing yards, much of that came in the second half with the Cowboys leading. Dallas' defense did enough in the first half to establish a 10-point lead, which ended up as more than the margin of victory.

Is what the Cowboys did on defense in this game sustainable? Probably not. Rookie Leighton Vander Esch, who had his best game as a pro, dropped into coverage and caught a Carson Wentz pass most linebackers would merely be able to tip away or into the air for a huge pick. On the final drive, he would overcome two Eagles blockers on a Corey Clement screen to turn a likely first down into a 5-yard loss.

The Cowboys held up on a third-and-1 and then on the subsequent fourth-and-1 on their own 20-yard line, a rare stuff against an Eagles offense that had been 13-for-16 on fourth-and-1 since the start of 2017. Chidobe Awuzie back-fisted away what should have been a long completion to Alshon Jeffery down the sideline. Then, in the third quarter, Jeffery settled a skinny post route in the end zone instead of continuing through the pass, resulting in an incompletion on a route Zach Ertz seems to score on every single week.

Those plays aren't flukes, but it's fair to say they're a mix of the Eagles having a sloppy game on offense and some difficult-to-sustain big plays on defense. What was more promising to me, honestly, was what the Cowboys did on offense.

Early in this game, Dak Prescott seemed terrified to make a decision. He was double-clutching passes in the pocket. His footwork was inconsistent, leading him to sail an easy out on third down. He missed Amari Cooper for what should have been a long play and possibly a touchdown. Dallas' success was coming on screens, checkdowns and Eagles mistakes, such as when Ronald Darby tried to shoulder-check Cooper on a third-down crossing route and Cooper shrugged him off to make a first down.

On the final drive of the first half, with the Cowboys leading 6-3, Prescott took a bad sack on first down and then seemingly settled in. The Cowboys picked up third-and-15 on a screen to Michael Gallup, then Prescott hit Cole Beasley and Allen Hurns on deep passes to the right side of the field to set up a sneak where Prescott might as well have told the Eagles he was keeping the ball. It didn't matter when an injured Zack Martin caved in the interior of the Philadelphia defensive line. From that drive on, Prescott played much better.

Again, you might blame that on the injuries the Eagles had in the secondary, but it's a positive sign for the Cowboys. The trade for Cooper might have been too aggressive of a long-term decision, but it's helping this offense. He can separate against man coverage, which is a huge upgrade for a scheme that doesn't do enough to create picks and easy throws for their quarterback. Every other wideout in this scheme suddenly has less to do, which makes receivers such as Beasley, Gallup and Hurns look better. It also helped unlock Elliott on Sunday, as Dallas' best weapon ran for 151 yards and threw in 36 receiving yards on six catches.

The Cowboys are alive for now. They need to beat the Falcons on Sunday to get back to .500 and eliminate a possible wild-card tiebreaker contender. If they can pull that off, things get interesting. Dallas has a critical three-week homestand with a Thanksgiving game against Washington, a Thursday night game against the Saints, and a mini-bye before their Dec. 9 rematch with the Eagles. Winning three of those four games would get them to 7-6 with the Colts, Buccaneers and Giants waiting at the end of their slate. I wouldn't count on it happening, but then again who saw this win coming?

Philadelphia Eagles (4-5)
FPI playoff chances: 31.7 percent

The Eagles, on the other hand, have to feel crushed. They might have come into Week 10 imagining a scenario in which they would leave tied for first in the NFC East with a win over the Cowboys and a Washington loss in Tampa. Instead, the Eagles are in third place in the NFC East, down two games on Washington and with a possibly-important tiebreaker loss to the Cowboys on their résumé.

There's no time for the Eagles to regroup and feel sorry for themselves, though, given that they're thrust into a critical road trip to New Orleans for a game against the streaking Saints, who have won eight straight games. Later this season, they have to travel to Los Angeles to play the Rams. The problem with this loss is that the Eagles now have to beat one of those two juggernauts on the road to get to 10 wins.

Can Philly make it into the postseason with nine wins? In the NFC East, it's possible. Its schedule outside of those two terrifying road games isn't awful. It has a home-and-home with Washington still to come, which helps tiebreaker chances significantly. The Eagles get rematches against the Giants and Cowboys, the latter coming in Dallas, and a home game against the Texans on Dec. 23. The Eagles can run the table against those teams. The chances of them going through those five games without slipping up at least once like they did against the Cowboys on Sunday, though, aren't great.

Injuries might be the biggest culprit this season, but it's not the typical story we see with year-after-Super-Bowl teams struggling. Usually, we see teams that were incredibly healthy during a deep playoff run suffer from regression toward the mean with injuries and decline as a result. This year's Jaguars are a good example of that phenomenon.

Instead, the 2017 Eagles were the rare team that suffered through meaningful injuries and overcame them anyway. They lost Darby in the opener and got by with Rasul Douglas before Darby came back. Key contributors such as Darren Sproles, Jordan Hicks and Jason Peters hit injured reserve, but the Eagles found answers. Most famously, of course, they managed to replace Wentz with Nick Foles and won the Super Bowl anyway.

Most teams can't pull that off, and that might include the 2018 Eagles. Their offensive line hasn't been as effective as last year's unit, with Peters declining at age 36, Stefen Wisniewski losing his job, and Lane Johnson struggling for stretches before missing Sunday's loss with a sprained MCL.

Their secondary has been a bigger concern, and after losing Darby to a knee injury last night, it's not getting any better. Coordinator Jim Schwartz has struggled to replace Rodney McLeod at safety, as converted corner Avonte Maddox went from replacing the aging Corey Graham to instead subbing in for McLeod. Safety Tre Sullivan, whose most notable contribution to the game was serving as Elliott's human hurdle, took 21 defensive snaps.

Sidney Jones went down with an injury, the Eagles signed Dexter McDougle off of the street and immediately inserted him into the starting lineup in lieu of playing Douglas. McDougle played 86.2 percent of the snaps over the next two weeks before struggling against the Jags in London and losing his roster spot. On Sunday, when Darby went down, the Eagles turned to Chandon Sullivan, who was playing his second career game. They were able to get by with Douglas and a career year from inexpensive veteran Patrick Robinson in the slot last season. The secondary hasn't been able to easily right itself this season. It's not too late for the Eagles to do the same thing, but their margin for error is approaching zero.

Green Bay Packers (4-4-1)
FPI playoff chances: 35.6 percent

Beating a traveling Brock Osweiler isn't exactly a proclamation of grand intent, but beating Miami has to be the Packers' best win of the season, right? Green Bay's other three wins were a blowout over Josh Allen and the Bills, and last-second comeback victories over the Bears and 49ers. They're 0-4 on the road, with losses to the Lions and Washington amid higher-profile defeats to the Patriots and Rams.

The Dolphins averaged nearly 6.0 yards per carry without either of their starting tackles, and they had seven drives make it to Green Bay's side of the field, but those drives generated only 12 points. The Packers hadn't exhibited any sort of red zone dominance before this week, and they came up with one early stop when a snap somehow made its way over the 6-foot-7 Osweiler's head, but they'll take it.

What's more exciting has to be the workload given to Aaron Jones, who carried the ball 15 times for 145 yards and two scores as the Packers ended up with 195 total rushing yards Sunday. To put this in context, it was just the 13th time in an Aaron Rodgers start over the past five years that the Packers generated more win expectancy running the football than they did with their passing game. It was the Packers' third-best rushing performance by win expectancy with Rodgers under center since the beginning of 2014, behind the opening game of the 2015 season and the Week 5 victory over the Cowboys last season, when the team's leading rusher was ... Aaron Jones.

While the Packers understandably have concerns about keeping their star quarterback healthy and don't want to put Jones on the field if he's a liability in pass protection, they might not have the offensive firepower with their passing game to justify keeping Jones off the field. Since the beginning of 2017, Rodgers' QBR has jumped from 57.2 with Jones on the sideline to 66.1 with the former UTEP back on the field. While Rodgers is sacked more frequently in those situations, his sack rate makes a mild jump from 7.2 percent with Jones off the field to 7.7 percent while Jones is in the backfield alongside the future Hall of Famer. It's a tradeoff the Packers should be willing to take.

Defensive coordinator Mike Pettine has delivered in revitalizing the pass rush, as the Packers lead the league in sack rate, although edge rusher Nick Perry was sidelined by a knee injury Sunday. The secondary remains a work in progress, given that the Packers traded away Ha Ha Clinton-Dix at the midseason deadline and cut mooted replacement Jermaine Whitehead after the second-year safety was ejected for slapping David Andrews in the head in New England. They've moved 35-year-old corner Tramon Williams to safety and given free-agent addition Bashaud Breeland starter snaps. The former Washington corner made his debut against the Patriots in Week 9 and was playing just about every snap before going down with a groin injury against the Dolphins on Sunday.

Davante Adams. Rodgers is still great -- he has one interception in nine games, and even that was on a pass that Jimmy Graham volleyball set into Jordan Poyer's hands -- but he has taken over quarters as opposed to full games.

Get the running game going and create takeaways, and the Packers could be in business. They had the fifth-easiest remaining schedule in the league coming into the Dolphins game, and while they still have to travel to play the Bears and Vikings, they get home games against the Cardinals and Lions and a road trip to play the Jets. There are plenty of winnable games left on this schedule. Expecting a "Relax 2.0" run might be too much, but there are reasons to be optimistic.

The Favorites

Washington (6-3)
FPI playoff chances: 50.0 percent

The week couldn't have gone much better for Washington. It won in Tampa. Nobody else on its injury-riddled roster appeared to go down hurt. The Eagles lost to the Cowboys, over whom Washington already holds a head-to-head tiebreaker. The Falcons, who would hold a possible wild-card tiebreaker over Washington, lost in Cleveland. Did I mention nobody else suffered a significant injury?

Now, if you're asking whether Washington played well, I can't do you any favors. Facing a defense that has turned its average opponent into Drew Brees this season, Alex Smith went 19-of-27 for just 178 yards with a touchdown and three sacks. A line missing three starters, including two Pro Bowl-caliber linemen, helped Adrian Peterson to just 68 rushing yards on 19 carries. Washington sealed the game by scoring 10 points on a pair of short fields in the fourth quarter.

It won this game because the Bucs had what might be the most disastrous red-zone performance in league history. Tampa, which racked up 501 yards, made five trips into the red zone (and a sixth to the Washington 28-yard line). The final score was 16-3, so you can guess things didn't go well. The typical NFL team has averaged five points per red-zone trip so far this season. The Bucs averaged 0.6 points per red-zone trip on Sunday.

To put this in context, ESPN Stats & Information has red-zone data going back through 2001. If we plug in each year's average points per red-zone trip and get an expected value for what each team "should" have scored given a certain number of trips to the red zone in a game, the Bucs just produced the worst red-zone performance of the 21st century at 21.9 points below expectation. The second-worst game of the season was when the Jaguars scored a lone touchdown in five red-zone trips against the Chiefs in Week 5, at 17.9 points below expectation.

Washington can't take a ton of credit for doing great things on defense. This was a Bucs special. Ryan Fitzpatrick airmailed an open receiver for an interception to end the first drive. After Washington allowed a second-and-20 conversion to get into the red zone, Fitzpatrick passed up an opportunity to finish his scramble by running two yards forward for the first down and instead ran laterally on a drive that ended in a missed field goal:

The third drive resulted in a successful field goal. In the second half, after Peyton Barber converted a third-and-1 to get the Bucs into the red zone at the 20-yard line, the Tampa stadium operator sensed that the drive had peaked and set off a cannon. He wasn't wrong: The Bucs gained two yards before a bad snap pushed them backward, at which point Chandler Catanzaro missed a second field goal. On the fifth drive, Washington had a Fitzpatrick strip-sack around Donovan Smith washed away by holding on Josh Norman, and after Mike Evans dropped a would-be TD, Fitzpatrick was strip-sacked for a second time when Smith was again slayed by Preston Smith.

Another drive ended when Fitzpatrick tried to throw a lateral to the sideline while he was 10 yards past the line of scrimmage and threw a forward pass instead. Dirk Koetter noted after the game that he had stripped offensive coordinator Todd Monken of the playcalling duties and had called the plays himself on Sunday, which is like when your dog tears up a paper towel roll while you're gone and then stands proudly besides it when you walk back in the door.

Jay Gruden suggested after the game that a win is a win and that style points are for fantasy football, which both hits and misses the point. Gruden is likely aware that Washington doesn't need to win many more games to have a great shot of making it into January. It is 6-3 and still has a home game against the Giants to come. If Washington can make it to nine wins and avoid an Eagles sweep, it will probably do enough to win the division.

At the same time, teams don't need to win with big plays and beautiful touchdowns, but Washington can't pretend to imagine that it can continue to play games like this and win. There's nothing sustainable about allowing the Bucs to march up and down the field without scoring at all. Bend-but-don't-break defense is one thing. This was bend-and-assassinate defense. The Texans are a flawed team, but we'll get a much better sense of where Washington stands after its rash of injuries when Houston comes to town next week.

Minnesota Vikings (5-3-1)
FPI playoff chances: 59.8 percent

The Vikings, who had their bye this week, have the toughest stretch of their season -- and arguably of any team in the league -- coming up over the next four weeks. They face the Bears in Chicago on Sunday night, host the Packers the following Sunday night, then finish up with road games against the Patriots and Seahawks. The best defense in football, a visit from an arch-nemesis, and a December swing to two of the toughest places to play in the NFL.

FPI expects the Vikings to win 1.7 of those games, and if we round up and project them to go 2-2, Minnesota would be well-positioned to finish strong and make a return trip to the postseason at 7-5-1. If you're looking for an all-or-nothing approach, consider that FPI thinks Minnesota's chances of losing all four games is 9.7 percent, more than three times their odds of winning all four, which come in at 3.1 percent.

Carolina Panthers (6-3)
FPI playoff chances: 68.8 percent

The Panthers have flipped. Since Ron Rivera's squad had its breakout season in 2013, the Panthers have been a team built more upon its defense than its offense. They've placed higher in the win expectancy rankings in defense than on offense four out of the past five seasons. The exception is their 15-1 season in 2015, when Carolina was great at everything and ranked second in WPA on offense and third in defensive WPA.

After a 52-21 shellacking at the hands of the Steelers on Thursday night, though, the Panthers find themselves in unfamiliar territory. Carolina is 10th in the league in offensive WPA and a middling 18th on defense. DVOA hasn't yet been calculated for Week 10, but the Panthers were fifth on offense and 14th in defense heading into the Steelers game, and it's safe to say that the Football Outsiders' algorithm isn't going to look kindly upon their efforts against Pittsburgh. Right now, this is a team built around Cam Newton and Christian McCaffrey, not Luke Kuechly and Kawann Short.

I have two pieces of good news for Panthers fans. One is that you don't have to play the Steelers again until 2022. (Their previous encounter was in 2014, when the Steelers beat the Panthers 37-19 in a game in which both Le'Veon Bell and LeGarrette Blount topped 115 rushing yards. JuJu Smith-Schuster was an 18-year-old freshman at USC at the time.)

The other is that Carolina's biggest defensive problem is likely to clear up. The Panthers are allowing teams to score an average of 6.0 points per red-zone trip, the second-highest average in the league. Only Tampa has been worse in the red zone. Bad defenses tend to allow a lot of red-zone trips and plenty of points when offenses get to the promised land, but the Panthers are a good defense with a red-zone problem. Carolina is allowing teams an average of only 2.7 red-zone possessions per game, the fourth-best mark in the league.

I wouldn't count on the Panthers giving away six points per red-zone trip the rest of the way, and if they don't, their defense is going to look more formidable. The next step for Carolina is to find a secondary pass-rusher behind Mario Addison, who has 7.5 sacks on just eight knockdowns this season, an unsustainable total. The seemingly ageless Julius Peppers has faded some at 38, while longtime end Charles Johnson retired. Short is a natural candidate to step up after recording just two sacks through nine games, but Carolina might also turn to 26-year-old European rookie Efe Obada, who has had six knockdowns in limited playing time.

I lied. One more source of good news for Carolina: Their schedule over the next month could be a piece of cake. Three of their four games are on the road, but the Panthers will travel to face the Lions, Buccaneers and Browns, while their home game is against the Seahawks. Carolina finishes with a difficult Saints-Falcons-Saints sandwich, but it might get there holding a 9-4 or even a 10-3 record.

Chicago Bears (6-3)
FPI playoff chances: 71.0 percent

If the Falcons slipped on the banana peel, the Bears crushed it into an unrecognizable pulp. Chicago stomped Matt Patricia and the Posture Team on Sunday, going up 26-0 in the second quarter and leading 34-10 after three before the Lions pieced together a pair of meaningless touchdown drives in fourth-quarter garbage time. The Bears would have hit 40 were it not for a bizarrely bad day from Cody Parkey, who knocked two field goals and two extra points off the uprights.

The Lions had no answer for Mitchell Trubisky and the Bears' passing attack. Detroit's pass defense isn't typically very good, given that it ranked 30th in DVOA heading into the game, but it was absolutely hopeless with star cornerback Darius Slay sidelined by a knee injury. Allen Robinson torched DeShawn Shead, Quandre Diggs and Nevin Lawson for big plays, including two quick slants for huge gains out of the slot and a 35-yard score on a fade down the sideline. Anthony Miller had 100 yards and a touchdown on a pair of busted coverages. Trubisky added a touchdown on a quarterback draw. It was his best game since the six-touchdown shellacking of the similarly-brutal Buccaneers pass defense in Week 4.

You might look at this three-game winning streak and chuckle about how the Bears have beaten three subpar football teams in the Jets, Bills and Lions, but winning those games by a combined 58 points is a good sign for this team's actual underlying level of play. Impostor teams tend to lose focus and drop one of those games or narrowly win by a few points when the other team makes one critical mistake. The Bears are doing exactly what they're supposed to do when they're playing bad football teams. Matt Nagy's team is establishing that they're on a different level.

What's next will be tougher. Trubisky just won his first career divisional matchup -- he's now 1-6 -- but he can add to the bunch with four more NFC North matchups to come over the final seven weeks. The obvious crucial opponent in that bunch is the Vikings, who still have a home-and-home to come with the Bears, starting Sunday in Chicago. If the Bears pull that out, they'll be 7-3 with what amounts to a two-game lead on the 5-4-1 Vikings given the tiebreaker. FPI also thinks the Bears are slight favorites to win their two road games against the Lions and Giants, too; if they can sweep those three games and make it to 9-3, they'll likely need to win just one of their final four games against a tough slate to make it to the postseason.

The Elite

New Orleans Saints (8-1)
FPI playoff chances: 98.9 percent

I have the least to say about the two teams atop the NFC, in part because they're not really in the same playoff picture. The Panthers are projected to win 9.7 games by FPI, the third-highest total in the NFC. The Saints are projected at 12.3 wins. The Rams, who are coming up in a moment, are at 13.3 wins. It would be a shock if the Saints and Rams are not taking the first week of January off to rest up. Their playoff spots are not at risk barring an injury to Jared Goff or Drew Brees.

If you were expecting a letdown game from the Saints after a roller-coaster victory over the Rams, well, you were the one let down. Brees went 22-of-25 for 265 yards with three touchdowns against the Bengals, as the Saints ran the ball for 47 times for 244 yards and three scores, and the defense had more trouble with Jeff Driskel than with Andy Dalton, who threw two interceptions in a game in which Cincinnati failed to convert a single third down.

What's promising for the Saints is that their defense is coming back to life. After a brutal start to the season in high-scoring games against the Bucs and Falcons, the New Orleans defense ranks 10th in win probability added since the start of Week 4. The Saints rank ninth in opposing passer QBR over that time frame despite opposing receivers posting a league-low drop rate of 0.9 percent. The defense might not hit the peaks of a year ago, but it doesn't have to be great. Brees and the 10th-best defense in football can win 13 games per season.

Asshole Face's team holds the tiebreaker over the Rams if they both end up as one-loss teams, but they rank behind the Rams in terms of postseason projection for a few reasons. One is that the Rams are playing in a much easier division and already hold a guaranteed tiebreaker over their only competitive rivals in the West, the Seahawks. The Saints still have to contend with a home-and-home against the Panthers, who are two games behind. Second is that the Rams already banked an extra win at 9-1, while the Saints still have to beat another team to get to that mark.

Third is that the Saints face a tougher schedule over the rest of the way. The Rams have the would-be Game of the Year coming up against the Chiefs on Monday Night Football in Week 11 in Mexico City, and they still have a road game against the Bears and a home game against the Eagles to come, but their other three games are against the Lions, Cardinals and 49ers.

The Saints also have a home game against a desperate Eagles team this week, but their schedule has more competitive opponents. New Orleans has home games against the Steelers and the Falcons, who would like nothing more than to spoil things for their rivals. Road trips to Dallas and Tampa shouldn't scare Brees, but the Saints do have a home-and-home with the Panthers in December.

Honestly, while the Saints have a tougher schedule, the difference between the 1- and 2-seed in the NFC is more likely to come down to a key player getting injured or a poorly timed bad game, regardless of opponent. I also think home-field advantage means less with these two teams than a typical matchup when you consider that the venue for a would-be playoff game would either be at the Superdome or in the warm climate of Los Angeles. The Saints would rather play in New Orleans, of course, but it's not like the loser will have to travel to play in Green Bay or Seattle.

Los Angeles Rams (9-1)
FPI playoff chances: 100 percent

FPI sees the Rams' chances of both making the playoffs and winning the West at 100 percent after Sunday's win over the Seahawks. Los Angeles has a 4.5-game lead over the Seahawks in the division with the tiebreaker in hand and six games to go. It would take an absolutely historic collapse for the Rams to lose their hold. Even if Goff and Todd Gurley were to suffer season-ending injuries in Mexico City, I think the Rams have done enough to lock up their second straight division title.

The Rams did suffer a meaningful loss on Sunday against the Seahawks when Cooper Kupp went down with what appears to be a serious knee injury, but in thinking about how they'll finish out versus the Saints, I'm wondering more about whether their defense is ever going to turn the corner and get to where it was a year ago. The Saints are showing signs of improvement on defense.

As of right now, the changes the Rams made in swapping out the likes of Alec Ogletree and Trumaine Johnson for Ndamukong Suh and Marcus Peters haven't delivered a better product. The Rams ranked sixth in defensive DVOA last season, but heading into Week 10 they were 16th on defense. A year ago, Wade Phillips' defense was fifth in win probability added. After 10 weeks, it is 22nd in the same category.

Teams have a comfortable blueprint for how to play on offense against the Rams. They're going to run the ball, just as the Chargers, Vikings, Broncos, Saints and most notably the Seahawks have over the past few weeks. Running the ball is going to keep Goff & Co. off the field while letting teams dictate the pace at their own terms depending on game situation. The problem is that the Rams usually score so quickly and get ahead early enough that teams can't keep running the football and have to throw.

At the moment, the Rams seem to get by on big plays from stars like Aaron Donald to create stops and takeaways. Donald had his typical huge game against the Seahawks, racking up 2.5 sacks, three tackles for loss and five quarterback knockdowns. Suh threw in a half-sack and three knockdowns of his own. They're both impossible to game plan for, in part because Donald and Suh move across the defensive line to try to attack mismatches.

The game with the Chiefs, then, could come down to the interior. In the thin air of Mexico City, the Chiefs might go with tempo to try to tire out the Rams' front. Phillips could respond by trying to blow up Chiefs plays through backup offensive linemen. Guard Laurent Duvernay-Tardif is already on injured reserve with a broken ankle, while center Mitch Morse has been out since Week 6 with a concussion. Donald and Suh against backups Austin Reiter and Andrew Wylie is a huge mismatch for the Rams. As much as Kupp's injury might hurt the Rams, the absence of Duvernay-Tardif and Morse could be even more meaningful come next Monday night.

I told her I can't wait to see him get back on the field and release some of that aggression and what did he do? He gets a strip sack to ice the game. That official needs not to be so thinned skinned and throw a flag on a player when he makes a comment while walking away from him, especially in such a tight game. I hope we don't see that little cry baby call anymore Ram games. I wanted to call him worst names than a cry baby but I tried to keep it clean. I can't recall any game were I saw more personal fouls and unsportsmanlike penalties called against one team.

Only Rams comments posted. To read the whole article click the link below.
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https://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2018/11/12/rams-seahawks-fires-nfl-week-10-fmia-peter-king/

Rams Manage Win After Fire-Filled Week of ‘Horror’
By Peter King

Getty Images

Circumstances like this.

Thursday morning, about 4:10. The cellphone on Whitworth’s night table kept vibrating. He picked it up to text from two former Bengals teammates, including NFL Players Association president Eric Winston. Like: Are you okay? Can’t believe what happened? Whitworth had no clue what happened, but he checked online and found there’d been a shooting at a Thousand Oaks nightclub.

The place was four miles from the Rams’ training facility. There were deaths and injuries, perhaps many of each. Whitworth and his wife stayed up, trying to figure out what it all meant, particularly for their four children and school. And for what they could do to help whatever this latest mass shooting left in its wake.

Thursday, 10:35 a.m. McVay and Whitworth spoke to the team about being good community members in a time of crisis. Whitworth was at LSU when Katrina hit the Gulf Coast and said to his teammates, “Do something.You’ll never regret trying to help in a tragedy.”

Thursday, about 1 p.m. Before going out to practice, Whitworth decided to put his money where his emotion was. He called his wife, Melissa, and said he wanted to donate his gamecheck, about $60,000 after taxes, to a fund established to help the victims of the shootings, and their families. “I’m in,” Melissa Whitworth said. “One hundred percent.”

Thursday, about 3 p.m. At practice, two separate mega-fires popped up, visible for the players and coaches to see. “Those are pretty close,” Whitworth said. They were about three miles away from the practice facility, as it turned out. In a few hours, firefighters would dig a trench across the street from the Rams’ facility, the kind of trench that gets dug when firefighters are trying to stop a wildfire from advancing.

Before Whitworth left for the day, he learned the 101 freeway, which he uses to get to and from his home in nearby Sherwood, was partially shut down. But he got home, as did most of his teammates.

The Woolsey fire has burned more than 85,000 acres near the border of Ventura and Los Angeles counties. (Getty Images)

Friday, 2 a.m. Whitworth woke up in his bedroom, the smell of acrid smoke everywhere. “We need to go,” he told his wife. But wait. His friend and teammate, center John Sullivan, lived in the same neighborhood. “We can’t leave them,” Whitworth said, and he went to bang on the Sullivans’ door. The two families quickly packed. The Whitworths piled their kids in one of their cars and headed south, to Los Angeles. By 4:15, they were in a hotel in Beverly Hills, not knowing if they’d ever see their house again.

The Rams canceled everything Friday, customarily one of their two biggest practice days. Hard to work when no one can think about football. The players and coaches either packed or tensely awaited word whether to evacuate or sat in hotels, nervously watching fires eat up acres by the minute.

“Friday,” Whitworth said, “was a day of horror.”

One more story. “My story, I’m sure, is one of a hundred stories,” said the Rams’ senior director of communications, Artis Twyman. His community was evacuated, and he called Luoto, the manager of football administration, for help finding lodging for he, his wife, and their two children. She found a hotel in nearby Agoura Hills that seemed safe.

“At 3:30 in the morning,” Twyman said, “someone’s beating at our door, telling us we have to get out, the fire is close.” So he called Luoto. She found them a hotel 45 minutes south, in Marina Del Rey. Never made it. Freeway closed. Twyman called back. She said they’d have to go north, to Santa Barbara, about an hour away. She booked the Twymans into a hotel there. Finally, at 6 a.m., they could sleep. “She was instrumental in doing things like that for family after family,” Twyman said.

“People sprang into action, leading with their hearts,” Rams vice president Kevin Demoff said Sunday. “Think of how much happened in such a short period of time. You go from 7 a.m. Thursday, trying to figure a way to help rebuild our community after the shooting. By 3 p.m., you’re wondering if you’re even going to have a community. Two gut punches, one hours after the other.”

Rams 36, Seattle 31. The Rams who could go home did, but at least half the organization went to hotels scattered around Los Angeles to see what would happen next. The team is supposed to leave for Colorado today at 4 p.m., and a week of practice there in advance of the mega-Monday-nighter against the Chiefs.

Pretty big deal, the teams tied for the best record in football at 9-1, playing in Mexico City. The Rams are going to Colorado Springs because it is 6,035 feet above sea level; Mexico City is 7,382. The Rams want to get accustomed to playing in the thin air.

What to expect? Well, the trip was still on as of 11 p.m. ET Sunday. But what form it will take, and who is going, and lots of the details stuff … TBD.

“I don’t know what I’m going to do,” Whitworth said. “I got four kids and a wife who need me right now. Will they be in school? Will they have school? Will our house make it? Should I take them all with me to Colorado? I just don’t know. It’s a little stressful.”

A little? In advance of the game of the year, the Rams might have survived the adversity of the year.
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• Five nuggets about the Chiefs-Rams showdown in Mexico City next Monday:

1. There’s significant worry about the playing surface at Azteca Stadium, a multi-use combined grass-and-synthetic surface used for soccer and concerts mostly, made soupy by heavy rains in this year’s rainy season. Recent photos of the pitch look awful. The NFL will mobilize there today and tomorrow to see if surgery will be needed on the field before the game.

2. Raul Allegre, the former NFL kicker now working for ESPN Deportes, was born in Mexico. This matchup, he said, was received poorly because there aren’t big fan bases for the Chiefs or Rams, and it didn’t sell out right away. But he says the atmosphere in the city the night of the game will be like for a World Cup game. “Everyone’s beyond excited,” he said.

3. The Rams are scheduled to work in Colorado Springs, at altitude, for a week beginning Tuesday, because Mexico City is 1.3 miles above sea level. The Chiefs studied that and chose to stay in Kansas City for the week before making the 3.5-hour flight Sunday. Coach Andy Reid told me, “The elevation’s the elevation. I’m sure the Rams are gonna work at elevation. We’re not. I don’t think it becomes an issue. We did our homework on that this past offseason. It doesn’t really matter. It doesn’t matter if it’s in the parking lot of the CVS.”

4. The Chiefs will fly home directly after the game, arriving around 5 a.m. Central Time to start their bye week. The Rams will stay over in Mexico City and leave Tuesday morning, beginning their bye week mid-day Tuesday. Why? There’s a 12:30 a.m. PT curfew for the customs office at Los Angeles International Airport, and the Rams couldn’t make it home in time to go through customs late Monday night.

5. Huge advantage for each team to have a Week 12 bye. The two teams will have byes on the weekend of Nov. 25, and if they get one of the top two seeds in the playoffs, they could each have another bye five weeks later. Washington and Carolina had their byes in September, and likely won’t have byes at all if they make the playoffs. Ask those teams about the difference between a bye in Week 4 and in Week 12.
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MVP Watch

4. Todd Gurley, RB, L.A. Rams. Last week: 3. He has a touchdown in 13 straight games. That seems good.
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Andrew Whitworth is one of the best free-agent signings ever.

I mean that about the Rams left tackle, signed from Cincinnati last year. It’s not hyperbole. A month shy of turning 37, Whitworth is a road-grader at a position that’s vital in today’s game, and he’s turned into the kind of leader every team longs for.
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Ndamukong Suh is still a huge factor, even if Aaron Donald sucks all the defensive attention (rightfully so) out of the Ram room.
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I think in the span of two hours, Dante Fowler Jr., went from goat to semi-hero in Los Angeles. He gave the Seahawks new life with two awful penalties early, then sealed the Rams win with a strip-sack of Russell Wilson, leading to the needed insurance touchdown. That’s going to turn out to be a smart trade by the Rams—and Fowler is going to be an important part of the Rams’ chances next Monday against the Chiefs.
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I think it’s hard to envision anyone beating out Aaron Donald (10 games, 12 sacks, rushing from all over the Ram front) for his second straight Defensive Player of the Year award.

Quenton Nelson mic'd up showing us his verbal war face.

Login to view embedded media View: https://twitter.com/Colts/status/1061802262521991168/video/1

I certainly hope not but it will not surprise me! Definitely can’t blame him for getting frustrated and finally reaching a boiling point but the Rams are in big trouble if he misses any games!!! Hopefully, If he gets anything it will just be a fine!

WOW another nail biting game this week guys, with us chalking up the big "W", 9-1 sure feels a lot better than that 8-8 bullcrap that we've been used to.

Here's what I learnt from the game this week

1. Our D stepped up their game, there was more pressure on the Wilson, Fowler Jr coming off the edge is definitely making a difference.

2. Stupid penalties, there were several, unnecessary personal foul / false start penalties which definitely hurt the Rams - Fowler Jr, with the two in the first half - the first one I was ok with, there was no malicious intent in my mind, dude was just stretching out to try and stop Wilson from legging it - the facemark penalty annoyed me though - but not as much as the offensive line false starts, think it was 2 apiece for Sullivan and Saffold and 1 for Big Whit. We can't do that from here on in, and those are the stupid errors that we got used to in the Fisher years, which quite often killed offensive drives.

3. Redzone - we're still struggling in my mind.

4. TE contribution - they seem to be clicking finally!! Higbee and Everett contributed positively to the offence, one of them (if not both) is going to have a monster game soon - this is great news especially with the bad news of he next point...

5. Kupp - really doesn't look good, was he rushed back too soon?? I know he's a key cog in our O, and a bit of a security blanket for Goff at times, but you know I'm so comfortable with our receiving corps that I'm not too worried, injuries happen. We still have Woods, Cooks and the emergence of our TEs will all help, and I'm sure Reynolds will be able to add a different dimension to our attack.

6. Seahawks - You have to admit, they've really stepped up their game this season, that running game of theirs is pretty impressive, and Oompa is still one of those tricky QBs that I hate seeing us play against, but love seeing getting sacked!

FINALLY
I have to commend the Rams for pulling off a win against a difficult opponent considering the emotional turmoil the players, staff and families must be going through this week. I heard that there were 20+ players (including Goff) and coaches that had to be evacuated from their homes on Friday morning due to the fires and the atrocious shooting in Thousand Oaks - to get out on that field and be able to focus your mind enough to function is amazing.

https://athlonsports.com/nfl/monday...-vs-san-francisco-49ers-prediction-picks-2018

Monday Night Football: New York Giants vs. San Francisco 49ers

The New York Giants and San Francisco 49ers are in a heated battle for the No. 1 spot. Sadly, that spot isn’t related to team rankings or Super Bowl chances. It’s a battle for the No. 1 pick in the 2019 NFL Draft.

Overall, the two teams have a combined 3-14 record as we’ve reached the halfway point of the 2018 season. Injuries have played a part, especially for San Francisco.

The 49ers lost quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo after signing him to a five-year contract extension worth up to $137.5 million during the offseason. On top of losing their franchise quarterback for the year, the 49ers were forced to put running backs Jerick McKinnon and Raheem Mostert on injured reserve as well, the former before the season even started.

One thing is certain: it hasn’t been the season that either team hoped for coming into the year.

New York at San Francisco

Kickoff: Monday, Nov. 12 at 8:15 p.m. ET
TV: ESPN
Spread: 49ers -3.5

Three Things to Watch

1. Will the location of the game be moved due to smoke?

As of right now, it looks like the Monday night showdown will remain at Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara, California. That notion isn’t a foregone conclusion, however.

Due to excessive smoke from the fires in Northern California, the 49ers have already been forced to adjust their practice schedule this week. That known fact already makes things more interesting, as it’s unknown how much that will affect the team’s play on Monday.

Either way, there’s going to be a lot more than football on people’s mind when things kick off.

2. Jamon Brown’s insertion into the starting lineup

The Giants have fielded one of the league’s worst offensive lines this season. Nate Solder, who signed a four-year, $62 million free agent contract in the offseason, hasn’t played up to his paycheck.

Neither did the team’s other free agent signing, offensive guard Patrick Omameh. His poor play is one of the major reasons why he was cut on Saturday. The other reason was the team being awarded former Rams starting guard Jamon Brown off waivers.

Brown was drafted by the Rams in the third round of the 2015 NFL draft. In three and a half seasons, he played in 42 games with 30 starts, including 16 in 2017. The emergence of Austin Blythe for Los Angeles is what made Brown expendable.

It’s not often that a starting-caliber offensive lineman becomes available this late in the season.

3. Can Nick Mullens keep the magic going?

Mullens isn’t a name that a lot of people were going to know heading into last Thursday’s matchup between the 49ers and Oakland Raiders. The undrafted free agent out of Southern Miss had never been close to meaningful game action in the NFL, after all.

After playing a pivotal part of handing the Raiders a 34-3 beatdown, all of that had changed. Everyone seemed to know who Mullens was, including Twitter.

The 23-year-old who rewrote some of Brett Favre's records at Southern Miss completed 72.7 percent of his passes for 262 yards and three touchdowns. His 151.9 passer rating meant that the 6-foot-1, 210-pound quarterback had put up one the most impressive starting debuts in NFL history.

The only question that he has left to answer: can he keep it going?

Final Analysis

The over/under for this game seems a little bit low at 44.5 points. Some of that is the result of a questionable quarterback matchup, but let’s also not forget about the key injuries the 49ers have on both sides of the football.

Linebacker Reuben Foster and safety Jaquiski Tartt are important pieces for San Francisco, and neither of them will be available on Monday night. To make matters worse, Mullens will be without one of his favorite targets, Pierre Garcon. The veteran receiver led the team in targets (5) last week.

As much as Eli Manning has struggled this season, the Giants look to be as healthy as they have been in a while. That bodes well for New York's chances of getting its second win of the season.

Prediction: Giants 24, 49ers 21

I came across an interesting post on Reddit a while back where someone compile the win/loss record through each 4 game stretch of all 52 SB winners.

Link

It's interesting to see that teams have historically dipped a bit in the 3rd quarter of the season, which we are in now. Several teams have gone 2-2 or 1-3, and the Giants even went 0-4 in 2011.

Despite the win I know there will be considerable angst about the defense, but was it that terrible?
The Rams gave up 240 yds on the ground but 90 of that was Wilson bailing them out, there were 2 personal fouls that kept drives alive and both led to tds. There seems like a lot missed tackles, guys who are in position but unable to get it done usually lbs. the pass rush was pretty good it looked like they finally found someone who can take advantage of the attention Donald gets. One thing that didn’t happen was we didn’t hear peters’ name called much today which is a good thing.

https://www.therams.com/video/mcvay...-teams-response-and-how-the-rams-will-move-fo


He isn't happy about those penalities- and I agree with him.

If you want to be a champion you can't do that shit. (Jeff Fisher ball)

I love McVay's attitude the last few weeks - he isn't sugar coating anything.

But still lot's of time to fix the issues and keep on winning.

Gives a lot of love to big whit.

To all my fellow veterans, hope you had a great day!

Not everyone really gets this holiday or why it's important, but we do and I just wanted to say that you're all in my hearts and prayers.

So Happy Veterans Day and thank you for your service.

That game was a nail biter. I thought Seattle was going to score at the end to win. Rams played inspired tough football. Now we have to face Seattle on the road with their backs against the wall. I hope we can get out there with a win but I doubt it. I'm nervous already. Who do the Rams have next week?

So yeah I like that shit.

We've beaten them a fair share.. but rare to beat them twice.

For an inside DLineman. Congrats Aaron! (12.5 sacks)

So in protest of the countless OMGWTF WADE PHILLIPS posts that are polluting electronic Ramsdom, I wanted to open some discussion on personnel and this how it factors in alongside the coaching staff in explaining why this defense is so damn bad. In other words, the players matter too, and when there's blame to be thrown around Les needs to get a little of that spaghetti flung on his face as well.

ROLB: Longacre (5), Fowler (5), Young (4)
DE: Donald (9), Westbrooks (5)
NT: Suh (5), Smart (3)
DE: Brockers (6), Franklin (5)
LOLB: Ebukam (4), Obo (4), Lawler (3)
ILB: Littleton (5), Hager (3), Kiser (3)
ILB: Barron (4), Wilson (4)
CB: Peters (5), Hill (3)
CB: Shields (4), Hatfield (2)
NCB: Coleman (7)
SS: Johnson (5), Countess (3)
FS: Joyner (5), Christian (4)

Key: Elite Starter 9 / Plus Starter 7 / Marginal Starter 5 / Backup 3 / Teams Only 1

Before the season we discussed our LB position extensively, and I think most of us knew we were under the gun in terms of talent. There was a hope that Wade would work magic with what he had, but now that we’re halfway through the season it’s pretty clear the roster lacks what it needs.

At OLB we are a damn shambles. Fowler is the only guy with plus talent, and he’s not totally up to speed yet in the scheme and thus I have him as a marginal starter until I see him showing an ability to play all the defensive calls. Still, I am thankful we have him right now. And Obo looks like he’ll be moreso a next year addition but who knows maybe come end of season he’ll know enough to be able to suit up. Overall this defense is supbar on the edge and while it might get better if Fowler steps up it still looks like we have more pain ahead with this group this season and in the playoffs. Room for improvement is minimal and related almost completely to Fowler.

ILB is straight below par. Littleton has his moments, and he’s our best ILB and probably best overall LB, but consistency can be an issue and is holding him back a bit. Barron just a guy, a guy who’s being paid well but just a guy nevertheless. There is no depth to speak of that gives us hope of improvement, that will only come from Littleton getting better. I don’t see Barron improving in this scheme, he needs to be a weakside chase guy in a 4-3. Once again I’ll recommend moving Ebu inside where his lateral movement won’t be as exposed, but that probably won’t happen and even if it did he'd struggle in his drops.

DL is above average. We have Donald killin it of course, and Brock is a solid starter. At the nose we have Suh who isn’t at his best in zero/one technique. He can do it, but in doing so IMO he goes from being a plus starter to a marginal starter. Many here presumed he’d be dominant next to Donald, but he’s not, he’s just getting by. And this group as a whole are still struggling in being washed out of plays in the run game, just because you play a one gap scheme doesn’t mean you can get moved two effin yards downstream and be like “hey I’m still in my gap.” On the room for improvement front, they do have the talent required to do so, so overall with this unit I am not that concerned.

CB is below par as a group. Only plus starter is NRC. Outside of him it’s a CB doing his own thing and a bunch of depth options. We thankfully have Talib (7) waiting in the wings, so from the improvement side of things there is hope. Also we have Peters playing below his ability level, so him stringing together some consistent starts with fundamentals improvement would be an area we can improve as well. I think there’s the talent for us to have an above average CB group if those things happen.

Safeties are a subpar unit thus far. And I am downright angry at Joyner, his range isn’t good enough, his instincts are off, and he’s not a guy who has the ranginess or athleticism to make up for his drawbacks. Johnson is very close to being a top cover type SS in the passing game, but he’s not elite in the box. Basically these two as a group aren’t great at supporting the run or pass. They don’t have the talent to improve too much, either. Joyner might be able to start making better decisions, but IMO if there’s a top safety there in the draft when we’re up that would be an enormous addition to this defense.

In summary, I think this demonstrates that the blame game that has been going on for some time now needs to include consideration of the players. The staff is not above reproach, they always need to share in the failure of a unit to get 'er done. But there is a lot more going on here than the staff not doing a good job.

Love the win today but concerned about Mr Kupp and haven’t found any updates. Please post here if you come across something! Got to drive for awhile!

After these last two games I have to admit that the Chief’s Offense and Patrick Mahomes have me a little concerned! But, At least the Rams are in pretty good shape in their Division and in making the playoffs but it would be nice if they could get Home Field advantage away from the Saints!

I guess to answer my own question I guess it doesn’t matter as long as it is less than what the Rams score! I still think the Rams Defense is better than they are playing but they need to start playing up to potential SOON!