We can beat the Rams next week (1 Viewer)

[ChaChingBaby]

Tonight's win is a huge boost of confidence, especially after watching the Rams look sluggish and struggling against a mediocre Packers team.

Regardless next week's events, it will most likely determine playoff seeding of the 1st round BYE week.


RAMS UPCOMING SCHEDULE
At Saints
Seahawks
Chiefs
BYE


SAINTS UPCOMING SCHEDULE
Rams
At Bengals
Eagles
Falcons


This is probably the toughest the Rams schedule will be before the year's end. In December they get to head off to Detroit and Chicago, which one of them could be a tough game if Chicago's defense remains in tact. After that, it's Philly and then the two teams in their division competing for a top 3 draft spot.

All in all, the Rams schedule, as has been noted many times before, is ridiculously easy. If I were a Rams fan, I'd be legitimately concerned going forward with them facing good teams, cause we seen them struggle so much with the Packers today and it's true that they haven't really been tested by a legit playoff contender. In the few games they have been tested (Minnesota and GB), they've struggled and look beatable. They luckily have a cupcake schedule that is helping them. It's like the schedule Philly had last year but even weaker. They most likely are going to be a 13-3 team. Without getting carried away ranting about scheduling differences between the two of us, here's how the Rams are beatable.


Rams offense
As we seen today, it's possible to get to Jared Goff and the Packers did an excellent job for one half keeping him scoreless, limiting big plays and making life miserable for him.

Goff is a good quarterback, considering many folks (including myself) thought he was going to be a huge bust after his rookie year in 2016. He still has some ways to go though before he is in the elite category despite having that one amazing game vs Minnesota earlier this year that impressed many of us. Green Bay made him look like an average quarterback with their blitzes and pressure. For most of the game, Goff was shaken and off target. When he is blitzed, he tends to panic and struggle.

Could it be possible the Packers wrote the blueprint on how to slow the Rams offense down? It was the first game of the year where they were legitimately shut down for an extended period of time and couldn't move down the field at will.

Key will be getting to Goff and pressuring him constantly. We seen it today against the Packers that when he is rushed, he often moves around trying to avoid pressure and either throws the ball out of bounds or takes the easy sack.

Gurley will be another task to shut down. I expect the Rams to try and establish a run on us early. The Rams also like to use their screen plays with Gurley, which have tore teams up in the past but were limited this week.


Rams defense
Many on here have noted the Rams defense not quite being as good as they were hyped up to be in the off season. I am one of the few who gave the benefit of a doubt and my reason lies exclusively with the presence of Wade Phillips on the sidelines. Say what you want about these guys, but Phillips has always been one of the best DCs in the league in the past decade. Him being there helps them, but there may be only so much that coaching can do with talent. The Rams have talent, but this is far from the 2015 Broncos who were a historical defense.

Almost every game, the Rams start off looking sluggish on D but end up cleaning things up a bit as time progresses. They struggle getting to the QB until the 2nd half of the game. Donald and Suh are a concern for this O-line but I think we can handle them.

The Rams defense has a problem letting teams back into games when they should be finishing them off. We saw it against the Vikings when they let Kirk Cousins turn from padding his stats into leading a real comeback on them. We saw it against Denver when they nearly blew a 17 point lead in a game where they dominant for most of the stretch. We saw it again this week against Aaron Rodgers, whom had an average game but was leading a comeback in the end.

Marcus Peters is a weak spot in the Rams secondary and it's debatable if he has even made them better since his injury. This team really misses Talib in the back field and have struggled without him.

Today, Rodgers picked on Peters often early in the game when it looked like the Packers could put a beating on them with a big lead. He picked on Peters again late in the game with that huge play that brought them back to life and a TD soon after.

I wonder how Kamara matches up with this defense or will Brees try to exploit Marcus Peters? Time will tell


All In All
Excited for this game next week and can't wait. We have a lot of memories playing the Rams back when we were NFC West rivals and this game is probably our most significant meeting since 2001 or 2000 when we had to face the GSOT. Kinda funny that this Rams offense is being compared to that and the memories it brings.

I have a great feeling going into this game. The Rams are DUE for a loss. Teams rarely go on undefeated streaks like this anymore before coming back down to earth.

They've gotten incredibly lucky which tends to always happen with teams that go on a big winning streaks. Memories of last year's Eagles who had the ball bounce their way numerous times (and a good comparison being that Philly was rarely tested last year and finally in the SB, their defense just fell apart), or the 2015 Panthers whom were the worst team to ever start 11-0, the 2011 Packers who were 15-1 with the worst ranked defense and finally, even our 2009 Saints and the 2009 Colts.

I think we win this game. it's at home and we most likely will break out the all black uniforms, which means it's a statement game for us in the dome. The dome is going to be LOUD and I strangely am starting to feel optimistic about this defense and their chances here. I think we sack Goff a couple times and prevent them from raining TDs on us.

 

[CowtownSaint]

Rams look more and more beatable every week, they are ripe for the picking in my opinion

 

[diehardfan]

Can't wait to be in the Dome!

 

[DerrickB]

We all know that if No. 88 had not fumble, that first L would have come today. They could not stop Aaron Rodgers.

 

[Alaina]

Honestly I think if we beat the Rams, we'll be looking at a 10-1 and #1 seed position in week 12. We can go to Cincy and win and we can certainly tear up the Eagles and Falcons in New Orleans.

 

[SigFreudianSlip]

Yet another litmus test.
Iron sharpens iron.

 

[Chris]

Wade Phillips will be looking for revenge from that preseason game. I hope we embarass them like we did the Redskins.

 

[dvdman]

There has NEVER been a doubt in my mind we can beat the Rams. The Rams almost let a gimpy Rodgers beat them today.

 

[ChaChingBaby]

Honestly I think if we beat the Rams, we'll be looking at a 10-1 and #1 seed position in week 12. We can go to Cincy and win and we can certainly tear up the Eagles and Falcons in New Orleans.

Cincy is definitely a concern of mine because we have historically struggled with the AFC North. Marvin Lewis in a small sample against Sean Payton coached teams, has had some great success shutting us down.

But the Bengals looked very beatable their last two games. They were thrashed by the Chiefs and then today, they let Tampa Bay come all the way back in a game where they had 4 interceptions, yet tied the game and almost got to OT.

I think we can beat them. I am just factoring in our history against Lewis' defenses, but something is definitely off with Cincy lately. They haven't looked the same since the Chiefs throttled them.

 

[ChaChingBaby]

Wade Phillips will be looking for revenge from that preseason game. I hope we embarass them like we did the Redskins.

Me too, as for Phillips, we do have a sample size of playing against his defenses in the past.

We beat him in 2011 vs Houston. He was DC there and that was a classic game of the year that went back and forth. We needed 40 points to beat them in that game and his defense did a great job early on but the game got way out of hand as it progressed into a shoot out.

The worst memory I have of a Phillips defense is 2016 vs Denver. They forced multiple turnovers on us, yet we came back and had them figured out in the 4th quarter. That final drive from Brees was clutch, on the money and then we lost off the bad blocked extra point and what should've been called back for a penalty.

Wade thrashed us back in 2009 when Dallas upset us, but I discount this loss. We were 13-0 and were bound to eventually lose. That game didn't sting that much and it's impossible to compare to today, as the game has changed so much and I feel we're a completely different team.

The best defense Wade had was the 2015 Broncos. I think the Rams have some great talent, especially their D-line but they are no where close to that Broncos team. Years gone by, people are going to look back at the 2015 Broncos as one of the last great historical defensive teams. With the recent rule changes, I am not sure we'll ever see a defense like that again. That game against the Patriots, they battered Brady like we did Favre in 2009. Flags would fly today if Wolfe and Miller punished a QB like that.

I remember Wade's defenses in the past sometimes struggling with the deep ball and we are beginning to see this more and more with the Rams current defense. They let Rodgers bring the Packers back to life by dropping those Brett Favre style bombs on them. The same thing happened when they faced Kirk Cousins, whom also brought his team back from the grave and made it a close game. It's a habit of his and this was the one sole weakness of the 2015 Broncos; they got burned a couple times by deep balls.

It will be interesting to see if Payton dials up plays to send Michael Thomas deep.