July's "Rams previews & predictions & rankings & superbowl chances" thread

After making it to the Super Bowl, how will the @RamsNFL do in 2019? @89JonesNTAF goes through their schedule with @MJD chiming in on the side 😂

📺: @NFLTotalAccess pic.twitter.com/FjSRjH6OY7

— NFL Network (@nflnetwork) July 14, 2019

Will the Rams return to the Super Bowl this season?

Vinny Bonsignore and Rich Hammond

https://theathletic.com/1074444/2019/07/12/will-the-rams-return-to-the-super-bowl-this-season/

These are good times for the Rams, who have stability and a talented roster that figures to put them in Super Bowl contention again in 2019. But every team has issues. So each week, Vinny Bonsignore and Rich Hammond will discuss and debate the Rams’ biggest current questions. Here are the topics to date.

It’s a monopoly over in the AFC, where the New England Patriots seemingly can book their Super Bowl hotel rooms in August, but life in different in the NFC, where multiple teams have a chance.

Over the past two decades, only one NFC team — the Seattle Seahawks in 2014 and 2015 — has reached the Super Bowl in consecutive years. So many variables, including roster changes, chemistry and injuries, can turn a season that starts with high expectations into a disappointment.

Pundits around the league agree that the Rams are among the favorites to return to the Super Bowl this season, but their case is not airtight. So here’s the question: Will the Rams return to the Super Bowl this season?

Rich Hammond says yes

Motivation is a fascinating thing in sports. Different athletes are driven by different factors. For some, it’s money. Others want personal recognition. It’s rare, though, to encounter a player who doesn’t desperately want to win. That’s why I think the Rams will return to the Super Bowl.

It’s still tough to put the Rams’ 2018 season in context. It was an enormous success from September through January, and then a total disaster on Feb. 3. Five months’ worth of nationwide praise and admiration turned to questioning and mocking. What happened to the Rams’ offense in the Super Bowl? Is coach Sean McVay overrated? Is Jared Goff really an elite quarterback?

It’s relatively silly. One game — even though it was the Super Bowl — shouldn’t override a full season of success, and it certainly shouldn’t negate the two full years’ worth of work that McVay has done to turn around a sad-sack franchise. But that’s where things stand. The Rams won 13 games last season and still ended up being treated like failures because they scored three points against the Patriots.

Players no doubt will get asked about this when training camp opens at the end of this month, and they’ll say that they don’t care, that they don’t listen, that they haven’t even re-watched any of the Super Bowl. Lies, all of it. One doesn’t reach the highest level of professional sports — either as a player or coach — without a fierce competitive streak, and the Rams have been stewing for five-plus months.

I also spent some time around the Chargers during the offseason and talked to veterans such as Thomas Davis and Mike Pouncey. When they’re asked about a Super Bowl ring, their faces get very serious and they say that a championship is the only thing that matters. Imagine how the Rams feel now, having gotten so close — tied in the fourth quarter — only to suffer a narrow, frustrating loss.

The Rams’ focus is going to be very narrow. They already know they can win their division (and probably should, handily). They know they can go on the road and win a playoff game in the toughest of environments. Their sole focus is going to be on winning the NFC Championship Game again.

There’s no reason why the Rams can’t reach the Super Bowl again. The biggest issue, going into camp, will be the offensive line, but any issues of consistency or camaraderie will be worked out early in the season. The rest of the offense returns intact — you say that knee is just fine, right Todd Gurley? — and the defense actually could be improved, assuming the Rams find an adequate replacement for Ndamukong Suh at nose tackle.

It’s not a stretch to think the Rams might sweep the NFC West again, and while some tough games loom — New Orleans, Chicago, Pittsburgh — there’s no stretch that threatens to send the season into a spiral. A loss here or there is fine and isn’t going to derail a team that knows how to win.

Look around the conference. Which team improved so much that it is going to knock the Rams off the top of the NFC hill? New Orleans is strong again. Are the Bears a Super Bowl team? The Eagles? The Falcons? Surprise teams always pop up, but going into the season, it’s a solid bet that the Rams will be headed to Miami next February.

Vinny Bonsignore says no

The Rams are stacked, no question about it. No team is better situated, in terms of roster or motivation, to get back to the biggest stage after the Rams fell oh-so-short of winning the Vince Lombardi Trophy. And while Sean McVay and his staff lost the coaching duel to New England Patriots mastermind Bill Belichick, the lessons they learned from the experience and the new edge given to the Rams, in terms of preparation and coaching, are about as good as they get in the NFL.

Everything is pointing squarely to another Super Bowl run and for valid reasons. The Rams have talent across the board and boast the best defensive player in the game — and arguably the best football player, period — in Aaron Donald, and they have an emerging young quarterback in Jared Goff who’s surrounded by a bevy of offensive weapons.

I even think Todd Gurley is poised for another big season, albeit slightly altered in terms of workload and usage after he faded down the stretch last season due to a mysterious knee issue. I don’t buy for a second he is drastically damaged goods. But the Rams are intent on protecting him and preserving him over the course of the regular season. Because of that, he’ll be used differently while still being one of the most explosive offensive threats in the NFL.

For all of those reasons, every bit of logic suggests the Rams will mount another Super Bowl run. And maybe this time even close the deal.

I just don’t see it.

I think the Rams win their division — although I think a rough schedule in which they make four trips to the Eastern time zone and play a “home” game in London will take a toll in terms of their win total. The Rams won 13 games last year, but playing tough games in Pittsburgh, Carolina, Cleveland, Dallas, Atlanta and Seattle could sabotage their efforts to match or exceed that win total. I see them winning 11 or 12 games as a result.

It’s more than just the schedule, though.

While I believe Joe Noteboom and Brian Allen will be up to the challenge of replacing Rodger Saffold and John Sullivan at left guard and center, respectively, I don’t see the transition happening without some hiccups. The Rams’ offensive line has been one of the best and healthiest in the NFL the last two years, and the continuity they’ve enjoyed is almost unprecedented in today’s NFL. But there is an unknown factor to that unit this year that wasn’t present last year.

Noteboom and Allen face a learning curve as first-year starters. At some point, their inexperience will be felt. And while the Rams hope the offensive line can get through another season without suffering any significant injuries, there is no guarantee it will. If they have to dip into their reserves corps, what kind of performance can they get?

So factor in the big-time inexperience along the offensive line with the rough schedule. For a team chasing big dreams, those are sizable deterrents. And perhaps an unexpected loss or two will be the result. Ultimately, that might mean the difference between claiming home-field advantage throughout the playoffs or not.

The Rams went on the road last year to punch their ticket to Super Bowl LIII. But if they have to do it again, I think that’s too big a hurdle to overcome.

from https://www.cbssports.com/nfl/news/nfl-super-bowl-odds-2020-predictions-dialed-in-picks-teams-to-avoid-from-vegas-expert/Carolina Panthers 60-1

Before you make your 2020 Super Bowl picks and NFL predictions, see what SportsLine’s top NFL handicapper, R.J. White, has to say.

2020 Super Bowl odds to win:

New England Patriots 6-1
Kansas City Chiefs 6-1
Los Angeles Rams 8-1
New Orleans Saints 8-1
Indianapolis Colts 12-1
Chicago Bears 14-1
Philadelphia Eagles 14-1
Green Bay Packers 14-1
Cleveland Browns 16-1
Los Angeles Chargers 18-1
Pittsburgh Steelers 18-1
Dallas Cowboys 18-1
Seattle Seahawks 25-1
Minnesota Vikings 25-1
Houston Texans 30-1
Atlanta Falcons 30-1
Baltimore Ravens 40-1
San Francisco 49ers 40-1
Jacksonville Jaguars 40-1
Oakland Raiders 60-1
New York Jets 80-1
Denver Broncos 80-1
Cincinnati Bengals 100-1
Buffalo Bills 100-1
New York Giants 100-1
Detroit Lions 100-1
Tampa Bay Buccaneers 100-1
Washington Redskins 100-1
Tennessee Titans 100-1
Arizona Cardinals 200-1
Miami Dolphins 500-1

from The NFL’s best and worst offensive arsenals: Barnwell’s 32-1 ranking

https://www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/id/27154042/the-nfl-best-worst-offensive-arsenals-barnwell-32-1-ranking#lar

1. Los Angeles Rams
2018 rank: No. 6 | 2017: No. 29

Indignant Chiefs fans are likely yelling about Todd Gurley and Cooper Kupp right about now, and indeed, there are reasons to be worried about two of the Rams’ stars. Kupp is returning from a torn ACL and should be active for Week 1, but it’s impossible to say whether he will be the same guy who was on pace for 1,132 receiving yards and 12 touchdowns before blowing out his knee.

Gurley is a scarier proposition. The reports suggesting he is suffering from arthritis in his knee seem to be accurate, and everything the Rams have done and said suggests that the days of Gurley taking 90-plus percent of the offensive snaps are over. Los Angeles is enthused about third-round pick Darrell Henderson, and ESPN college football guru Bill Connelly raved about Henderson’s explosiveness before the draft, but Gurley was the best running back in football when healthy over the past two years. It’s tough to imagine the Rams will get that sort of volume and efficiency from a combination of Henderson and an arthritic Gurley in 2019.

With that being said, this isn’t a binary problem. Gurley probably isn’t going to average nearly 23 touches per game or average five touchdowns per month like he did from 2017-2018, but he could still be a very useful running back in the range of 15-18 touches per week. That’s less exciting for fantasy football, but it’s probably better for the Rams, especially if Henderson delivers on the preseason hype. There’s not much at tight end here, but when you think about just how deep the Rams are at wide receiver with Kupp, Brandin Cooks and Robert Woods, even 85% of the old Gurley is enough to propel the Rams to the top of the weaponry charts.

Will the NFC catch up to the Rams?

PFT 2019 storyline No. 3: Will the NFC catch up to the Rams?

The Rams rocketed to the top of the NFC in 2018. In 2019, will the rest of the NFC close the gap?

The signs already exist to suggest that coach Sean McVay and company may have a hard time distancing themselves from the rest of the pack, both in their division and in the rest of the conference. If the 2019 version of running back Todd Gurley no longer performs like the 2017 version of running back Todd Gurley, more pressure will be placed on the rest of the offense, starting with quarterback Jared Goff. And there are real questions regarding whether the rest of the offense can pick up the slack.

Some wonder whether, as evidenced by the Patriots holding the Rams to three points in Super Bowl LIII, defenses may be figuring out the McVay offense. Which puts extra pressure on McVay to, as Chris Simms would say, self-scout himself in order to figure out where the flaws in the offense reside — and, at the same time, how to exploit defenses that are shifting their focus to take away things that McVay/Goff/Gurley like to do.

It’s one thing for McVay to come up with new concepts and plays; it’s another for Goff to execute them. Goff’s failure to spot and then to deliver an accurate throw to a wide-ass open Brandin Cooks in Super Bowl LIII should haunt Goff and McVay, and it should raise questions as to whether, when confronted with a championship opportunity, Goff will be suited to seize it.

That may not be an issue in 2019, if the Rams find themselves in a slog against the likes of the Seahawks and maybe the 49ers in the NFC West, and likewise in a fight for home-field advantage with the likes of the Eagles or Cowboys or Bears or Saints or whoever rises up in the other three divisions.