8 more games

I don’t see them beating Cleveland or Baltimore even with Stafford.

With Stafford they are in and can win the Seattle, Arizona, Washington, New Orleans, and NYG games.

If healthy they are capable of upsetting SF.

My view? They could end up anywhere from 6-11 to 9-8.

Odds are very much against a playoff season but this season is just plain not like the 90s or 2007-2011. We’re watching them develop into a team for 2024. They have some good players on both sides of the ball and some good 2023 draft picks. As we know they have money and picks in 24 and from what I am hearing it is a loaded draft.

I am not one of those despairing fans who are on twitter with “time for a coaching change?” tweets.

I think the Rams will take at least three of those games: Cards, Commanders, and Giants. They might surprise the Niners, or Saints, or the Browns. Perhaps the Seahawks too. Maybe four. But I’d say at least three more wins.

Agree with Invader about hoping to see a lot more development from the rooks. McVay needs to play ’em. Might as well open the floodgates and start anyone with any chance to stick, and sit the players they don’t plan to keep. See what they have for 2024.

Oh, and am I all alone in despising the 17 game schedule? I can deal with 16, but would rather have 14. But there’s something about an odd number of games (9/8, away/home) that really burns me. It ranks up there with truly obnoxious things like shaky cams and shrinkflation. On the latter, I wish corporations would just get it over with. If they want us to believe we’re buying a half gallon of ice cream, in a much smaller container, just go for it. Make it a pint and call it a half gallon. People are likely too exhausted to care these days. Or, they’ll march on Washington. Either way, stop the slow gaslighting, please!

Zooey wrote:

Billy_T wrote:

Oh, and am I all alone in despising the 17 game schedule?

Professional football, as we know it, ceased to exist when John Facenda died. Anybody who lives to be 50-years old automatically joins the Get Off My Lawn (GOML) club. There should be 14 games, grass stains, and mud. The Colts, Browns, and Steelers should be in the NFC, and at least a dozen QBs should be wearing ankle boots. The Falcons helmet should be red, the Cardinals should be in the NFC East, and Howard Cosell should narrate the only highlights anyone can ever watch. Also, the Vikings should be obliterated.

Well, I agree with pretty much all of that. Facenda was amazing. He made the game seem beyond important. Sundays were holy for an entirely new reason when you heard his narrations. I also think Pat Summerall and Frank Gifford (before he joined MNF) had that same ability to make the game essential, necessary. Which leads to another pet peeve. I really dislike the NFL Network’s morning show. They want everything to be a joke, basically, and they obviously drink too much coffee. They play silly games about a deadly serious game, countering the Facenda, Summerall, Gifford School of Hard Knocks.

Of course, one could argue that silly games about a game might sync up better than arch seriousness about a game . . . but I don’t want to think that way, and I’m too old to change at this point.

The NFL should mandate real grass fields, play on Sundays only, have just 14 games, realign the divisions to make sense geographically, and stop all the ticky-tacky calls. Let the players play. But I do rejoin “modernity” when it comes to their health. I actually don’t want them to be “old school” in the sense that they get to spear each other to death. I’m against the use of the helmet as a weapon, regardless of when and where, etc.

Anyway, as a charter member of the GOML club, I fully approve your post.

I think we go 2-6, the rest of the year.