Football Outsiders: No change in Rams' record

http://espn.go.com/nfl/insider/story/_/id/12867417/cowboys-trail-only-seahawks-nfc-projected-standings-nfl

NFC West

Seattle Seahawks 12-4 (12.4 mean wins, SOS: 16)
San Francisco 49ers 7-9 (7.1 mean wins, SOS: 5)
Arizona Cardinals 6-10 (6.3 mean wins, SOS: 2)
St. Louis Rams 6-10 (5.8 mean wins, SOS: 11)

Seattle is the blatantly obvious, slam-dunk favorite to sit atop the NFL again after Super Bowl 50. This doesn’t mean Seattle will win. Predicting the season is about probabilities. With 32 teams in the mix right now, and so many things unknown, the Seahawks are far from an even-money bet to have another championship season. But Seattle has the highest probability of being a serious Super Bowl contender, and the fewest question marks going into the 2015 season. No other team comes close, and Dallas is the only other team with a mean win projection above 10.6.

The Seahawks have been the No. 1 team in Football Outsiders’ DVOA ratings for three straight years. By adjusted games lost, they are coming off their least healthy season of the three, suggesting improvement in 2015. And one of their major rivals is reeling from massive personnel losses. San Francisco’s situation is a difficult one to try to model with statistics. We can penalize them for the loss of two starting inside linebackers — one of them, Patrick Willis, a perennial Pro Bowl star — and those retirements likely neutralize any benefit the 49ers will get from the strong probability that they are healthier on defense in 2015. However, the importance of a head coach is a subjective variable. Under Jim Harbaugh, the 49ers tended to always play better than projections. Nobody outside of the organization seems to have any faith in Jim Tomsula as his replacement. What are numbers supposed to say about that?

There are also a number of questions revolving around the projection for the Arizona Cardinals. We might be forecasting their defense as too strong because of the importance of departed defensive coordinator Todd Bowles. We also might be forecasting their offense as too weak because the system doesn’t fully compensate for the drop in Arizona’s offense when the Cardinals were forced to start a quarterback, Ryan Lindley, who wasn’t on their roster to start the season. On the other hand, Arizona ranked 23rd in offensive DVOA, if we count all 16 games. If we only count games started by Carson Palmer, the Cardinals would have ranked … 23rd, in exactly the same place except a little closer to No. 22 Minnesota. Arizona’s overall performance was weak for a playoff team even before Lindley took over as quarterback, and teams like that tend to decline. On the other hand — back to the subjective questions about head coaches — Bruce Arians’ record of outperforming statistics over the past three seasons is extremely strong.

St. Louis was strong on defense and special teams but not offense in 2014. The Rams are somewhat the opposite of Atlanta and New Orleans, and with a team such as this, our system tends to see the good units declining and the poor offense not improving much. There’s a ton of talent on the defensive line, but too many questions everywhere else.

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Football Outsiders: No change in Rams’ record

By Nick Wagoner

http://espn.go.com/blog/st-louis-rams/post/_/id/18447/football-outsiders-no-change-in-rams-record

EARTH CITY, Mo. — Now that the NFL draft is complete, the look of rosters around the NFL will likely resemble the look of rosters when the season starts.

Yes, teams have plenty of players to cut and some surprises will emerge as some players find their way to the waiver wire, but for the most part, the key players for every team are now known.

With that in mind, the folks at Football Outsiders have been running their projections for team records around the league. On Tuesday morning, they revealed their record projections for the NFC. Though they see one team enjoying a breakthrough turnaround in the NFC, that team is not the St. Louis Rams. It’s the Atlanta Falcons.

Instead, the Football Outsiders see the Rams finishing with the same 6-10 record they had in 2014.

According to their method, the Rams will finish in a tie for last place in the NFC West with the Arizona Cardinals, a team they clearly see as due for a drop in 2015. In fact, the Seattle Seahawks, with a projected record of 12-4, are the only NFC West team the Outsiders project to have a winning record.

As for the Rams, the general argument for them failing to improve in 2015 boils down to their projected question marks on the offense and expecting a bit of a decline on defense and special teams, where the Rams have fared well in recent seasons.

I tend to disagree with the idea that the Rams will take a step backward on defense and special teams. In fact, the defense looks poised to take a step forward now that it has a year with coordinator Gregg Williams under its belt. An argument can be made that the window for the defense is starting to head toward a close, but it doesn’t feel like this year will be the year that happens.

However, the questions about the offense are planted in reality. The Rams look like they have improved at quarterback with Nick Foles, but they still have questions all over the offensive line and their receiving corps remains without a clear-cut No. 1 option. Rookie running back Todd Gurley should theoretically help the run game evolve into what coach Jeff Fisher has envisioned, but it remains to be seen when Gurley will be healthy.