falcons did beat the panthers, but it was a home game. now they have to go on the road.

i’m thinking it’ll be.

oroy – alvin kamara

droy – marshon lattimore

comeback player of the year – rob gronkowski

opoy – todd gurley

dpoy – aaron donald

mvp – tom brady

coach of the year – sean mcvay

executive of the year – les snead

opoy is basically the mvp runner up so it goes to todd. i think if he had maintained that yardage and then got around 25 tds, that woulda been enough for the mvp. 19 total tds comes up a little short.

donald’s biggest threat to dpoy is campbell.

i’m going by strict definition. it was in the fourth quarter, and it was a come from behind touchdown to win the game.

now not all fourth quarter comebacks are created equal.

they vary in degrees of clutchness and drama. so no. this would not qualify near the greatest fourth quarter comebacks of all time.

but they needed more than a field goal to win the game, and goff got them the touchdown they needed. and yes. they were gifted a significant chunk of that yardage from a penalty i believe.

hopefully, this is the first of many. and hopefully. the other ones are even more dramatic.

actually. now that i think about it. i hope the rams just obliterate every opponent they face from here on out. drama is overrated anyway.

zn wrote:

if he were to have the same output as the later half of a season for an entire season that’s 4768 yards 43-44 touchdowns and 6-7 INTs

ain’t that something.

i’m not sure that’s entirely accurate though. i think it’d be more like.

4170 yards
38 tds
6 ints
8.2 ypa
109.4 passer rating

that’s still pretty damn impressive.

• This reply was modified 8 years, 2 months ago by InvaderRam.

there was a couple times the pass rush got to him, and he fumbled twice. but at least one of them wasn’t his fault. he had his back to the rusher and was about to hand it off to gurley. jamon brown went one way and the rest of the line went the other way freeing up a lineman to just blast goff. he wasn’t even really a pass rusher as it was a running play. brown just missed his assignment.

he was pretty effective against the blitz.

makes sense. i don’t even care if gurley and donald don’t get opoy or dpoy.

doesn’t concern me. apparently doesn’t concern the rams. getting healthy and the playoffs are the bigger concern. 3 or 4 seed won’t affect getting a home playoff game in the wild card round.

i like it.

zn wrote:

Who inherits 2 young candidates for league MVP plus a young clearcut franchise qb?

yeah. he’s responsible for getting those guys among others. brockers and ogletree.

you may not like the guy. but he got some pretty important pieces to the puzzle. you gotta give him credit for that.

like i said before. his biggest problem was not taking seriously enough putting together a competent offensive staff. hiring boras did that guy in. hiring an offensive coordinator like shanny or mcvay? yeah. that woulda worked. but then they woulda eventually left for some head coaching position. this is much better. mcvay already is the head coach.

and mcvay had the foresight to hire an amazing defensive staff to handle that side of things. and he kept the best special teams coordinator in the league. so i look at wade and his staff vs the offensive staff that fisher cycled through during his tenure. mix that in with a little bit of luck. and there ya go.

john johnson. all the focus is on kupp. and he’s definitely been good. but jj is the rams rookie of the year.

rams could very well have the best pair of safeties in the league.

that there is a good hc qb combo. add in hyde.

man i hate them niners.

i’m not a big conspiracy theorist, but i’m thinking there’s gonna be a big push within nfl circles to get gurley an mvp.

what better way to gear up interest in los angeles than to give the city its very own nfl mvp?

i think they’ll put pressure on the voters to select gurley. behind the scenes and through the media as we’re seeing right now.

merry christmas!

man the only thing i’ll be able to think of is rams all day.

but it’s all good stuff!

Rams’ Todd Gurley makes his case for NFL MVP against Titans
By SAM FARMER
DEC 24, 2017 | 4:40 PM
NASHVILLE

Gurley. Gurley. Gone.

The Rams’ Todd Gurley was a runaway train against the Tennessee Titans on Sunday — and the guy who deserves to run away with the NFL’s most-valuable-player award.

Until Gurley, the Titans hadn’t allowed a 100-yard rusher in more than a year.

Gurley ran for 118 and finished the day with a staggering 276 all-purpose yards, and that’s against a team that was desperately fighting to keep its own playoff hopes alive. He’s the third player in NFL history to have at least 100 yards rushing and 150 yards receiving in a single game, joining Ollie Matson (1954) and Herschel Walker (1986).

As he has all season, Gurley came through huge, and the Rams sauntered away with their first NFC West title since 2003.

It was the clinch that saved Christmas.

With a game to go, Gurley leads the NFL in rushing with 1,305 yards and 13 touchdowns.

“He’s the most complete back I’ve ever played with, and he’s having the best season of any back I’ve ever played with,” Rams center John Sullivan said.

Wait a second. Rewind the tape. Sullivan blocked for Adrian Peterson in Minnesota in 2012, when that future Hall of Famer ran for 2,097 yards and won league MVP — the only non-quarterback to win that award in the last decade.

“The thing about Todd is, he’s able to do it all,” Sullivan said. “He’s equally adept at every single phase. He’s great catching the ball out of the backfield. He’s amazing in the run game. He’s one of the smartest players I’ve ever played with. He’s got a great natural feel for the game, and he works at it. Great in blitz pickup. In protection, he’s second to none. In every single phase of the game, the guy is an absolute superstar.”

Regardless, it would be an upset if Gurley were to win, considering how disproportionately often the award goes to a quarterback. With Philadelphia’s Carson Wentz out with a knee injury, it could certainly go to New England’s Tom Brady or Seattle’s Russell Wilson.

But there’s no question Gurley has made a compelling case.

“A lot of people have been comparing him to Marshall Faulk,” said Rams guard Rodger Saffold, referring to the 2000 MVP winner. “Shoot, look across the league and the way he’s been able to be the most complete back in the NFL is just amazing.”

Gurley’s signature play Sunday — and maybe for his season — came midway through the second quarter when his team was on the ropes. The Titans had just scored a strip-sack touchdown, taken their first lead, and stuffed the Rams for a one-yard loss when they got the ball back.

Then, on second down, Jared Goff retreated quickly under blitz pressure, dumped off a pass to Gurley in the left flat, then watched him go. Gurley turned upfield and tore through the heart of the Tennessee defense for an 80-yard touchdown, outrunning a pair of defensive backs the final 20 yards.

“You could tell that their PA announcer was excited to announce that they were winning the game,” Sullivan said. “And then a minute later, they weren’t. It was great to kind of flip the script on them real quick like that.”

Two particularly memorable parts of that jaw-dropping play were Gurley shooting up his hand in a No. 1 sign just before he crossed the goal line, and that in his final steps he mistakenly veered toward former USC cornerback Adoree’ Jackson, among the fastest players in the league.

Gurley was using the giant video board as a rear-view mirror as he ran.

“I started looking up at the screen, and that’s when I turned because I saw [safety Kevin Byard] behind me,” he said. “A didn’t know I was running into one of the fastest dudes, Adoree’ right behind me. It was a struggle those last couple of yards, but I got it done.”

The NFL releases miles-per-hour statistics that aren’t terribly useful absent context, but Gurley’s 21.23 mph on that play was his fastest speed as a ballcarrier this season.

Tennessee hadn’t allowed a 100-yard rusher since the Chargers’ Melvin Gordon on Nov. 6, 2016. The most they had surrendered this season was 78 yards to Oakland’s Marshawn Lynch in the opener. They put the clamps on a parade of backs, among them Leonard Fournette, Jay Ajayi, and Le’Veon Bell.

“Man, that guy is shifty and explosive,” Titans defensive tackle Jurrell Casey marveled of Gurley. “You don’t see too many running backs like him… We had a visual on him, but he was just making plays.”

Gurley caught some eyes as he made his way to the team bus, too. He was breaking in a pair of cobalt-blue Christian Louboutin high tops, covered in studded spikes but for the smooth red soles — with a phone case to match. Nobody else had shoes like that.

On his head, Gurley wore a freshly minted NFC West champions cap. Everyone around him had one of those, and he wouldn’t have it any other way.

sam.farmer@latimes.com

Follow Sam Farmer on Twitter @LATimesfarmer

well none of the qbs this year is really standing out this year.

maybe wentz, but he got injured.

so if they don’t give it to donald, i think gurley is the next best choice. for me it’s his performances as a receiver that really stand out. like rarified air for a running back type stuff. and i think the strong finish to the season will make an impression as well.

zn wrote:

That’s 3 first round picks in a row that must count as big scores.

this is something i want to revisit 10 years from now.

ha.

• This reply was modified 8 years, 2 months ago by InvaderRam.