This @49ers defense does NOT mess around 😤

Aaron Rodgers gets strip sacked on the opening drive

(via @NFL) pic.twitter.com/Z9Dqh3feoS

— FOX Sports: NFL (@NFLonFOX) November 25, 2019

Sosa K@QBsMVP
2 tripping calls called vs. the Cowboys today were horrible. Ended the game.

==

This is the exact opposite of a tripping. He moved out of the way to avoid tripping the defender. This BS has to stop. Please NFL. Stop this. pic.twitter.com/J8Lt0RBKls

— Geoff Schwartz (@geoffschwartz) November 25, 2019

Late throws—not in terms of timing with receivers but deciding late in the process of the play to make a perimeter throw that requires a late turn—are difficult for QBs to execute by nature and often need a precise mechanical process. Wentz lacks it here. TD lost. pic.twitter.com/bIgDZ54fcH

— Matt Waldman (@MattWaldman) November 24, 2019

Rich Hammond@Rich_Hammond
Seahawks are headed toward a win and a 9-2 record. If you’re tracking the Rams’ playoff chances, it’s probably best to cut bait on the idea of them catching Seattle and instead hope the Seahawks beat 8-3 Minnesota next week.

Yep. This is happening here today. #Bills pic.twitter.com/OlBxgclO8W

— Thad Brown (@thadbrown7) November 24, 2019

The Rams are now a defense-first team, but that’s about to get a huge test

Rich Hammond

https://theathletic.com/1403637/2019/11/24/the-rams-are-now-a-defense-first-team-but-thats-about-to-get-a-huge-test/?=twittered

THOUSAND OAKS, Calif. — Aaron Donald, close that book. Jalen Ramsey, sharpen that pencil. This isn’t even pop-quiz time for the Rams defense. It’s more like a final exam.

The defense has been stellar in its past four games, a period that just so happened to coincide with the trade addition of Ramsey, arguably the best cover cornerback in the NFL. The Rams now can play more man-press coverage and give their front seven more time to get to opposing quarterbacks.

“We know we can be one of the best defenses in the league,” outside linebacker Dante Fowler said. “That’s what we want to do.”

There’s no arguing the results. The Rams have allowed a total of four touchdowns in their past four games — albeit against very weak offenses — and have transformed the identity of a team that, as recently as 12 months ago, was known for scoring 30 or 40 points per game. Those days are done. The Rams offense now looks like a runner in Mile 25 of a marathon — still moving, just at a labored pace.

It’s been fascinating to watch the transition, one embraced by coach Sean McVay, but before any further deification of this defense, the Rams must slow the Baltimore Ravens on Monday night at the Coliseum.

Good luck.

The Ravens (8-2) lead the league with an average of 34.1 points per game. That’s more points than the catch-your-breath Rams put up in 2017 or 2018. The Ravens do a lot of things well and have the ability to control the ball with running back Mark Ingram, but the eye-popping play comes from their quarterback.

Lamar Jackson, at age 22 and in his first full season as a starter, has been the must-watch player of this NFL season. Jackson has completed two-thirds of his pass attempts, with 19 touchdowns and only five interceptions in 10 games. Plus, Jackson has 781 rushing yards, more than all but 10 NFL running backs.

The Rams play Seattle quarterback Russell Wilson twice each season, but Jackson is on a different level right now because of how he can beat a team in multiple ways. The name being tossed around in comparison is Michael Vick, who just happened to visit the Rams’ locker room after last week’s game. Rams defensive coordinator Wade Phillips, who spent two seasons with Vick in Atlanta (2002-03), even referred to Jackson as “Vick-plus.”

“He’s a dynamic player,” Donald said of Jackson. “He can do a lot of different things. When he’s got the ball in his hands, he’s a tough guy to get down to the ground. We know what to expect from that, just from seeing it on film. We’ve got a game plan. We’ve just got to go out there and execute it.”

Jackson and the Ravens will test everything the Rams’ defense has done well over the past four weeks since they acquired Ramsey in a blockbuster trade with Jacksonville. The Rams have played tighter coverage, tackled well and gotten to quarterbacks, and that’s the exact formula they’ll need against the Ravens.

Maybe they call pull it off. No other team has against the Ravens since early October, but in their past four games, the Rams have enjoyed a dramatic defensive turnaround in all areas. Here’s the breakdown:

“I think in the past however many weeks, we’ve played well defensively,” Ramsey said. “I feel like it’s since I’ve been here. I’m not saying it’s because of me. Just saying that since I’ve been here, I’ve noticed it.”

No, that’s fine, Jalen, give yourself some credit. There’s a straight-line correlation between Ramsey’s arrival and the Rams’ defensive improvement.

The Rams’ increased sack total arguably is the most important figure. With Ramsey on the field — and with some solid play from fellow starting cornerback Troy Hill and the safeties — the Rams are harder to throw against. It’s now more difficult for opposing quarterbacks to find open targets soon after the snap.

That means extra time for the Rams’ front seven, and even a fraction of a second more makes a difference for fierce pass-rushers such as Donald, Fowler and Clay Matthews. Donald, for instance, frequently is a target of offensive-line double teams.

Donald recorded only three sacks in the Rams’ first six games this season, but how many times did he come this-close to taking down a quarterback? A lot. Now, Donald has five sacks in four games when sharing the field with Ramsey. No player on the roster has benefitted more.

It’s also fair to point out, though, that the Rams have feasted on some terrible offenses of late.

Atlanta has surged in November, but when the Rams played the Falcons last month, they were 1-5. Cincinnati, the following week’s opponent, entered 0-7 and had scored more than 20 points only once. Pittsburgh played with a backup quarterback and running back and Chicago, last week’s opponent, looked completely inept, with quarterback Mitchell Trubisky off-target on his pass attempts and out of synch with his receivers all night.

The Rams have feasted on some sugary snacks for the past month. Now it’s time for some meat.

Baltimore’s ability to control the ball is daunting for opponents, and the Ravens are good at converting third downs — likely because many of them are short-distance scenarios — so the Rams’ strategy must start with pinning Jackson in the pocket and making him uncomfortable.

Good luck with that, of course, but it’s the best way to approach the game. The Ravens have lost two games and been taken to overtime once. In those three games, Jackson was sacked a total of 12 times. In the Ravens’ seven regulation victories, Jackson was sacked a total of eight times.

The other big thing for the Rams would be an early lead. The Ravens are accustomed to playing with the lead, running the ball and dictating the pace. If the Rams can force the Ravens to put the ball in the air more, and force Jackson to make plays with his arm more often than with his feet, that’s a winning scenario.

But, well, this isn’t exactly a strength for the Rams, who have scored only one first-quarter offensive touchdown in 10 games this season. Perhaps the defense can come up with one, as Fowler did two weeks ago when he returned a first-quarter fumble for a touchdown against Pittsburgh.

In general, though, the improvement of the Rams defense helps the offense. McVay said the Rams’ defensive strength “certainly does” impact the way he calls offensive plays, and the defense helps the offense play with a certain calmness in ways that aren’t always easy to identify on the stat sheet.

Take last week’s victory over Chicago, for instance. Given the way the Bears were moving the ball — they weren’t — the game seemed very much in hand after the Rams took a 10-0 lead late in the second quarter. That’s why McVay didn’t get overly aggressive in the second half. He trusted the defense. Todd Gurley had a season-high 25 carries and, well, if the Rams had to punt, they did. McVay wasn’t going to make risky calls just because he felt he had to maintain a multi-touchdown lead.

“Now, certainly that doesn’t mean you don’t want to be efficient and operate with consistency offensively,” McVay said, “but I think it does enable you to feel like — I don’t necessarily know if conservative is the word, but you want to play a smart, complementary game. I think (the Bears game) indicated our ability to approach the game like that.”

It’s unreasonable to expect a full duplication against Baltimore, though. Three weeks ago, the Ravens gave New England its first loss of the season. In the following two weeks, Baltimore outscored Cincinnati and Houston by a combined margin of 90-20. The Ravens have yet to be held under 23 points this season, and the Rams have totaled only 53 points combined in their past three games.

So the Rams must hope their offense awakens and that their defense does things to the Ravens that no other team has done in 2019.

“We’ve been playing some good ball this year,” outside linebacker Clay Matthews said. “Whether we score 42 points on offense or 17, our defense expects to hold their own. I think, for the most part, we’ve been able to do that this year. Furthermore, we continue to get better and better.”

If that’s true, then the Rams’ tenuous playoff hopes will greatly improve. In 2018, the offense carried the Rams to the Super Bowl. In 2019, can the defense drag it to the postseason?

Rams Week 12 preview: 5 questions with Ravens Wire https://t.co/kmxrlP60sa via @theramswire

— RamsNewsNow (@RamsNewsNow) November 24, 2019

==

How has Marcus Peters played since arriving?

Peters has been stellar for Baltimore. It’s not a coincidence the Ravens’ defense has jumped up the rankings after trading for him, holding the No. 1 DVOA since Week 7, when they traded for Peters. He’s been physical and aggressive without being too much of either thing to draw penalties or get burned deep. In return, that aggressiveness has netted him two interceptions, returning both for touchdowns. He’s the perfect complement to Marlon Humphrey, who has arguably been the best cornerback in the league this season, albeit not putting up a ton of interceptions of his own.

Perhaps the best thing about having Peters is that he allows defensive coordinator Don Martindale to be a little more inventive with how he manufacturers pressure. By knowing the cornerbacks have things locked down fully now, he can send blitzes from different spots and at different times to throw off offensive lines and quarterbacks.

What has changed about the Ravens defense the last few weeks?

The biggest change has obviously been Peters, but quite a lot has changed outside of that, actually. The Ravens have added six players since Week 5 that have turned into impact players playing a high percentage of snaps.

Outside of Peters, I contend the biggest and most important defensive change has come at linebacker, seeing Baltimore switch out Kenny Young and Patrick Onwuasor for Josh Bynes and L.J. Fort. That change immediately saw improvements, most importantly in coverage, with Bynes grabbing an interception just a few days after being signed. Much like with Peters, the improved play at linebacker has allowed the rest of the defense to take added responsibilities off their shoulders and just do their individual jobs better. The secondary hasn’t had as many lapses, the run defense is in much better shape and the Ravens have generated more consistent pressure.

Another big reason the defense has improved has simply been because everyone’s getting more comfortable with the playbook and each other. A large portion of the starting defense is made up of newcomers that weren’t with the team just last year — some being signed as recently as last week. As guys like safety Earl Thomas have jelled with the coaching staff and their teammates, the play has steadily improved with it. It both helps and hurts that the Ravens run a more complicated scheme that includes a bigger playbook than most others.

That takes time to digest and turn into muscle memory, but once they get there, there’s a lot to dig your teeth into and play with on the fly. We’re seeing the defense come out on the other side now and putting in performances similar to what we saw last year with their No. 1 ranking.

What is Lamar Jackson’s biggest weakness right now?

I still wonder if Jackson would revert back to some of his bad habits and mechanics if a defense could find a way to throw him off his rhythm or dictate to the Ravens’ offense what they’ll do instead of the other way around. He’s had some of that happen earlier in the season but has generally been improving from Week 4 on, coinciding with his MVP argument strengthening. However, we saw a little dip in the first quarter of Week 11 against the Houston Texans before regaining his mojo and going 13-of-13 the rest of the way.

The problem with trying to replicate that success against Jackson is that it almost seems to be self-created rather than what a defense has done to him thus far. Even last week against the Texans, it was Baltimore’s miscues that threw everything off in the first quarter. Once they settled down as a team, they got right back to form and never flinched again. Part of the reason for that rhythm is that the Ravens’ offense is a pick-your-poison style that creates mismatches in a few spots and then picks apart wherever a defense is pulling from to cover elsewhere.

If you use a safety to spy Jackson, it’s going to leave passing lanes open to Marquise Brown and Mark Andrews. If you have a stout defensive line and you commit to shutting down the power rushing attack, you probably don’t have the outside speed to keep Jackson from running around you or the speed on the field to protect against the intermediate passing attack inside. If you throw more defenders into the secondary to cover everyone and keep Jackson contained, they’ll bludgeon you with running backs Mark Ingram and Gus Edwards)

What happened in the Ravens’ two losses? How did the Chiefs and Browns win?

Both of those games were before Baltimore’s defense underwent a dramatic change in personnel. In fact, those two games were the reason the Ravens made such drastic changes, starting in Week 5. In both games, the secondary had major lapses that left guys completely uncovered for touchdowns, something you can’t have against talented offenses. Combine that with little in the way of a pass rush, and it allowed two really good quarterbacks to just sit back and pick apart an already battered secondary.

On both sides of the ball, Baltimore had penalties at the worst possible times. It killed their drives while sustaining drives for their opponents, and further wore out a defense that was dealing with injuries that kept out quite a few starters. Against the Chiefs, a close loss very well could have been a win if they get a few calls their way or some questionable penalties aren’t called at all. Against the Browns, it allowed what was already set to be a close division matchup to turn into a blowout in favor of Cleveland. Losing the turnover battle that week didn’t help them either.

What’s your prediction for Monday night?

As has been the case for the last few weeks, I’m not sure if the Rams have the defensive talent to take away everything the Ravens can do. They have one of the best defensive lines in the league, which should do wonders against Baltimore’s physical power-rushing attack. But they’re going to either have to sell out to contain Jackson, which will open up the pass or they’re going to have to let Jackson run all over them and hope they can limit the damage. We’ve seen defenses try to do both and ultimately no one has been able to really shut them down yet.

So it’s going to come down to whether Los Angeles’ offense can beat the Ravens’ defense, which has been arguably their best unit over the last three weeks in spite of Jackson and the offense getting all the praise. Considering Jared Goff has more turnovers than touchdowns through 10 games this season and Todd Gurley’s usage continues to draw questions and criticism, I’m not sure the Rams have what it takes to win a shootout. And when Baltimore gets out to a two-score lead in a game, opponents have gotten desperate and only dug themselves further into the hole like quicksand.

I think that’s exactly what happens here as well. It’ll be a close one for the first half, but the Ravens take a big enough lead in the third quarter to force the Rams into abandoning the run and leaning on Goff, which only causes more problems as Baltimore’s opportunistic defense makes them pay. Which then, in turn, gives the offense a short field, and they pile on the points quickly.

Ravens 38, Rams 17

wow seems like a really fair deal pic.twitter.com/0DA7tjcYN4

— jordan (@JordanUhl) November 24, 2019

Billy_T wrote:

Is that snow scene, um, real?

Apparently not. Well, the snow is real. But it’s not Canada.

Another place lists the pic as from Japan.

Yuki-no-Otani Snow Canyon road in Japan. pic.twitter.com/abD0XzfIo7

— Nature's Lovers (@natureslover_s) January 3, 2019

Snowboarding by night ❄️🏂

Lapland, Finland 🇫🇮 pic.twitter.com/dHPgPynAGh

— Buitengebieden (@buitengebieden_) November 23, 2019

These Rams towels will be given to fans coming through the gates on Monday night. pic.twitter.com/ENrbUUgwYS

— Lindsey Thiry (@LindseyThiry) November 23, 2019

I go with this on Weddle as a player.

He lines them up.

And the whole Rams D is better this year than last.

I can’t help but think that him lining them up is one of the main reasons they are better than last year.

Before the Ravens game, the 2019 Rams D is 10th in points, 10th in total yards, 15th in passing yards but also 5th in yards per attempt, 8th in qb rating allowed, 8th in completion % allowed, 2nd in qb hurries & 3rd in qb pressures, 9th in sacks, 8th in tackles for a loss, 5th in yards rushing, and 2nd in yards per rush allowed.

Last year in the regular season, the Rams D was 20th in points, 19th in total yards, 14th in passing yards but 22nd in yards per attempt, 26th in qb rating allowed, 13th in completion % allowed, 24th in sacks, 23rd in yards rushing, and 32nd in yards per rush allowed.

(Note: PFR has no 2018 stats for qb hurries, qb pressures, & tackles for a loss.)

That’s pretty damm significantly better.

And odds are as I said, Weddle is part of it. Just the lining them up factor.

Though yes he does not make plays.

And the Ravens offense is the biggest challenge they’ve faced so far.

The post states that “wild yeast from the cherries used to brew the may continue to ferment, building up pressure in the bottles, making them at risk for explosion.”

Or beer! Oh wait…https://t.co/rZ0ALxvtCt

— (((I would like you to do us a favor though))) (@ZonkerBrainless) November 23, 2019