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NFL Network’s Heath Evans and Elliot Harrison went through the 2016 Los Angeles Rams’ schedule to predict their final win-loss record, and the results are pretty ugly.
They’ve got the Rams finishing 4-12 which would be the worst season since hiring Head Coach Jeff Fisher in 2012 and would certainly dampen the enthusiasm the city of Los Angeles is currently exuding for the Rams’ return to the West Coast.
Here’s how their game-by-game predictions stack up to mine from April following the schedule release:
| Week | Opp | 3k | NFL Network |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | @ SF | W | L |
| 2 | v. SEA | L | W |
| 3 | @ TB | L | L |
| 4 | @ ARI | L | L |
| 5 | v. BUF | W | L |
| 6 | @ DET | W | L |
| 7 | v.* NYG | L | W |
| 9 | v. CAR | L | L |
| 10 | @ NYJ | W | L |
| 11 | v. MIA | W | L |
| 12 | @ NO | W | L |
| 13 | @ NE | L | L |
| 14 | v. ATL | L | W |
| 15 | @ SEA | L | L |
| 16 | v. SF | W | W |
| 17 | v. ARI | L | L |
| Final record | 7-9 | 4-12 | |
It’s a brutal assessment. And it follows NFL.com’s training camp preview of the Rams that pegged them as a team for whom “five or six wins makes a lot of sense.
There’s a bit of a swell building that would suggest the Rams are going to finish with one of the worse records in the NFL in 2016. That certainly doesn’t match the enthusiasm building behind the team with return to LA.
It does, though, suggest there’s a bit of a divide between how the Rams are being reported on. For so many fans to believe that things are moving in the right direction with analysis coming in that would contradict that, the 2016 Los Angeles Rams are shaping up to be a team that is going to have to defy expectations if they’re going to succeed.