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What was supposed to be a highly anticipated Monday night matchup between the Baltimore Ravens and a must win for the Los Angeles Rams turned into a debacle.
The Rams were destroyed. Beaten down.
I was humbled by the experience left with the awful empty feeling that there’s only two more games left for my Rams at their original home in the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum.
The hard truth is that these 2019 Rams are nowhere close to being a Super Bowl contender. In this game, the Rams’ defense simply had no answer for Baltimore Ravens QB Lamar Jackson. He burned them with both with his legs and arm with the Rams’ offense killing any hopes of even keeping the game close.
What is left of the shambles of Monday night is a team on the verge of collapse.
The Rams have no first-round picks in the next two years. They’re stuck with a highly-paid star running back who be fully used over the course of a season due to injury. The have an overpaid system quarterback who isn’t living up to the expectations of a $30m contract extension. And in front of those two is a less-than-average offensive line of inexperienced players with virtually no money to rebuild in the cap era through free agency with veteran LT Andrew Whitworth and RG Austin Blythe on expiring contracts.
I’d like to be more positive about the loss, but right now, I can’t. It would be a disservice to loyal TST readers to spin the truth.
The Rams are what their record is at 6-5: a pretty average team. ESPN’s Football Power Index gives us just a 8.5% chance to make the playoffs with just five games left.
Deep down, diehards like me want to believe that things will turn around and that the Rams have a real possibility of finishing strong at 11-5. After the Ravens game, that seems more fantasy than realistic optimism. It might even border on insanity.
There are only two remaining games in the Coliseum. Next year, the team will move into the spanking new SoFi Stadium in Inglewood for a new era of Rams fans hopes and dreams to be unveiled. For those that have secured their SSL and reservations for season tickets in 2020, it will be new start. Years of watching this team in the Coliseum and later Anaheim will be behind some us. We are ready to embark on a new journey with new memories. Unfortunately, this year at the Coliseum, the outcomes have become more of a nightmare then the dream season I had expected with only two wins at home this year.
With that said, this will be my last year attending every Rams home game. I will always attend the big games in SoFi having purchased my SSL(s) to ensure my family’s legacy, but the Coliseum days will always remain the memories I want to preserve.
I’ll never forget the likes of Bob Waterfield, Norm Van Brocklin, Tom Fears, Elroy Hirsch, Dick Bass, Eddie Meador, Deacon Jones, Merlin Olsen, Roman Gabriel, Bernie Casey, Tony Gilroy, James Harris, Harold Jackson, Nolan Cromwell, Lawrence McCutcheon, Dan Reeves, Pete Rozelle, George Allen, Tommy Prothro, Chuck Knox and Carol Rosenblum just to mention a few. The current roster of Los Angeles Rams has been fun to watch every weekend as well. Aaron Donald is my favorite player, and I believe he will go down as the greatest defensive tackle in the history of the game, if not it’s greatest defensive player.
It’s time for me to turn over my obsession to a new generation, just as crazy, just as devoted and always dressed for success.
You might say, I’m taking the loss against the Ravens too hard—not really as there’s nothing more painful than losing a Super Bowl.
What this loss did was allow me to focus and realize that the embarrassment I feel is more of a sap of my energy. When you’re at the game, you can’t rip the television off the wall in order to heave it into the backyard to relieve the tension. I needed to be able to do that watching the game against the Ravens since there was nothing good about the way the Rams performed Monday night...absolutely nothing.
There’s always going to be great seasons and bad seasons. Great games and bad games. And yes, horrible seasons and horrible games. Football fans learn to live with it and go with the flow, unless you root for the Cleveland Browns or Detroit Lions who always have bad seasons.
After 60+ years of watching Rams football at the Coliseum and Anaheim, I’ve enjoyed every minute, every moment and I know our family’s legacy is safe and secure with my immediate family in their future SoFi home.
They’ll be there. They’ll live through the good times and bad. They’re presence will be felt and just as enthusiastic as I have been—-it’s in their blood. I’ll have the luxury of being at home watching on television prepared as always for the unlikely circumstance that I might have to buy a new TV after the game having just heaved the old one into the backyard.
This Sunday the Rams face off against the division rival Arizona Cardinals needing to rebound from one of most demoralizing losses in Rams history.
They can do it!
They will do it!
If the Rams can play out the season with five straight wins and finish 11-5 considering what they’ve gone through on and off the field this year, that’s really not a bad record heading into Inglewood.
The march to glory isn’t a short road but rather a long journey covering years and decades. I know that someday in the near future, the Los Angeles Rams will be holding the Vince Lombardi trophy high in the air. I know it and I believe it to be true!
Hang in there diehards!