Rams-Washington Week 5 preview: LA draws ref known for high-scoring Rams games

Shawn Smith has been working as an NFL ref since 2015 and out of 71 games the two highest scoring road teams both came in 2017. And both were the Los Angeles Rams. Smith will be leading the ref crew this Sunday as the Rams travel on the road to face the Washington Football team.

In Week 9 of 2017, Sean McVay took the Rams to New Jersey to face the Giants and won 51-17, his highest scoring game until scoring 54 against the Kansas City Chiefs more than a year later.

Then in Week 15 of 2017 and sitting at 9-4 with a pivotal road game in Seattle, the Rams blew out the Seahawks 42-7 and helped keep Russell Wilson out of the postseason for the first and only time in his career. Smith’s crew was working that game too.

According to Pro-Football-Reference, Smith is consistently allowing more yards per game than the average ref and the home winning percentage has been below expectation in each of the previous three seasons.

This does not figure to be a high-scoring affair given Washington’s lack of offensive abilities and their impressively stout pass defense through four games, but Smith isn’t all that used to low-scoring games either.

Rams and Football Team start at 10 a.m. PT on Sunday.