The debate is on: Did Jalen Ramsey shutdown DK Metcalf?

Seahawks receiver DK Metcalf entered Week 10 with 43 receptions for 788 yards and eight touchdowns through eight games. He left Sunday’s loss against the Rams with two catches on four targets for 28 yards. The only time viewers really saw Metcalf get past the Rams’ secondary was a fourth quarter pass from Russell Wilson that fell one or two inches too far to be secured for a touchdown, and Metcalf was being covered by Darious Williams on the play.

According to ProFootballFocus, Ramsey was in coverage on Metcalf for 37 snaps and allowed zero catches on only two targets, meaning that Metcalf was two-for-two otherwise ... but still relatively shut out in LA’s 23-16 victory.

But did Ramsey keep Metcalf from having an impact in the final score or did it have more to do with Wilson and Seahawks head coach Pete Carroll? That’s something that a few people are having trouble agreeing on this week.

Despite Ramsey not getting beaten by Metcalf for a reception a single time on Sunday, PFF only gave Ramsey a meaningless grade of 55.2. And when I say “meaningless,” I am only referring to all of PFF’s grades, not this one in particular, which clearly falls within the bounds of how they view players, value and what transpires week to week. As our friends at Beyond the Horns explain, it’s not hard to understand why PFF tracked Metcalf’s numbers as they did but then purported that Ramsey had a “bad” game.

Just because a player had 35 coverage snaps without a target, it doesn’t necessarily mean that he wasn’t open. The broadcast crew of Joe Buck and Troy Aikman were adamant that Metcalf had been open for big gains several times throughout the game, but Wilson failed to attempt virtually all of those opportunities. The one time he didn’t was that earlier mentioned play against Williams, and all he did on Sunday was intercept Wilson.

Twice.

With All-22 footage, more answers will reveal themselves as far as how Ramsey, Williams and Troy Hill did against Metcalf and Tyler Lockett this week but ultimately we already know how the Rams’ defense did against the Seahawks:

They kicked the shit out of them.

I don’t know what that has to do with PFF grades or that it will ever matter what a “55.2” is supposed to mean. Did Ramsey get beat by Metcalf? Maybe. Did he get away with some plays where one of the biggest and fastest receivers in the NFL managed to create opportunities for himself? Perhaps. But Metcalf is also among the NFL leaders in drops since he was drafted and Ramsey is one of the last players that a quarterback wants to test on 50/50 passes.

That tells me that even if Ramsey lost a few matchups on Sunday, he already won a few in Russell Wilson’s head before the game even started.