It’s been three days since the LA Rams beat the Detroit Lions and the storylines coming out of that game were easy to spot:
- The defense isn’t where it needs to be to beat championship-caliber teams
- The special teams got fooled. And fooled. And fooled again.
- Matthew Stafford is better than Jared Goff.
These messages were apparent throughout Sunday’s victory but just in case the power of 72 hours have erased these feelings from your memory, they are also apparent in the top comments from our Week 7 game threads.
1st Quarter
An old school spanking was not meant to be.
The Rams trailed 10-3 after the first quarter and 19-17 after three quarters. The game was there for Detroit to win if they had executed the right plays down the stretch, but the trade of Goff for Stafford directly impacted the ending of this game when the former threw an interception in the end zone on an ill-advised attempt.
Oh that is something LA Rams fans didn’t forget and if they did Goff was there to remind them. The Rams now have a new name to draw ire on Sunday if things aren’t going well: Raheem Morris.
2nd Quarter
Ultimately, the Lions scored 19 points. In fact, the Lions haven’t scored more than 19 points since a 41-33 defeat to the San Francisco 49ers in Week 1. A game in which Detroit had scored only 17 points until the final two minutes.
The Lions do appear to have a “sorry ass offense” but by the time there were zeros on the clock, there were just 19 points on the board, as well as two takeaways.
3rd Quarter
A surprise onside kick recovery in the first quarter and a fake punt conversion on the ensuing drive led to three points for the Lions. A converted fake punt in the third quarter led to zero points.
If this is the worst special teams performance you could possibly see, with Matt Gay making all of his kicks and Johnny Hekker just doing a job of punting and basically all else is normal... I’m quite sure that I saw at least a few worse special teams performances from the Rams just last year alone. But that’s just my perspective, there are reasons to be annoyed by being fooled three times too.
On Monday Night Football, the Seahawks lost to the Saints by three points and kicker Jason Myers missed two field goals. I would rather that three trick plays led to three points allowed than two missed field goals taking six points away.
4th Quarter
If these teams flipped QBs... thankfully, they already did.
There is probably no fallback option or change at defensive coordinator coming in 2021. Ultimately, the Rams are seventh in points allowed and 10th in points per drive allowed and even if those numbers don’t tell the true picture of what fans are seeing on the field — how will the defense do against Aaron Rodgers, Dak Prescott, and Kyler Murray or Tom Brady again if they meet in the playoffs instead of facing Goff and Daniel Jones? — I just can’t imagine that there’s been many times in history that a coordinator was demoted while ranking in the top-10 of scoring at the time.
With the Houston Texans on deck in Week 8, Raheem Morris may only see his resume improve in the days ahead.
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