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The NFL announced the 2023 schedule on Thursday evening and the L.A. Rams now know when they’ll face their opponents this upcoming season. The front office wasn’t very happy about the schedule news they received from the league this week.
In a report by Sam Farmer of the L.A. Times, Rams COO Kevin Demoff was hoping for better, especially when it came to playing the Green Bay Packers at Lambeau Field. The Rams made one request to the league, which was to play the Packers in September or October to avoid another cold-weather game at Lambeau. The NFL placed the game on November 5th.
“They were close,” Demoff said. “It’s still disappointing. To me, that’s one I thought they should have honored.”
The Rams lost to the Packers in the divisional round of the playoffs in 2020, lost to Green Bay again at Lambeau in November of 2021, and lost to the Packers for a third time last December on Monday Night Football. This is the fourth year in a row that the Rams will go to Lambeau after November 1st.
Other scheduling quirks that could annoy L.A. is opening the schedule with back-to-back NFC West rivals, starting with the Seahawks on the road and then facing the 49ers at SoFi Stadium in Week 2. Of course, it’s an ongoing taunt that the 49ers show up in bigger numbers at SoFi than Rams faithful since SoFi opened to fans in 2021.
“There’s good and bad to opening up with two division games,” Demoff said. “It’s a great way to start if you win those games, bad if you don’t.”
The Rams also only received two primetime games: Week 3 on Monday Night Football against the Bengals in a rematch of the Super Bowl, and Week 16’s Thursday Night Football against the New Orleans Saints. The league isn’t betting very much TV capital on the prospect of L.A. being a primetime draw this season, so to get another game, the Rams will have to prove worthy of a late-season flex.
Playing the 49ers in the season finale opens that up to being a possibility, if L.A. can be in the playoff hunt.
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