Turf Show Times
Thursday Night Football on Amazon Prime. The Los Angeles Rams (11-3) will travel to the Seattle Seahawks (11-3) to determine sole possession of first place in the NFC West. The Rams currently have the tiebreaker over the Seahawks as they won the Week 11 matchup 21-19, in large part because of four Sam Darnold interceptions. The Rams defensive front forced plenty of pressure throughout the game but Seattle’s defense gave LA fits at varying moments. A run-stuffing duo of Leonard Williams and Byron Murphy have negated teams’ rushing attacks and made them one-dimensional. Who will win Week 16? It all starts in the trenches. Let’s take a look at each roster headed into Thursday Night…
QBs: #9 is the MVP of the NFL. Funny, how they are trying to create a narrative that Josh Allen is now in the mix. Did we forget that Josh Allen put up a dud against the (5-9) Falcons? Anyways. Stafford continues to play lights out football. He is clutch when it matters. Seattle will be a tough test for him, especially if the weather is unfavorable. But, I expect him to put a final stamp on an MVP season.
Sam Darnold has fallen in the eyes of PFF since his Week 11 dud against Los Angeles. His grade now sits at 82.5 (7th / 42 QBs). The gameplan this time will likely limit the number of deep and “long-developing” passing attempts early. This will minimize the turnover margin allowing Seattle’s defense to carry the load instead of playing from behind.
RBs: The Rams rushing attack has really come alive. Blake Corum in particular has provided a lot of explosiveness in their rushing attack. Seattle bottled him up last time. But it will be very intriguing to know if Sean McVay can get Corum with some open space because when he does…look out. He leads all running backs in EPA/rush.
*Kyren Williams has gone over 1000 yards rushing and double digit touchdowns for the third season in a row*
Kenneth Walker is a top 5 RB according to PFF even though he is 19th in the NFL in rushing yards. He’s been an inconsistent explosive runner but also finds himself getting stuffed at the LOS often.
WRs: Puka Nacua continues to impress week after week. The volume despite the limited snap count on offense is ridiculous. Nacua is WR1 in the NFL and I don’t say that to take anything away from Jaxon Smith-Njigba.
All eyes during this short week will be about the availability of Davante Adams. He reaggravated his hamstring in the Week 15 win versus the Detroit Lions. The Rams have not ruled him out but it would seem likely that he is used sparingly or ruled out altogether. It’s not a crushing blow since the Rams operate with 13 personnel quite a bit. However with 11 and 12 personnel packages, it makes things interesting. Tutu Atwell, Xavier Smith, and Jordan Whittington will be called upon to pick up the snaps. More...
