The NFL makes us all mad at some point or another. As an organization, the league is stubborn – stubborn to a fault. Nearly all of America, beginning with the players, coaches, season-ticket holders and so on, joined hands in 2017 to shout at The Shield that its Thursday Night Football brand was failing.
Sluggish, sloppy, hideous games on TNF. The phenomenon isn’t new. In Bobby Petrino’s final sad season coaching the Atlanta Falcons, a Thursday Night Football blunder-bowl featuring the Dirty Birds and the then-pathetic Jaguars ended shortly after Byron Leftwich attempted a 50-yard pass…from the opposing 5 yard line.
It’s a bird, it’s a plane. No, it’s an ICBM that a panicked quarterback just yanked into the upper deck. TNF has garnered nicknames like “totally not football” and developed a reputation for worn-out teams and tired tactics.
But you gotta give it to the NFL. When the league is determined that the show will go on, it will go on, ratings and reviews be damned. So Goodell’s gophers have fought back with what I have to say is a pretty smart Heavyweight booking for a Thursday night.
The L.A. Rams are resurgent, bringing life to a proud NFL community in which a town was accused of not being ready to support 2 teams without flagging in intensity over both. The Minnesota Vikings were a Super Bowl contender last season, and have traveled southwest for the evening kickoff.
It’s early in the season, so there is not as much carnage at hand, not as many Tuesday-lingering bruises. Injuries are never not an issue…but hopefully this time at least 2 fresh teams will take the gridiron.
The Rams are favored by almost a touchdown.
Who: Minnesota Vikings at Los Angeles Rams
When: Thursday, September 27th, 8:20 PM EST
Where: Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, LA, CA
Lines: Minny (+6.5) at LA (-6.5) / O/U Total: (49)
The L.A. Rams certainly look like the NFC gold-standard. Through 3 games, Sean McVay’s Rams are outscoring opponents 102-36, a remarkable stretch in which the offense has failed to score less than 33 points.
Todd Gurley may be a legitimate MVP candidate, accounting for over 125 scrimmage yards and 1.67 touchdowns per game – he sets the tone for the Rams’ suddenly-deadly offense.
While everything runs through Gurley, Jared Goff may be starting to shred the ‘system quarterback’ tag. He made some remarkable throws Sunday, including this throw to Robert Woods that couldn’t have been more perfectly place. Injuries may be piling up on the defensive end – both starting corners left Sunday’s game – but good luck stopping the L.A. offense.
McVay knows that the Rams have to find a way to pressure Kirk Cousins. The Bills got to Cousins quickly last week, forcing not one, but two fumbles early in the game, and Minnesota was never able to recover. The ability to pressure the quarterback will be especially important in this game, as the Rams will be playing at least a month without both their starting corners in Marcus Peters and Aqib Talib, both of whom were hurt Sunday.
Thankfully, the Rams have quite a crew of pass rushers to throw at the questionable Vikings line, and that all starts in the middle with raining NFL defensive player of the year Aaron Donald.
The Vikings are coming off one of the more puzzling performances of the season by any team. Their juggernaut defense got pummeled again and again by a Buffalo Bills team that was 0-2 and had been outscored 78-23 through two weeks.
A meager pass rush had trouble getting to Bills rookie Josh Allen, and the secondary laden with Pro Bowlers in Xavier Rhodes and Harrison Smith had a handful of perplexing busted coverages.
This happens from time to time – inexplicable games that later we view as simply outliers. Perhaps the Viking were looking ahead to the Rams and simply overlooked the middling Bills? But if the upset loss is a sign of what is to come, this is a far cry from the team that played in last year’s NFC Championship.
If the Vikings do manage to stop the Rams’ offense at Memorial Coliseum, opposing punter Johnny Hekker is likely to pin the visitors deep and force an inconsistent ground game to slug its way to midfield. One weakness in Minnesota play-calling over the past couple of seasons has been a lack of patience displayed in run-pass ratio.
In other words, if Minnesota gets too cute by half, we could be looking at a Los Angeles defensive score or 2 (attention Fantasy-heads!) and that threat will continue through both halves.
Some sportsbooks are offering (-6.5) on the Rams, others are offering (-7). Seems like a bad gambit to hold it on the low side, given how a hot home team is playing a cold away team from 2 time zones and some longitude lines away.
Take the Rams to cover (6.5) points. They’re not altogether a bad bet to cover at (-7).