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Contenders or Pretenders?


Hunter2_1

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7 hours ago, ClutchDJ said:

I mean, I already agreed with the 1st statement. Yes, McVay has certainly owned Arizona.

 

Eh, I don’t know about McVay “owning” Seattle. 4-2 overall? Eh, but he does have the advantage there.

 

Even with the injuries & schedule coming up, they can still be a thorn to other rivals. Especially with Jimmy, who is wildly 4-0 vs LA.

 

Anyway, I don’t think either team has room to talk. Rams have lost against the only competent teams they played(one with a lot of injuries) & Cards have lost against a subpar & bad team in Carolina & Detroit.
 

Time will tell.

 

Agreed on neither being able to talk yet.

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7 hours ago, ClutchDJ said:

I mean, I already agreed with the 1st statement. Yes, McVay has certainly owned Arizona.

 

Eh, I don’t know about McVay “owning” Seattle. 4-2 overall? Eh, but he does have the advantage there.

 

Even with the injuries & schedule coming up, they can still be a thorn to other rivals. Especially with Jimmy, who is wildly 4-0 vs LA.

 

Anyway, I don’t think either team has room to talk. Rams have lost against the only competent teams they played(one with a lot of injuries) & Cards have lost against a subpar & bad team in Carolina & Detroit.
 

Time will tell.

I think the reason is Rams fans say McVay owns the Seahawks is because let’s take those two losses into perspective. The first loss came in 2017 when Kupp dropped the GW TD. There is no dispute it was dropped and he had caught it the Rams win. The second loss came last season on a Zuerlein GW FG. It was a 47yd FG that in his career he has made 97% of the time from that distance or closer. Hell he made a 53yd FG earlier for the Cowboys to beat the Falcons at the buzzer. Now a win is a win is a win so props to Seattle for winning BUT you ask, how did the Rams follow up on those two losses the next time they played the Seahawks? In 2017 the rematch the Rams went to Seattle and won 42-7. Ran for over 230yds and was the worst loss in Seattle in franchise history. I have the GIF in a fantasy league of the 52yd td run Gurley had in that game where he threw up the deuce sign and JB Long said “Gurley for MVP”. Classic moment. Last season the rematch the Rams dominated the Seahawks 28-12 in LA and ran for over 150yds. That game definitely hurt Wilson MVP hopes because the Rams made him look like crap that game on SNF for the world to see.
 

Now 4 of the 6 games have been close so I’m not trying to act like every game has been dominated by the Rams but it’s clear McVay owns the Seahawks but in general the Rams even under Fisher has had the Seahawks number and played the tough. Even that ugly 9-6 all FG game back in 2016. My favorite one being under McVay in 2018 the first meeting in Seattle 33-31 Goff QB sneak on 4th and 1 to help seal the win. Then Goff and McVay talked about not being afraid to fail because had Goff not picked up that first the Seahawks get the ball almost in FG range Wilson was hot and I think they win that game. Btw the Rams swept the Seahawks that year. The second meeting was bitter sweet. Rams won but lost Kupp for the rest of the season with the knee injury. Definitely hurt the Rams on their Superbowl run not having Kupp. 

Edited by stl4life07
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On 10/23/2020 at 12:34 AM, BayRaider said:

True in a sense. Especially in the AFCE. For all we know the Pats and even the Dolphins are more contenders than the Bills.

Honestly that doesn't make sense. Bills are just way more talented and a better team than the Pats and/or the Dolphins. 
So what they lost against KC and Ten? Teams are combined for 10-1
Pats looking better than their 2-3 record? How so? They just lost to Denver and looked like poo poo!? 
For me Bills are contenders and the other two are fringe pretenders (I think both NE and MIA miss the playoffs). 

Edited by MagicMT
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1 hour ago, MagicMT said:

Honestly that doesn't make sense. Bills are just way more talented and a better team than the Pats and/or the Dolphins. 
So what they lost against KC and Ten? Teams are combined for 10-1
Pats looking better than their 2-3 record? How so? They just lost to Denver and looked like poo poo!? 
For me Bills are contenders and the other two are fringe pretenders (I think both NE and MIA miss the playoffs). 

It’s worth noting that the QB and star CB didn’t practice and were isolated for a week and the offensive line lost guys do to Covid and needed to have a bunch of young guys play out of position on short notice. The defense didn’t give up a touchdown. 
 

If Cam played against KC we might have actually won on the road. The Patriots are a question mark. I think the season will come down to how they bounce back against San Fran and then the Bills games 

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So, this might be a terrible hot take, and I can only imagine the backlash I'll get here, but am I crazy for not being sold on Baltimore right now? I just can't shake this thought that they're basically built to beat the crap out of bad and/or poorly coached football teams, but they won't reach the same peak against higher level football teams, between Lamar's playstyle on offense and the blitz heavy defense. Maybe Yannick changes the latter, but even if he improves the vanilla pass rush, I'm not sure he'll change the defensive philosophy, and that aggressive kind of blitzing is always going to be oppressive against young QBs and struggling offenses like Cincy and Washington, but that's never been the way to stop higher level QBs. On offense I don't think they've looked as good running the football with someone not named Lamar Jackson, and the pass game still lacks consistency. And right now, their strength of schedule is basically identical to what we've seen Pittsburgh criticized for, with the only exception that they played KC, but they lost pretty convincingly, so I'm not sure that's a good thing. Because otherwise, both teams beat Houston and Cleveland, had a surprisingly close victory over Philly, beat up one more NFC East team (Washington for Balt, NYG for Pitt), and one other lower level AFC team (Cincy for Balt, Denver for Pitt.)

Now, they do get tested after the bye, with a 5 game run against several of the better teams in the AFC, so this may be proved entirely wrong. If they have a post-bye run like they did last year, of convincing wins against good football teams around the league, that'll dramatically change what I said above. But right now, I'm not nearly impressed as I was last year with what they've been doing. They look less dominant despite playing mostly crap competition, IMO.

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On 10/22/2020 at 9:15 PM, ClutchDJ said:

The eye test to me says the Rams played bad teams & won. It also says to me they lost against the only competent teams they played, 1 which involved a bogus INT call which tipped the favor in the Rams(if you want go there I guess) & another team missing multiple starters like Bosa, Sherman, & Mostert even got injured in the 1st half. 
 

If you lose to another competent team like Bears, you can’t deny it’s nothing but pretender staring you right in the face.

This

I'm open to reviewing my opinion on the Rams if they start to look the part, but right now I just don't see it

If we are looking purely at record, they are 4-2 which puts them in the 8th-12th best team range. To me that is right on the borderline of Contender/Pretender

If you then factor in the quality of the teams they beat/lost to, that pushes them more to the pretender side in my book

If you factor in the difficult schedule they have in the 2nd half of the yet, that pushes them more to the pretender side in my book

If you factor in my general "eye test", they have 2 pretty fantastic players on defense, and the rest of the team doesn't do anything to motivate me to call them a contender

We will see. This is where we are through 6 weeks. If they beat Chicago and Miami and look pretty good doing it, going into the bye week 6-2, then I might consider calling them a contender, despite their BRUTAL 2nd half schedule. But if they are going into the bye week at 5-3, then I see them as an 8 or 9 win team with having to play the Seahawks twice, Cardinals twice, Tampa, New England.

Nothing about this team RIGHT NOW suggests to me that they can win 11 or 12 and be in a good spot heading into the playoffs

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31 minutes ago, Jakuvious said:

So, this might be a terrible hot take, and I can only imagine the backlash I'll get here, but am I crazy for not being sold on Baltimore right now? I just can't shake this thought that they're basically built to beat the crap out of bad and/or poorly coached football teams, but they won't reach the same peak against higher level football teams, between Lamar's playstyle on offense and the blitz heavy defense. Maybe Yannick changes the latter, but even if he improves the vanilla pass rush, I'm not sure he'll change the defensive philosophy, and that aggressive kind of blitzing is always going to be oppressive against young QBs and struggling offenses like Cincy and Washington, but that's never been the way to stop higher level QBs. On offense I don't think they've looked as good running the football with someone not named Lamar Jackson, and the pass game still lacks consistency. And right now, their strength of schedule is basically identical to what we've seen Pittsburgh criticized for, with the only exception that they played KC, but they lost pretty convincingly, so I'm not sure that's a good thing. Because otherwise, both teams beat Houston and Cleveland, had a surprisingly close victory over Philly, beat up one more NFC East team (Washington for Balt, NYG for Pitt), and one other lower level AFC team (Cincy for Balt, Denver for Pitt.)

Now, they do get tested after the bye, with a 5 game run against several of the better teams in the AFC, so this may be proved entirely wrong. If they have a post-bye run like they did last year, of convincing wins against good football teams around the league, that'll dramatically change what I said above. But right now, I'm not nearly impressed as I was last year with what they've been doing. They look less dominant despite playing mostly crap competition, IMO.

I generally disagree with this assessment, but you are correct that we need to see them play more than 1 fellow Contender before we really know much about this team.

Several of the scores were blowouts, and several of the "close" games were also blowouts that just got closer after they let the foot off the gas

Their 1 game against an elite team didn't look so good

But my argument is, I THINK I know what this team can do, and the fact that they've been able to just dominate so many teams, despite not even meeting their expectations to me is a sign that when everything starts to click they will be a next level team

On a BYE this week, but the next 5 are nothing short of a gauntlet. We are about to learn exactly who the Ravens are, but to this point I'm not ready to call them anything less than a Contender

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So since the logic around here is that the Rams are pretenders because they havent played anyone and their record is (4-2), Im waiting for that same logic to apply to the Seahawks. Who have the Seahawks played? Vikings? 1 win. Falcons? 1 win. Cowboys? Same team the Rams beat except they didnt give up 31pts to them. Pats? 2 wins and they got blown out by the Niners the same team the Rams are getting crushed for losing to last week. Dolphins? Nobody thought they would be any good and certainly dont have real expectations for them this season. The only real team the Seahawks have played so far is the Cards and guess what? They loss. So this is the same logic thats placed on the Rams to make their 4 wins not look good and thus pretenders, lets use the same logic on the Seahawks.

I personally think the Seahawks and Rams are contenders. Both teams have flaws. The Seahawks flaw is clearly their defense. Every game it seems to be sliced up. Its even worst when the Seahawks constantly are playing in close games. You literally have no room for error when all your games come down to a possession and your defense is tragic. The only flaw the Rams have is their kicking game. Sloman has missed at least one kick in every game except for the Giants game. Same thing can be said that if the Rams games are in a tight game like it was against the Bills and to a less extent to the Niners you cant afford to have a shaky kicking game because every point matters. What yesterday showed me more than anything was the Niners arent dead and the Cards I will have to start considering them as contenders. The NFC West is brutal. Its going to be fun. Im personally looking forward to the Seahawks game in a few weeks. 

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On 10/25/2020 at 10:20 AM, SBLIII said:

Contenders: KC, BAL, PIT, TB, SEA

Pretenders: TEN, GB, CHI, NO, LAR, BUF

I don't disagree with this. I might but Tennessee in the contenders part, and might move Seattle down. I'm not convinced Seattle will be able to stop anyone in the playoffs. Tennessee showed last year they can win against big teams, and they've shown this year they can come back from being down a lot.

As a Packers fan, we're pretenders until we show we can play from behind. The last 2 years we have been brutal when we don't get that early lead. 

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LAR seems to be a contentious one, so let's look at who they're likely to play...

 

Assuming SEA win the div, LAR will likely be 5th, 6th, or 7th...meaning they'd play the 4th, 3rd, or 2nd ranked NFC team.

 

Who would that likely be? 4th is going to be the winner of the NFC East (phillie, probably), 3rd-2nd could be Bucs, Saints, Seattle, GB.

 

I think the above is right. Correct me if I'm wrong. So, if they finish 5th and have to play Phillie, they probably win that game, right? Of course they could win the division.

 

Edited by Hunter2_1
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