NFL column by Carsten Spengemann: Why the Los Angeles Rams remind me of zombies

The Los Angeles Rams are all banging!

It’s been almost eight months since the players, coaches and officials stood in the confetti rain of the Super Bowl in their home stadium.

• Quarterback Matthew Stafford fought the frustration of years without a playoff game for the Lions and went from perpetual talent to champ to win the title.
• Defense line legend Aaron Donald got the long overdue crowning glory of his career with the title.
• And head coach Sean McVay more than clearly reinforced his image as a genius on the sidelines by winning the final.

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A story that is otherwise only known from Hollywood films. But that’s all history. Because after twelve game days of the current NFL season, Rams football is actually just another term for a team that has lost its own identity.

If you moved the ball quickly and effectively last season, it now looks as if the team has slowed down. Last year the offense around Stafford, Kupp and Co. still looked like “Fast and Furious”, for weeks it has seemed more like the Rams players want to recreate the dynamics of the zombie extras from “The Walking Dead”. Nothing, absolutely nothing, works the way you would have expected before the season even started.

Sure, the Rams lost their offensive coordinator Kevin O’Connell to the Minnesota Vikings, where he’s currently 9-2 as head coach in his freshman year, but it’s not just that.

Since Week 1, when the reigning champ was paraded by the Bills, only to nearly throw away a big lead a week later against the Atlanta Falcons that just barely crossed the finish line. It was clear that the question marks with the Rams were bigger than any preseason expert would have thought.

Yes, defending the title is extremely difficult due to regulations such as the salary cap and draft system in the NFL, and so the list of those who have ever made it is shorter than short. Since 2004, no team has done so since the Patriots.

Well, not making it to the final in February is one thing, missing the play-offs completely is just a completely different matter.

Nobody on the Rams side can even begin to find a plausible excuse. Because on paper, the Rams were one of the favorites in the NFC before the season, apart from the departure of OBJ.

And so head coach Sean McVay never tires of standing in front of his players in interviews, saying again and again when it comes to the defeats of the last few weeks: “It’s up to the coaching, so it’s up to me”. But it isn’t. It’s just bad luck what’s happening to the Rams. Injury after injury decimated the star ensemble so that last week even the team’s third quarterback Bryce Perkins had to work.

The Rams O-Line have had huge problems protecting playmaker Stafford since the first minute of the current season. Despite the games that Stafford recently had to sit out due to injury, he went down a whopping 28 times per sack. This is too much. And so it’s really no wonder that the 34-year-old now has to pause again. There are even rumors that his season could be over.

I always call situations like this the quicksand of the NFL

And situations like this are what I always call the quicksand of the NFL. No matter what you try, you only sink further in with no chance of escape.

An O-Line that has to be played in a different combination every game due to injury means you don’t have a running game. Only 3.2 yards per run doesn’t really scare any opponent. And if you don’t have an O-Line and no running game, you just have to throw the ball quickly. So it was clear that either Stafford or his main pass, Cooper Kupp, would eventually get injured. Unfortunately, that’s what happened. Now last year’s record receiver is missing for the rest of the season. The result of this calculation is also more than clear: The Rams are currently in 29th place in terms of points and even second to last in terms of yards per game.

The Rams are currently in last place in the NFC West and, despite their still well-functioning defense, would need a miracle the size of the Grand Canyon to reach the playoffs. So it’s time for McVay and Co. to stand up and focus on the next year.

But if there’s one thing Hollywood keeps bringing to the screen of this world, it’s that miracles can happen again and again. Maybe next Sunday’s game against the Seahawks will be titled “The Heroes from the Second Row”…