Rams Seattle Wild Card Game Recap

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Wow! What a game today!

The Rams who pretty much snuck into the Playoffs this year and were fairly challenged specifically offensively since week 8 got in with the big win against Arizona in week 17. Then it was bring on Seattle.

This game had it all, drama touch classic NFL play, big plays made by both teams. It was really something to watch. Going into the game our latest Podcast episode focused on our keys to victory:

  1. The Defense plays at the same or higher level as they have all season

  2. Create a positive turnover margin

  3. Balanced play calling on offense

  4. Be pragmatic and play field position when they needed to

  5. Score touchdowns in the red zone

So with the Rams winning the game today 30-20 how did we fair in our assessments?

The Defense did play and exceed their 2020 season. Darious Williams with a massive pick 6 in the first half. Which ended up being a big switch given the QB situation. They racked up 5 sacks against Russell Wilson and hit him 10 time. Overall they held him to 11/27 (40%) passing, 174 yards, created one turnover that resulted in points and a QB rating of 72.2 in the game. For the most part the defense did a great job of not allowing the Seahawks to establish a run game giving up 136 yards on the ground, with 55 of those yards coming from Russell Wilson and 23 of those yards from a long scramble.

Overall the Rams did not allow the Seahawks to get into an offensive rhythm. Limiting Seattle to 11 first downs throughout the game, holding them to 2-14 on third down attempts (14%) and only allowing Seattle to have the ball for 26 minutes of game time.

Turnover. Well the Rams created 2 and gave up 0. With both turn overs critical to the outcome of them game. As mentioned before Darious Williams jumped a WR screen and housed it for 6. While towards the end of the game with the balance not quite decided Ebukam came up huge and forced a fumble on a punt return.

Balanced offensive play calling. I will get more into this later. The Rams had prepared all week to have John Wolford behind center for this game. Jared Goff who had thumb surgery less than two weeks ago was slated as the back up. With Wolford’s injury happening on the second drive of the game it did take the team some time to properly adjust. But they made the right adjustments. A focus on running the ball with intention really helped guide their offense through most of the game.

Be pragmatic and play field position when they need to. Here is one where I thought the Rams did OK. End of the game I would have liked to see them punt the ball on the fourth and 1. They decided to run a QB sneak with Goff which was risky for so many reasons. Also, is it me or is the best punter in football been off for the past few games? I am not used to seeing shorter punts from Johnny Hekker.

Score touchdowns in the end zone. This has been a struggle for weeks for this team. Either poor execution or questionable play calling have really hurt their ability to score more points. I am happy to say this game they were able to score two touchdowns. In a game this physical taking advantage of scoring opportunities was critical.

All in all the Rams followed our template for success and they were successful.

On a down note this game did see some critical injuries. Starting QB ended up in the hospital with a neck injury. Listening to the post game he is out of the hospital and celebrated the win with the team. Aaron Donald also was hurt making a play against Russell Wilson. It appears the is had something to do with his ribs. Regardless, he did not come back into the game and they other players stepped up in his absence. Finally, it looks like Cooper Kupp injured his knee. By the way he looked on the side line it looks like an ACL or MCL, which means we might not see him until sometime next season.

Now as we wait for the other games to finish this weekend, do you have a preferred opponent? At the moment it does look like the Rams will be traveling to Green Bay.