Rams don’t get much love from Vegas, but they’ll be in some games they can win

Once you get past the “what if”, the Rams leave you with a list of “who can we beat.” I give you two possibilities.

The Los Angeles Rams won’t find themselves favored in a lot of football games this coming year. That makes sense when you haven’t had a winning season in 10 years. Recent history being what it is, specifically last season, it would be hard to find many teams the Rams will beat. But I think they’ll do a little better than conventional betting wisdom may say.

For the record, I believe the Rams will be better than 4-12. Looking at the spread for next year, Vegas will tell you otherwise. The thing I’ll keep in mind is less what Los Angeles might be on offense, but the ability for the defense to keep LA in some football games.

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No one, not Seattle, Arizona, or San Francisco will sweep the Rams, it just won’t happen. As a matter of fact, I’d be willing to go to any betting window and say the Rams will split with the Niners and Seahawks, but SWEEP the Cardinals.

Why?

Arizona won’t be good on defense. As I wrote earlier over the weekend, the Cards are trending down. Based on that alone, Los Angeles will win four games inside the division.

Vegas says finding wins will be a tough deal for LA.

But not that tough, and two games I’d point to that could yield a W is week two against Washington in the Coliseum and week 14 at home against the Eagles.

Even if they split those two games and lose every game except one of those, the Rams are 5-11.

But I’ll go one better. Last year, neither Rob Boras or Jeff Fisher was worth one game in the W column. Those guys broght ZERO imagination or any sort of tangible coaching acumen that made you think they might be a factor in a win.

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Sean McVay will be worth one more win in 2017.

Betting lines being what they are, it’ll be hard to find fault in Las Vegas. They just don’t make many errors, especially with NFL football. But while most think 4-12 is the W-L record the Rams post this season, I think two games on the schedule allow for two things: the Los Angeles defense to keep two opponents close, and enough imagination on offense to at least win one of those games.

Something worth taking to a betting window this fall.