Don’t look now, but the Los Angeles Rams may be the best bet when it come to football in LA.
Who’d of thought that the Los Angeles Rams might end up the best game in town during football season? A quick look at the landscape in LA two months ago predicted that USC and ‘would be’ Heisman winner AND consensus number one pick Sam Darnold would rule Southern California.
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In the immortal words of Lee Corso, “not so fast!.”
At 5-2, the Rams look to be at the top of the football landscape in LA. The Trojans aren’t bad in a mediocre PAC-12, but Darnold has mostly unimpressed. As for UCLA, well, the Bruins are the Bruins and that isn’t saying a whole lot. The Lakers are already looking like a lottery team, and the Los Angeles Chargers are an uninteresting and soft 3-4.
If 5-2 is any indication, Los Angeles may wind up being the best game in town before fans ring in the New Year.
If you were writing a script, the Rams would check all the boxes. You have a young team with a rookie head coach, a much maligned second year quarterback who was all but buried coming into the preseason, a running back getting off the mat after a bad second year in the league, and a defense that is getting it together at the right time.
I mean, look at the bookends of Sean McVay and the grizzled defensive coordinator in Wade Phillips.
It’s a story with a lot of legs to it.
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LA has all the components to be the glamour team in SoCal. It’s a group loaded with youth not just on offense, but at head coach. If, and I say IF they can put it all together and be a team who challenges for a Lombardi Trophy sooner rather than later, the NFL can finally check the box next to “Los Angeles.”
At 5-2, that still feels like a big “if.”