Los Angeles Rams: 5 takeaways from Week 2 preseason win over Oakland Raiders

5. Defense bounces back

It can’t be stressed enough how it was tough to draw serious concern over the Rams falling to the Ravens 33-7 in Week 1 of the preseason since the starters didn’t play, but at least Wade Phillips feels much better about their performance against the Ravens. Not only did the defense limit Oakland to scoring just 15 points for the entire game, but Los Angeles managed to record a shutout in the first half, which was quite impressive.

Allowing a team like Baltimore with an inconsistent offense for the most part over the years to score 33 points was quite a surprise at the time, but the most important factor to remember is this was only one game. If the Rams continue to play like they did against the Raiders over the final two weeks of preseason, it will make Phillips feel a lot better about where his unit stands heading into that first game of the regular season, which coincidentally happens to be against Oakland as well.

Seeing Los Angeles bounce back the way they did on defense was a huge relief since the last thing the team wanted to see was concerns heading into next weekend. After seeing how well they looked for the most part during Saturday’s game, the Rams’ defense will clearly be just fine moving forward.