All eyes will be on the Los Angeles Rams in Week 9 against the New Orleans Saints to see if they can hang on to the top seed in the NFC.
One week after facing one of their biggest challenges of the 2018 season during a win over the Green Bay Packers, the Los Angeles Rams are in the same position once again for Sunday’s game against the New Orleans Saints.
With all due respect to the Packers, this matchup in Week 9 against the Saints is expected to be on a whole new level, and rightfully so when seeing how close they are to the Rams in the standings.
8-0 is impressive when looking at some of the obstacles Los Angeles has been forced to overcome during the first two months of the season, but also Sean McVay knows deep down that some of those games could have gone in different directions with some losses.
Plus, when seeing how the only loss by the Saints came on opening weekend during a surprise loss at home to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Sean Payton‘s team isn’t far behind the Rams when it comes to earning the honors of being the top team to beat in the NFC.
In fact, with a win over Los Angeles on Sunday, New Orleans would technically move into the top spot when it comes to the NFC standings, putting a whole new level of pressure on the Rams in this showdown.
Thanks to an offseason filled with high expectations after numerous key additions on both sides of the football, all eyes were on the Rams heading into the regular season to see if they could in fact live up to the hype of being a top Super Bowl contender.
So far, Los Angeles has been able to come through on their end since the team is undefeated still for a reason, but that doesn’t necessarily mean this success by McVay’s squad is going to last.
A loss on Sunday in New Orleans may take off the pressure that comes with being the only undefeated team remaining, but also would mean Los Angeles would have to play catch up moving forward since they would drop in the standings.
Obviously, there’s still plenty of football remaining since it’s only the first week of November, and the Rams would have plenty of time to get back on top if they were to suffer that first loss to the Saints.
Then again, if Los Angeles manages to remain undefeated by leaving New Orleans with a win, at least they would earn a comfortable two-game lead with the top seed in the NFC, putting more pressure on the other contenders playing catch up the rest of the way.