The Los Angeles Rams hosting a playoff game is great news for the National Football League. Add that it’s the Dallas Cowboys as their opponent, and it is a game the league absolutely loves.
Don’t kid yourself, the Los Angeles Rams and Dallas Cowboys are playing a watershed kind of game in LA, which is just the kind of thing the National Football League envisioned when commissioner Roger Goodell blessed the move from St. Louis to Southern California.
In front of a national TV audience, the Rams will host perhaps the biggest international brand the league has in the Cowboys for a shot to play in the NFC Championship Game.
Who’d of thought that just two years ago after a disastrous debut in LA that featured a 4-12 season, an 0-7 top overall draft pick at quarterback, and the firing of a name coach who was better at underachieving than actually achieving.
Yet here they are.
At 13-3 and riding the momentum of a much needed two game winning streak, the Rams look to be facing a team as hot as they get. The Cowboys bring a 10-6 regular season record and a 24-22 wildcard win against the Seattle Seahawks to a Coliseum where fan support for the visitors will be a significant deal. So much so, that some in the national media believe Los Angeles could be at a disadvantage in their own backyard, an all too common occurrence two years back home in LA.
But more than anything, this game is a signature event for a league who needs a good Cowboys team in the national football conversation, as well as for the second biggest media market to be relevant beyond the regular season. Saturday night in the Coliseum checks those two boxes.
It’s also a game that will feature two up and coming franchises with young quarterbacks in Jared Goff and Dak Prescott, as well as the best two running backs in the league in Ezekiel Elliott and Todd Gurley.
The Rams and Cowboys are two teams on the rise that the National Football League is more than pleased to have in prime time chasing a Lombardi Trophy.