Gerald McCoy joining Panthers gives Rams another Week 1 challenge

The Los Angeles Rams will now face Gerald McCoy in Week 1 come September when taking on the Carolina Panthers.

While the Los Angeles Rams never expressed any true interest in Gerald McCoy following his release from the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, the team was still keeping an eye on where the star defender could potentially end up.

After nine seasons that consisted of six trips to the Pro Bowl, it was somewhat surprising to see the Buccaneers decide to move on from McCoy, but also from a financial perspective, the decision sort of made sense, even if they would later sign Ndamukong Suh.

Over the last couple of weeks, McCoy made numerous trips to teams expressing interest in bringing the veteran defender on board before finally making the division this week to join the Carolina Panthers.

Despite missing out on the playoffs last season, many believe the Panthers will be able to bounce back in 2019 since it should be noted that Carolina did jump out to a 6-2 start last year, and looked like a serious contender before things went downhill the final two months.

Now that McCoy is on board, the Panthers hope to see his veteran presence provide an extra boost on the defensive side of the football, especially in Week 1 with the Rams coming to down to kick off the new season.

As of now, Los Angeles will most likely enter this contest as the early favorites over Carolina since they are defending NFC champions for a reason, but also this doesn’t necessarily guarantee that Sean McVay‘s team will come through on the winning end.

If anything, this addition of McCoy to the Panthers’ defense will provide an extra challenge for the Rams on offense that first weekend in front of what should be a hostile Carolina environment.

Plus, with the Rams continuing to deal with the uncertainty surrounding Todd Gurley and his knee injury, there’s even the chance that Los Angeles could be at a disadvantage during this Week 1 contest without their star running back being 100 percent.

No matter what, the good news for Los Angeles is McVay will make sure is team is prepared in the best way possible for this meeting in Carolina, and while McCoy will certainly make the contest a little more interesting, at least the Rams still have a few months to prepare.