LA Rams complete sweep of NFC East

The LA Rams have demolished the NFC East, and now take aim at their own division

The LA Rams may have played the worst division in the NFL. Or did the NFC East division simply run aground of one of the best teams in the NFL?  However the cause, the outcome is history. The LA Rams are 4-1, and all four victories have come at the expense of the NFC East. That’s a pretty good start to a finish and was only bested by the 2018 NFL season where the Rams opened at five wins.

With four wins to one loss, the Rams keep pace with the NFC West regardless of how other teams play today.  And that puts the Rams into a good position with three games remaining before their bye week. The Rams will travel to San Francisco to take on the 49ers next week.  The following week the Rams host the very good Chicago Bears. Finally, the Rams travel back to the East Coast to face the Miami Dolphins.

How the Rams did it

The LA Rams have been doing it their way so far this season.  They play a balanced offense, and that continued again today. The Rams threw for 30 passes and rushed 35 times.  Surprisingly, the Rams moved the ball 309 yards threw the air against one of the NFL’s stingiest passing defenses. Goff threw for two touchdowns and made one thoughtless mistake for an interception.

Meanwhile, the Rams defense was finally smothering. The Rams allowed just 111 yards through the air, and just 36 yards on the ground. And the defense shut out Washington in the second half, surprising as Washington has been a pretty good second-half team. While the Rams never managed to unlock either Darrell Henderson for big games on the ground, the Rams did unleash Henderson as a receiver today with 30 yards and a touchdown.

Akers and Sackers

But the true eyebrow-raiser was rookie running back Cam Akers who broke one for 46 yards in the second half. That’s quite a run for a rookie just getting his first set of touches after a few weeks healing from a rib injury. And it’s terrific momentum for the young running back. When that happened earlier in the season for Darrell Henderson, Hendy followed it up with a 100-yard running game against the Buffalo Bills.

But the true show stopper was the LA Rams pass rush. After a good first four games, where the Rams had sacked opposing quarterbacks 12 times, the LA Rams put up eight in one game. That was a huge performance by a team that needed to get better pressure on the quarterback.  Today, they were unstoppable. While the team has been developing at different rates, the fifth game of the season was absolutely the most impressive of all. While there is room to debate the quality of Washington’s offense, their defense is absolutely very good.

The Rams are ready. While the team needs to get players healthy, the reserves definitely played tough today. The team needs Kiser, Fuller, and Ogbo healthy and ready to go next week. The Rams had fun warming up against the NFC East. Now they are tuned up to play football.