LA Rams: 5 games that mean more to Rams than a win or loss

Season finale Hosting San Francisco 49ers

No matter how bad the San Francisco 49ers might be, they seem to play far above their talent level when they fact the LA Rams. It’s the tale of two cities, Gotham City vs. Metropolis. The City of San Francisco versus Los Angeles. Heating the rivalry even further is the fact that the LA Rams hired Sean McVay in the same year that the San Francisco 49ers hired Kyle Shanahan.

See the tweet below, with one modification. The Rams are 43-21 over the past four seasons, while the 49ers are just 29-35 over the same period.  While that explains the better team, it doesn’t explain their head-to-head competition in the least.

These two teams split their series in 2017, the Rams swept the 49ers in 2018, and the 49ers swept the Rams in both 2019 and 2020. If you were not keeping score, that gives the LA Rams three wins, and the rival 49ers five wins.

Engaging fans in this age-old ‘my dad can beat up your day’ schoolyard debate is pointless. They believe their team is better. Well, if they only had to face the LA Rams? Perhaps. The problem is that the 49ers stand at the doorway to the NFL playoffs. Whether or not the Rams have earned a berth, this is not a game to give starters a rest. Winning takes practice, and the LA Rams have failed in the attempt to defeat the 49ers in their past four efforts, despite starting out with a superior 3-1 record.

If each contest listed so far is a contest that measures the LA Rams’ ability in one specific aspect of the team, this season finale against the 49ers is the final exam.  No team has proven to push the Rams to the limit as the 49ers have over the past four years. Defeating the San Francisco 49ers to close out the regular season could be just the springboard that this Rams’ team needs to get hot and win the rest of the way.