Tread carefully. LA Rams faces formidable Arizona Cardinals in Week 4

The LA Rams are undefeated heading into Week 4 of the 2021 NFL season. So what, you might be asking? Well of 32 teams that began the season, only five teams remain who can claim to still be undefeated. After Week 4, there will be fewer NFL teams that will have that claim to fame. This game will remove one of the five from the ranks.

There is no denying that the Arizona Cardinals are a formidable opponent this year. With each offseason, the Cardinals front office has attempted to prune unproductive players, and graft new free agents to the roster. Sometimes it has worked out well. Sometimes not so much.

This is a game of one undefeated team versus another undefeated team. The lead of the NFC West Division will be claimed by the victor. The loser will fall to second place, and at this point in time in the 2021 NFL season, it will be only as significant of a setback as they allow it to be. The goal of both teams is to get to that 12 win mark, where the discussion of their earning a playoff berth begins to become reality. One team will be closer to their goal after the final score is posted. The other team will be forced to try harder the following week.

For the Arizona Cardinals, they have had this date circled as soon as the 2020 season ended. For each of the past four seasons, the Cardinals have faced the LA Rams and lost. Regardless of how prepared they’d felt, the Rams were always the better team. A year ago, the Cardinals shocked the San Francisco 49ers and the Seattle Seahawks, defeating both rivals en route to jumping out to a 5-2 record.

The Rams were in a dead heat with the Cardinals a year ago. Both teams reached the 6-3 mark. But the Rams continued to win, while the Cardinals would only win two more games for the rest of the year. Both teams restocked their roster. The Cardinals were very active in free agency. The Rams were active in the trade market. Once more, both teams are in a dead heat. Both the Cardinals and the Rams enter Week 4 with an unblemished 3-0 record. Now, who wants the fourth win more?

Who wants it more?

If there is such a thing as a psychological advantage in this game, who has it? You could argue that the Arizona Cardinals, a team that has been turned away all eight times by the LA Rams in the past four seasons, will eventually win by the law of averages.  The Cardinals clearly reworked their roster to match up better against the LA Rams.  Now, they’ll put their new roster to the test.

On the other hand, the LA Rams have won the past eight games because their team has simply had a better game plan. It could not have been the players, because the Rams won with backup quarterback John Wolford as well. It has to be more than just who is matching up against who.

A year ago, the Rams defense simply snuffed the Cardinals’ offense. Quarterback Kyler Murray had an aggregate 29 of 50 for 260 yards, three touchdowns, and one interception in two games. That was after the Cardinals traded for wide receiver Deandre Hopkins. Since that didn’t seem to be enough, the Cardinals have now added wide receiver A.J. Green. In three games, Hopkins is the fourth most productive wide receiver for the Cardinals, which has over 1000 passing yards.

To place it into perspective, the LA Rams have just 942 passing yards.

Of course, some might say that it is the LA Rams who have the psychological advantage. The Rams know that they can defeat the Cardinals. But the Cardinals enter the game without that psychological reassurance. They don’t know, because many of the players on the team do not remember a time when they did win with the Cardinals.

Still, there is that ‘hype’ factor. The LA Rams are 3-0. The Arizona Cardinals are 3-0. And yet the media is beginning to ask those questions that always seem to be a precursor to a rude awakening. Is this the year of Matthew Stafford earning the MVP award? Is this the year that the LA Rams win a Super Bowl? Matthew Stafford has won the NFC Offensive Player of the Week twice in three games. Cooper Kupp has won the NFL Offensive Player of the Month. Earned awards? Yes. But they also serve to motivate divisional rivals who either feel slighted or who use those distinctions to measure themselves. No need to wave flags in front of a bull…

That Matthew Stafford effect

We would be remiss if we didn’t elaborate on one of the most significant changes to the LA Rams offensive arsenal, In short, the Arizona Cardinals loaded up to defeat what the LA Rams had been. I’m not convinced that the 2021 version of the LA Rams is even in the same ballpark.

There were three defensive strategies that worked against the LA Rams in 2019 and 2020. The first and most frustrating strategy was to blitz in the A-Gap. The second was to speed rush from either or both sides of the offensive line. The third was to snuff the running game and force the Rams quarterback to win the game on his arm.

The Rams faced A-gap blitzes against the Indianapolis Colts and Tampa Bay Buccaneers, faced speed rushes from the outside from the Chicago Bears, the Indianapolis Colts, and faced tough running against all three opponents to date. The LA Rams offense is operating under a new set of principles, and the roster is designed to optimize those principles.

In 2020, the 2-0 Cardinals hosted the Detroit Lions and lost by a score of 26-23. The Lions were a bad team in 2020. But they had an outstanding quarterback named Matthew Stafford.  Stafford kept the pressure on the Cardinals the entire game, forcing Cardinals quarterback Kyler Murray to force the ball and throw three interceptions in the process.

The Cardinals are designed to get the lead and then defend it. They have a pass rush that is among the best in the NFL and a pass defense that is better than advertised. But they have not done well against the run.

The Rams have not been behind in many games either. But in the two minutes in which the Rams were behind, it took quarterback Matthew Stafford just two minutes to drive 70 yards. Coming from behind is one of Stafford’s superpowers. That Matthew Stafford effect is making this LA Rams offense a force of its own to be reckoned with.

Separately, LA Rams head coach Sean McVay has engineered eight straight wins over the Arizona Cardinals. Quarterback Matthew Stafford defeated the Cardinals on the road with an inferior team in 2020. Now the Cardinals must face both when they come to SoFi Stadium this Sunday.

The healthiest both teams have been

This is early in the 2021 NFL season, and the earliest these two teams have played against one another since 2018. As such, this is perhaps the healthiest either team has been when facing one another. But it’s not been an injury-free period for either team.

The LA Rams have suffered setbacks at both outside linebackers and running back. The Rams had lost RB Cam Akers for the season, and are now trying to get Darell Henderson healthy enough to play. The Rams have also been forced to assign surprisingly effective starting outside linebacker Justin Hollins to IR for approximately 10 weeks.

Injury Report

The latest injury report for the LA Rams is encouraging. Only two players failed to practice on Thursday. Terrell Lewis, because the Rams are willing to rest his knee, and Tutu Atwell due to illness. The Arizona Cardinals are in a less enviable situation, as they are without RT Kelvin Beachum, LG Justin Pugh, and reserve OT Justin Murray so far this week.

Beachum is suffering from a ribs injury. Murray is working through a back injury. And finally, Pugh is working through a back injury as well. Beachum did not play against the Jacksonville Jaguars in Week 3, as he suffered fractured ribs in Week 1 and is still healing.

The Cardinals’ offensive line is hurting. Even if all three linemen return to face the LA Rams defensive front, you cannot expect them to be at their peak performance. That could prove to be an unexpected advantage for the Rams. Although Aaron Donald and Leonard Floyd each have two quarterback sacks apiece, this could be a game to grab a few more.

Murray is a mobile quarterback. That oftentimes means that the offensive linemen have no clue where he will set up to pass, giving the Rams pass rush an opportunity to ride a blocker right into the sack.

I like the LA Rams in this one. But I think that the Rams will need to be hungry for this win. Just showing up is not going to cut it. I don’t think that Matthew Stafford will let that happen.