There are a lot of teams that I could go with. The Los Angeles Chargers, the over-hyped Cleveland Browns, or the high expectation of the Dallas Cowboys.

But the team that I have to choose are the LA Rams. LA had some really high expectations as the reigning NFC champs. Then the Rams won just 3 of their first 6 games. Losing a shootout to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, 55-40. The Buccaneers – a team with a QB who seems to love throwing the ball to the other team, as much as put TDs on the boards. With all of awesome talent they have on this team – I’m honestly not sure how that’s even possible. They seemed to only win the games they should win – vs the middling to bad teams this season.

The Rams returned this season with the core of guys from last season’s Super Bowl team – and returning to the big game, was surely their thought. But, the Rams not only failed to repeat a strong campaign, but they missed the playoffs. The Rams took a great big step forward in 2018, going 12-4 and getting to the Bowl – most saw them as being the team to beat in the NFC again this year. Then they started tumbling after their 3 game skid in late Sept to early October, where they just never seemed to get it back together.

Todd Gurley’s 2019 year, was far from being the player that we saw over the last few seasons. He put up just 57 YDs/game to last years 89 YDs/game – and only 31 receptions to last seasons 59 catches. His touches went way down – something was just not right with #30 this season – and we all witnessed it. QB Jared Goff was not sharp – passing inconsistency has been a key all year – his passing TD% of throws was the lowest since his rookie season in 2016 – he struggled in many ways to play like last year’s guy.

It felt like LA would make the final push for a ring in 2019. After such a great season in 2018 – nothing about the team really seemed to fire on all cylinders this year. Their rushing D was poor, their offense was shaky, and their Oline was just tolerable.

There was a lot more expected of the defense especially when they have Aaron Donald, Dante Fowler’s season, bringing in Clay Matthews, and then bringing in Jalen Ramsey. Donald was his usual dominant self – maybe not the ginormous wrecking ball that we saw last year – but he was excellent still. Ramsey brought a shutdown kind of play on the field and Fowler was all over the field in his best season ever. But, they still weren’t able to make the plays when needed, or stop teams from pounding the rock on the ground over and over.

They were expected to be far better than just going 9-7, that’s for sure – it is truly mystifying how the Rams have fallen since their Super Bowl.
It goes to show how fast things can turn around for any team, in a short while.