cards @ LA RAMS - Game Day Thread

With the first two NFC Wild Card playoff games complete, the No. 4-seed Rams now have a clear picture of where they will be headed in the divisional round if they advance.

A win over the No. 5-seed Arizona Cardinals on Monday night at SoFi Stadium and Los Angeles will advance to face the No. 2-seed and defending Super Bowl champion Buccaneers in Tampa Bay. That game will kick off at noon pacific time on Sunday, January 23 (NBC, Peacock, and Universo).

That path was created via the ***** upsetting the Cowboys 23-17 on Sunday, making the ***** the lowest remaining seed and the team traveling to Green Bay to take on the Packers in the divisional round....

The Rams crushed the cardinals tonight at home 34-11 to advance to the division round next sunday against tampa. It was a convincing and dominant win for the squad on both sides of the ball, with a smothering defense taking over in the first half allowing the Rams to effectively put the game away by halftime. The Rams left no doubt or hope for arizona by scoring a touchdown on the opening drive of the second half to increase their lead to 28-0, and turning the rest of the night into garbage time. The Rams played a clean game tonight committing no turnovers, we ran the ball very well, forced two interceptions (one of which was a pick six) and rode a nearly flawless performance by matthew stafford who won his first playoff game in leading the Rams to the victory. The Rams finally put together a complete game and gave us an awful lot to build on as we get ready for brady and the bucs next weekend. A HUGE WIN FOR THE SQUAD!!!!!

The Good

Let's start with the defense. In the first half, arizona had 40 TOTAL YARDS of offense, three first downs and two interceptions, including the shortest pick six (3 yards) in nfl playoff history by david long, who took advantage of what should have been a safety/sack by reeder of murray in the end zone, only murray pulled a massive bonehead play in tossed the ball in the air right to long who made a nice catch and ran it in. That play probably ended the game and it was enormously huge since it followed a brutal drop by akers when we had a 14-0 lead and the drop stopped us from going up by 21 or at least 17. Arizona went three and out on its first four possessions!!! They could not run at all and murray was pressured all night, sacked twice (once by miller and 1/2 each from donald and gaines). The defense held arizona to 185 total yards and 0-9 on 3rd down (1-2 on fourth down). The majority of murray's 137 yards of passing was in garbage time, we held arizona to 60 yards rushing, kept murray from hurting us with his legs and held him to a qb rating of 40. Robinson had 7 tackles, miller 6 with a sack and three tackles for loss and continuing to improve every week just when we need him the most. Scott had a huge hit on aj green which caused an overturned incompletion after a mcvay challenge with came on the play immediately before the pick six for long. Note that the entire series (after the akers drop) was set up by a punt by hekker to the one yard line (downed by skowronek). The punt, the hit and the challenge, leading to the pick six, really changed the game and again, probably ended it. Robinson continues to impress me as does travin howard who had another strong game (as did gaines inside). Ramsey and Donald played very well as we have come to expect. Just an absolutely dominant performance by the defense, no other way to say it. Copeland had an interception as well in the first half which was an important play because arizona was driving and only down 14 at the time. Controlling...

One and done ---------- excuse me!
I bit my tongue all week.

The above statement says it ALL.

Hopefully tonight's game is more in line with the one playoff win over the Cardinals in 1975. Monday playoff games have not been kind.

I couldn't root for anyone in this game,so I went with my default and rooted against the Cowboys. Besides, there's usually one upset on Wild Card Weekend, and I didn't want it to be us. That means we don't have to face the Packers yet if we beat Arizona. Of the remaining teams, Tampa is the one I would want to face. So it worked out well, assuming we beat Arizona tomorrow.

Go Rams!