Ding-Ding: Week Six Preview, Rams at Packers

Anthony Bafaro 

                                                                 Clubber, what's your prediction for this game?

PAIN!

This week the Rams travel to Green Bay for an exciting matchup between the best team in football and the worst team in football.  To make things worse (as if that’s even possible at this point) Mike Sims-Walker made his biggest impact as a Ram last week when he collided with Bradley Fletcher during practice.  Fletcher tore his ACL on the play for the second time in his short career.  The injury not only eliminates the last professional CB on this team (I love Al Harris, but if your number one corner was conceived during the Nixon administration your season is over), it also puts Fletcher’s career, or at least his ceiling in serious question.

Rams’ Offense vs. Packers’ Defense

This is where I would normally say that the Rams have a puncher’s chance, that they should be able to move the ball through the air because they’re going against a defense that’s actually worse than they are in terms of porous pass coverage and whose pass rush is kept respectable only by the ever dominant play of Clay Matthews and B.J. Raji.  However, if the offense ignores Matthews and Raji in the same way that they ignored a similar matchup against Ngata and Suggs in week three, Bradford and the Rams will continue their quest for David Carr’s single season sacked record of 76 (currently on pace for 72). 

     Despite taking last week off, the Rams still have more dropped passes than any team in the NFL and are third in sacks allowed.  What’s worse is that the Rams’ coaching staff decided to spit in face of their fan base in week four by running Danario Alexander’s paper-mache knee out there as a blocker on the kick return team, when all year they’ve justified his offensive absence by saying they want to limit the stress on his knee.  To be fair, Danario was out there for more passing plays than any WR except Sims-Walker against the Redskins, which is great to see, but it’s still an idiotic move to put him out there on special teams, an idiotic move that was highlighted by the fact that he committed a holding penalty on the play.

     The Packers have major issues in the secondary.  Charles Woodson is finally starting to show his age and Sam Shields seems to have regressed back to his undrafted status after a solid rookie campaign.  Morgan Burnett has been neither good nor bad in pass coverage at SS, but everyone else in the secondary and a most of the linebackers are getting torched through the air.  Those are all relevant points if they’re going against a competent, competitive offense.  We will see if that’s what Rams decide to bring this week.

Rams’ Defense vs. Packers’ Offense

Robert Quinn looks better and better with every snap.  He and Chris Long should be able to get pressure against a dinged up Baluga and whatever marginal combination of Derek Sherrod and Marshall Newhouse the Packers send out at RT, but none of that really matters.  Aaron Rodgers is one of, if not the best QB in football.  He has plenty of weapons around him, and by the end of the game he will be bored of scoring at will against whatever exhausted series of adjectives you want to use to describe the Rams’ secondary.  This is where the pain comes in.  This is why the Rams cannot win this game.  The Packers will get points on every single possession.  Once they've had their fill they can bench Rodgers and burn out the clock while building confidence in their backfield against a team that still can’t stop the run.

Even if the Packers are completely asleep coming into this game, and even if the Rams miraculously take a lead into half time, I’d still put my money on the Packers dropping the hammer in the second half and covering the laughable 15 point spread.  Yes, I do realize that Rocky ends up beating Clubber, I’ve seen the movie many times, but the Stallion wins with epic levels of single attribute that the Rams have not shown in a long time, heart.  I don't hate Rams, I love them, but this week, I pity the fools.