There were already very few people who were bullish on the Rams coming into the 2023 campaign and their performance in the preseason certainly didn’t help. They went 0-3 and were outscored 109-34 by the Chargers, Raiders and Broncos, getting shut out by Denver in the finale, 41-0.
Granted, there weren’t many projected starters on the field for the Rams in those three games, but their performance as a whole was poor. It even resulted in Los Angeles finishing with the lowest offensive, defensive and special teams grades in the NFL, according to Pro Football Focus.
USA TODAY’s Nate Davis originally projected the Rams to go 7-10 this season but after seeing them play in the preseason, he’s lowering his expectations further. In Davis’ updated projections, he has the Rams going 6-11 but still finishing third in the NFC West.
With the 2023 preseason complete, I've given my #NFL regular-season record projections a few tweaks: pic.twitter.com/IeQsvnakXK
— Nate Davis (@ByNateDavis) August 31, 2023
If we’re being realistic, the Rams are likely to finish somewhere between 6-11 and 10-7. It’s hard to see them winning many more games than that, and as long as they have Matthew Stafford, Cooper Kupp and Aaron Donald, they should be better than they were last year.
Obviously, injuries can derail that idea pretty quickly and we’ve already seen Kupp go down with a hamstring strain, but this should be a middle-of-the-road team.
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