The New York Jets have found their new head coach and the Los Angeles Rams should thank them for hiring who they did. On Thursday night, the Jets announced that Robert Saleh will be their next head coach, replacing Adam Gase at the helm in New York.
With Saleh earning this promotion, he’ll no longer be a thorn in the side of Sean McVay and the Rams in the NFC West. And for that, they should be thankful. The Rams have had trouble against the 49ers while Saleh was their defensive coordinator, specifically in the last two years.
In their eight meetings since 2017, when Saleh and McVay were both hired by their respective teams, the Rams have been heled to 20 points or fewer four times. They’ve lost four games in a row against San Francisco, and in each of those games, the Rams had at least one turnover.
And the Rams’ two losses to San Francisco this season were both games they were favored to win. The 49ers were missing several key players on both sides of the ball, but specifically on defense, they were without Nick Bosa, Solomon Thomas and Richard Sherman in the first game, though Sherman returned for the second.
Yet the Rams still failed to get anything going offensively. They scored 16 points in their October meeting and 20 against the 49ers in November, dropping the games by a combined 11 points.
Jared Goff specifically should be thankful that Saleh is gone. In the last two seasons against the 49ers, he has four touchdown passes and four interceptions, taking six sacks with a total passer rating of only 70.3.
The 49ers seemed to figure out the Rams offense in the last two seasons and it’s largely due to Saleh’s presence. Now, neither Goff nor McVay will have to face him again until the Jets pop back up on the Rams’ schedule in 2024.
Now, the three coaches who seemed to crack the code to McVay’s offense reside in the AFC East: Bill Belichick, Brian Flores and Saleh.
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