Why Los Angeles Will Win the NFC Championship
Just when it seemed like the moment is too big for the all-in Rams team that mortgaged the future for a championship run, Matthew Stafford throws the pass of his life to Cooper Kupp to get out of Tampa Bay alive.
Seriously. Who overcomes a Tom Brady steamrolling comeback like the one that happened in the Divisional Round and lives?
A franchise that’s been there before.
Yeah, San Francisco is 2-0 in the series this year, but Los Angeles was going through some things in the first meeting – it was in a strange midseason funk – and while winning in Week 18 would’ve been a plus, Green Bay had already locked up the 1 seed.
Yeah, Stafford hasn’t been in a conference championship before, but Aaron Donald has. Von Miller has. Sean McVay has. The Los Angeles Rams have.
Not to make this so metaphysical, but Dallas played like the weight of the entire state of Texas was jumping on its head. Again, once it became obvious that last week wasn’t going to be a Packer coronation, Aaron Rodgers and company played tighter and tighter, only scoring three points over the last 49 minutes.
That’s not to say that Los Angeles will be loose, but it conquered Brady on the road when the game all but slipped away. It pulled up out of the nosedive after the three-game midseason losing streak to win seven of its last eight games.
Now it gets the San Francisco offense.
Yeah, the 49ers found a way. Yeah, their defense is amazing. Yeah, the special teams came up with the big play to pull off the win.
Yeah, San Francisco came up with 212 yards of total offense.
The offensive line was ripped up by the Packer defensive front, there were too many hits on 10 – more on Mr. Garoppolo in a moment – and now comes the Ram defensive front that got to Brady enough to matter and locked down on a ground game that only averaged 3.6 yards per carry.
And yeah, San Francisco has won twice this year, but this is a veteran Ram team loaded with parts that can pick up the slack when needed, and …
– What’s Going To Happen, Prediction