This is the first time the Rams have been underdogs in Week 1 since moving to L.A. in 2016.
The Los Angeles Rams enter this season with very different expectations than they went into the 2019 season with. The majority of pundits expect the Rams to miss the playoffs, with some even projecting them to finish below .500. Compare that to last year’s team that was coming off a Super Bowl appearance, and the hype level is significantly lower this time around.
The Rams aren’t even favored in the season opener at SoFi Stadium against the Dallas Cowboys. According to BetMGM, the Cowboys are three-point favorites over the Rams in Week 1, a game that will be on Sunday night at 8:20 p.m. ET.
This is the first time the Rams have been underdogs in Week 1 since moving to Los Angeles in 2016. They were 2.5-point favorites over the 49ers in 2016, 3.5-point favorites over the Colts in 2017, 6.5-point favorites over the Raiders in 2018 and only 1.5-point favorites over Carolina last year. The Rams covered the spread in each of the last three season openers.
As for the Cowboys, this is just the second time since 2015 that they won’t open the season against the Giants. They’ve been favored in four of their last five Week 1 games, but have only covered the spread in two of those five contests.
The over/under for Rams-Cowboys on Sunday night is the second-highest of any Week 1 game this year. It’s set at 51.5 points, which is only lower than Texans-Chiefs (53.5) on Thursday night.
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The Cowboys are the ideal matchup for the Rams in their SoFi Stadium opener.
The game every Los Angeles Rams fan was looking for during Thursday night’s schedule unveiling was the home opener at SoFi Stadium. With such a strong home schedule that features the Seahawks, 49ers, Cowboys, Patriots and Cardinals, everyone was waiting to see who the Rams’ first opponent at their new $5 billion stadium would be.
The NFL chose wisely with the Cowboys being that team, even if they’re not a division rival like the 49ers, Seahawks or Cardinals. The Rams will host Dallas on Sunday Night Football in Week 1, putting these two teams and a spectacular new venue on center stage in the first week of the season.
The Cowboys always made the most sense as the team for the Rams to open SoFi Stadium against.
Let’s start with what’s likely the primary reason for this decision: Jerry Jones. Behind the scenes, Jones played a key role in moving the Rams back to Los Angeles. There was even a lawsuit filed that claimed Jones conspired with Rams owner Stan Kroenke regarding the move.
With the Rams moving back to Los Angeles, they needed a new stadium. Jones was a major player in that development, too. He helped push the deal through to get the Rams, Chargers and Raiders all new stadiums, the biggest of which is SoFi.
And the stadium’s name? That was negotiated by Jones’ company, Legends.
Drone World – YouTube
There are even aspects of SoFi Stadium that draw from features at the Cowboys’ home, AT&T Stadium – things like the press conference room being visible to fans in the suite level, only separated by glass. The design of the suites – which stretch all around the stadium, from mid-level to field-level, like they do in Arlington – also draw off inspiration from AT&T Stadium.
The same architect, HKS, built both stadiums, too.
Jones is the most influential owner in the NFL, and likely all of sports. He also has a close relationship with Kroenke, which makes this decision even more understandable. Jones even said back in February that he wanted the Cowboys to be the first road team to play at SoFi Stadium. And he got his wish.
The other reason for choosing Rams-Cowboys as the stadium-opener is ratings. The Cowboys are a TV network’s dream, always pulling in strong ratings no matter when they’re on TV. It’s why they typically max out with five prime-time games each year. And whether they’re truly still “America’s Team” is debated constantly, but it’s hard to argue with the numbers.
By putting this matchup as the first Sunday Night Football game of the season, all eyes will be on SoFi Stadium and two teams that have played some highly entertaining games in the last three years. On paper, it could be a high-scoring shootout, given the explosive offenses that both teams possess.
If it’s anything like their regular-season battle in 2017 or their playoff matchup a year later, this game should be a fun one to watch.
The possible issue with the Cowboys being the first team on the Rams’ schedule is the chance that their fans could fill SoFi Stadium and lessen the home-field advantage for L.A. There are Cowboys fans all across the country, but especially in California. The team holds its training camp each year in Oxnard, and fans come out in droves to watch practices.
Southern California is like the Cowboys’ second home, and you can bet fans will be ponying up the cash to witness the first regular-season game ever at the brand new stadium. Hopefully Rams fans who already have tickets decide to keep them rather than flipping them to Cowboys fans for a big profit.
The game is guaranteed to be a sellout, assuming fans are able to attend amid the coronavirus pandemic. Just look back to 2016 when the Rams and Cowboys set a U.S. preseason attendance record in the Rams’ first game back in Los Angeles. Nearly 90,000 fans came out to watch that exhibition game. And last year’s preseason game in Hawaii between the Rams and Cowboys sold out in less than a day.
This was clearly the right move by the NFL – and for the Rams, who likely had a say in this all. The storylines are endless, from Jones and Kroenke’s relationship to Dak Prescott and Jared Goff, who were selected in the same draft class. It’s going to be must-see TV for the vast majority of even casual NFL fans, which is exactly what the league was hoping for.
Let’s just hope the COVID-19 pandemic subsides in time for fans to attend the game in person and not just watch from their homes.
According to Peter King, the Rams and Cowboys could play a nationally televised game at SoFi Stadium to open the season.
Although there’s some uncertainty about when it will happen, the Los Angeles Rams will eventually play their first game at SoFi Stadium at some point. Whether that’s in September or in 2021, as Kevin Demoff recently said, the first game at the Rams’ new home will be a huge event.
The NFL schedule makers will try to drive up anticipation as much as possible by picking a marquee matchup – one that will put fans in seats and draw big TV ratings. According to Peter King of NBC Sports, that matchup could be Rams vs. Cowboys in a nationally televised game as the season opener.
With reports that Covid-19 could slow the finish to the new Los Angeles stadium—expected to be open by late July—and with California Gov. Gavin Newsom saying Saturday he is “not anticipating” sports events with full stadiums in his state in September, it’s hard to plan a celebratory launch in L.A. Around the NFL, and around Dallas and Los Angeles, there has been anticipation for a national-TV Cowboys-Rams season-opener.
The Cowboys are obviously on the Rams’ home schedule in 2020, but they’re not the only possible opponent to open SoFi Stadium. The Seahawks and 49ers would be divisional matchups, and intriguing ones at that. The Patriots would present a Super Bowl LIII rematch, albeit without Tom Brady.
The Cowboys would make a lot of sense, though. The Rams have faced Dallas three times in the last three years, with Los Angeles going 2-1 in those games. The Cowboys also helped the Rams sell out the Coliseum in their first preseason game in L.A. four years ago, setting a U.S. preseason attendance record with more than 89,000 fans showing up.
The NFL is expected to release the 2020 schedule no later than May 4 this year. Typically, the schedule comes out before the draft, but with the coronavirus pandemic complicating things, the league will likely delay the release so it can have contingency plans in place.
Could we see Rams-Cowboys in the first regular-season game at SoFi Stadium?
We know the Los Angeles Rams will play eight home games at SoFi Stadium in 2020 after spending the last four years at the Coliseum. We also know which eight teams the Rams will host at their new stadium.
What hasn’t been determined is when each game will be played and which team will get the honors of facing the Rams in the first regular season matchup at SoFi Stadium. Cowboys owner Jerry Jones has an idea, and it’s one that makes a lot of sense for the NFL, too.
He wants the Rams to host his Cowboys in the first regular-season game at SoFi Stadium, which is possible because Dallas is on the Rams’ schedule next season.
If it’s at all possible, Jerry Jones is hopeful the Cowboys can help open the new stadiums in both L.A. & Las Vegas.
It’s theoretically doable. They play @ the Rams in 2020, and they could schedule a preseason game against the Raiders.
Jones is one of the most influential owners in the NFL and actually has connections to SoFi Stadium. He was a big part of moving the Rams back to L.A. from St. Louis, with a lawsuit even claiming Jones conspired with owner Stan Kroenke. Jones also helped push the deal forward for the Rams, Chargers and Raiders to get new stadiums. Additionally, his company Legends negotiated the naming rights agreement with SoFi.
It’s not unreasonable for Jones to want his team to play the first regular-season game at the new venue, which is more than 85% completed. Whether his wish will be granted by the NFL remains to be seen, but Jones has some pull – just probably not with the schedule makers.
The Rams and Cowboys do have some recent history, squaring off three times since the start of the 2017 season – including a divisional round matchup in the 2018 playoffs.
The Cowboys played the first preseason game after the Rams moved back to Los Angeles in 2016, which set an attendance record for the preseason. And when the two teams squared off last preseason in Hawaii, tickets sold out in less than a day.
So there would be no shortage of interest if the Rams were to host the Cowboys in the stadium-opening game.
Andrew Whitworth wore a mic for Sunday’s game against the Cowboys.
Andrew Whitworth has been a leader for the Rams the last three years after holding a similar role with the Bengals for a decade. In the locker room and on the field, Whitworth helps guide his teammates and acclimate young players to the speed of the NFL.
He’s particularly valuable at the line of scrimmage, calling out things he sees with the opposing defense and coaching up his fellow linemen up front. He was mic’d up against the Cowboys in the Rams’ 44-21 loss on Sunday, and it shows just how much he provides from a leadership standpoint.
Whitworth can be heard making calls, helping Austin Corbett with his blocking assignments and communicating with players such as Jared Goff and Cooper Kupp.
Unfortunately, it didn’t do enough to help the Rams get the win as they were dominated by the Cowboys at AT&T Stadium, all but ending Los Angeles’ chances of making the playoffs.
Tackling and poor execution on blocks were two of the Rams’ primary issues against Dallas.
Since Sean McVay took over as head coach, there haven’t been many instances where the Rams were embarrassed and completely dominated by an opponent. Sunday against the Cowboys was undeniably one of those instances, though.
They went into AT&T Stadium and laid an egg, getting blown out 44-21 by a sub-.500 Cowboys team. At one point, the Rams were down 37-7 before scoring two touchdowns in the final four minutes to make the final score a bit more respectable.
McVay was understandably frustrated after the game and in his press conference Monday, he admitted the film was reflective of just how poorly the Rams played as a team the day before.
“Yeah. It wasn’t very good. Really, in a lot of instances, it’s never as bad, it’s never as good as you think, but a lot of the things that we felt like after the game, I think, kind of showed up,” McVay said. “The expectation and the confidence that I do have in our players and in our team to be able to execute and just do the fundamental things that you have to be able to do to win in this league, we really just didn’t do. That’s not the norm for us.”
The Rams rushed for only 22 yards, Jared Goff threw a costly interception before halftime that led to a Cowboys touchdown and Dallas gained 263 yards on the ground in the win.
There was a lot that went wrong for the Rams, from their lack of protection for Goff to their inability to tackle, which led to Dallas scoring 44 points. For a defense that had been playing so well, this was a huge surprise.
McVay pointed out issues that plagued the team on Sunday, from missed tackles to poor execution on blocks.
“Defensively, not tackling, not maintaining some of our gap integrity, playing our leverages right in coverage. Those are things that we pretty much, for the most part, done a really nice job of. We didn’t do that yesterday” he said. “Again, you give Dallas credit for being able to force some of those missed tackles and things like that. That was a big result as some of the production that they had. Just not finishing some of the plays and then offensively, a lot of the same. Not attacking some of the blocks the way that we had talked about, not just making standard throws and making the catches, creating some separation. A lot of the things that are really just instrumental from a fundamentals and techniques standpoint to be able to play good football, we didn’t really do and didn’t give ourselves a chance to be in that game as a result of that.”
McVay acknowledged the problems the Rams had on offense, but he did come away pleased with the way the offense closed out the game. It doesn’t make the end result any better, but he did like the way Goff and company finished with two touchdown drives.
“Really, we just didn’t have really any sort of drive continuity. We weren’t converting on third downs, they did a good job on their offensive side being able to sustain some drives and then the next thing you know, the score is what it is,” he said. “We make no excuses about it, we didn’t play good enough – I was pleased with the way the guys finished. You don’t ever have any sort of moral victories, but I was interested to see how we continued to compete, especially offensively, even though it was, what it was and they were playing more softer zone-coverages and just to get some completions, get into a little bit of a rhythm was important to finish out that way.”
The Rams will take on the 49ers at Levi’s Stadium on Saturday night, which will help decide their playoff fate. A loss will end any chance of them making the postseason. A win by Minnesota on Sunday will do the same.
McVay’s squad doesn’t have much left to play for, but he expects to see a better team against the 49ers than the one that played in Dallas this week.
Josh Reynolds says the Cowboys didn’t do “too much to stop us” on Sunday.
Based on the scoreboard, it didn’t look like the Rams were completely shut down by the Cowboys. They scored a respectable 21 points on the road, which isn’t a terrible number. However, 14 of those points came in the final minutes of the game when it was already out of reach.
The Rams finished with only 289 yards of total offense and were 4-for-12 on third down, gaining only 22 yards on the ground. Wide receiver Josh Reynolds says it wasn’t anything the Cowboys did particularly well, but more a matter of the Rams getting in their own way.
“One play at a time,” Reynolds said of the status of the Rams offense. “They weren’t doing too much to stop us. We were kind of stopping ourselves. We weren’t executing plays. Busted blocks. It falls on all of us. We are going to take another week to correct things, watch this film, and get better.”
The Rams committed five penalties, Jared Goff threw a costly interception before halftime and the ground game was non-existent due to poor blocking and execution. Los Angeles was a mess offensively and on defense, Ezekiel Elliott and Tony Pollard could not be stopped.
Taylor Rapp didn’t have the same take on Dallas’ performance, saying the Cowboys “totally dominated us.”
There’s no doubt the Rams tripped themselves up with mistakes, but the Cowboys also played well and didn’t make many errors.
Sean McVay and Jared Goff were both confused by the coin-toss mix-up before the Cowboys-Rams game.
Sunday’s game between the Rams and Cowboys got off to an unconventional and bizarre start at AT&T Stadium. After the Cowboys won the coin toss, Dak Prescott told the official that Dallas wanted to kick off in the first quarter.
By saying that, he also gave the Rams the option to choose what they wanted to do to begin the second half: kick or receive. The Rams, of course, chose to receive the second-half kickoff, but they didn’t end up getting the ball as they expected to.
Because Prescott said “defer” after also saying the Cowboys wanted to play defense, the NFL reviewed the situation and corrected it. Dallas got the ball to start the second half as Prescott intended, preventing the Rams from getting an extra possession.
The score wound up being 44-21, so the mix-up probably wouldn’t have changed the outcome, but Sean McVay was asked about it after the game and shared his thoughts on what happened.
“The way that I interpreted it from the start was, they won the toss and they chose to kick in the first half, so I immediately asked the refs, tried to get the clarification,” McVay said. “We were under the impression that we were going to be able to receive the second half kick as well. I guess they went to New York. They had a microphone and they said they heard the word “deferred.” I found out right before the start of the second half, so we were always under the assumption we were going to get that kick, be able to receive that kick coming out of the half and I was told right before that that wasn’t the case.”
That sort of change can definitely impact a coach’s game plan. There’s a big difference between having to kick off to start the second half and getting the ball first, especially when trailing by 21 points as the Rams were.
Jared Goff was also confused by the situation and was under the impression that the Rams would begin the second half with the ball, which turned out not to be the case. Goff, Eric Weddle and Johnny Hekker were all holding back smiles and laughs when the coin toss played out, indicating they knew Prescott messed up.
They knew what he meant, but the rulebook interpreted it differently.
“I think by rule that’s what it is – we would get the ball in the second half, but I do think he may have then corrected himself and then said defer,” Goff said after the game. “I don’t quite remember exactly, but we knew what he meant, but by the letter of the law, I think that if he does say kick, that is a rule. I don’t know the intricacies of that rule well enough, but they said that he did correct himself and say ‘defer’ after that.
“We had talked to the referees the whole game in the first half, and we were told we would get it in the second half. I don’t think that would have changed much with the outcome of the game, but it was something a little weird, definitely.”
The Rams were dominated in every phase of the game and could do nothing right until it was too late and the Cowboys put it out of reach, so a coin-toss gaffe was hardly their biggest issue. Receiving the kick in both halves would’ve been helpful, but certainly not enough to change the outcome of the game.
The Rams utilized very little 12 personnel on Sunday in Dallas.
The Los Angeles Rams were having a great deal of success in recent weeks by utilizing more 12 personnel to get two tight ends on the field at a time. Tyler Higbee had two straight 100-yard games and Todd Gurley had rushed for 174 yards on 42 carries in the Rams’ last two wins.
In Sunday’s 44-21 loss to the Cowboys, Sean McVay went back to his roots and reverted to his heavy 11 personnel usage. The Rams leaned on their trio of starting receivers, as well as a dash of Josh Reynolds.
The result? Only 289 net yards and 20 yards rushing by Gurley. Needless to say, McVay’s game plan didn’t work the way he had hoped, partly because the execution was poor. He likely wanted to attack the Cowboys’ linebackers in the passing game, specifically Jaylon Smith, but it didn’t exactly go according to plan.
Here are the snap counts from Sunday’s drubbing in Dallas.
Offense
After only playing only 29% of the snaps last week against the Seahawks, Cooper Kupp returned to his more typical usage. He played 92% on Sunday, which was the second-most among Rams receivers. Robert Woods didn’t miss a snap, while Brandin Cooks played 71%. Reynolds chipped in 26 plays, catching two passes for 36 yards.
Johnny Mundt only played 11 snaps against Dallas, which was one of the bigger surprises. He’s a great blocking tight end and helps the ground game a lot. Tyler Higbee also only played 86%, too, so he came off the field more than expected.
Todd Gurley was rarely spelled in the backfield, playing all but three snaps. Malcolm Brown was out there for the three plays Gurley missed but did not receive a carry or target.
Aaron Donald was brutally honest after the Rams’ loss to the Cowboys on Sunday.
There’s no way to put lightly how terrible the Rams looked on Sunday in Dallas. They were run over by the Cowboys 44-21, and the final score wasn’t indicative of how lopsided the actual game was. With just under seven minutes left in the game, the Rams trailed 37-7 before scoring two touchdowns in garbage time to draw the score closer.
Whether it was the offense or defense, Los Angeles looked uninspired and flat out of the gates, missing tackles and allowing Ezekiel Elliott and Tony Pollard to run wild from start to finish, while simultaneously failing to get anything going on offense.
Aaron Donald knows how poorly the Rams played against Dallas, calling it an embarrassing loss.
Aaron Donald on loss to the Cowboys: "We played horrible. We got beat on. We got beat pretty bad. We got embarrassed."
While the execution was poor on the Rams’ part, so was the preparation. For a team that took it to the Cardinals and Seahawks in the last two weeks, Los Angeles sure didn’t look like the same squad on Sunday.
The defense, in particular, was outmatched against the Cowboys. The line got no push, the outside linebackers generated very little pressure and Dallas took advantage of the Rams’ lapses.
