Tag: rams patriots

Final score prediction for Rams vs. Patriots in Week 14

Can the Rams take care of the surging Patriots at home?

Just four days after beating the Cardinals in Arizona, the Los Angeles Rams will suit up again to take on the surging New England Patriots. Though the Patriots got off to a 2-5 start, they’ve won four of their last five to get back into contention in the AFC.

And three of those wins came against the Ravens, Cardinals and Chargers, most recently blowing out L.A. 45-0 on Sunday. The Rams are still in great shape in the NFC despite losing to the 49ers two weeks ago, sitting at 8-4 and currently holding the No. 3 seed.

A win would further improve their playoff chances, while a loss to the Patriots would potentially drop them out of the NFC West lead if the Seahawks can beat the Jets – which they’re expected to do.

After facing three teams with dynamic receivers and quarterbacks who aren’t afraid to whip it around the yard, they’ll take on Cam Newton, who leads the Patriots’ third-ranked rushing attack. No team in the NFL has attempted more runs than the Patriots this season, making this a change of pace for the Rams after facing the Seahawks, Bucs and Cardinals.

The secondary won’t be tested the way it was against those three teams, but the run defense most certainly will. Missed tackles will lead to big gains and extended time on the field for the defense. But stopping the run will force Newton to beat the Rams with his arm, which he’s rarely done this season; he has five touchdown passes and nine interceptions.

The Rams are the healthier team right now and should have all their starters from last week back on the field Thursday, which is crucial. Their deep rotation of defensive linemen will be needed against this Patriots rushing attack, keeping everyone up front fresh for all 60 minutes.

As 5.5-point favorites, the Rams are expected to win this game. But it won’t be easy – it never is against Bill Belichick. He cracked the code to Sean McVay’s offense in Super Bowl LIII, and there’s no reason to believe he can’t do it again on Thursday.

The Rams will need to adapt on the fly to whatever Belichick throws at them, which they failed to do in the Super Bowl two years ago. Assuming they can do that, their talent should overmatch New England’s.

I like the Rams to win this one in a close, defensive battle.

Final score prediction: Rams 23, Patriots 20

Los Angeles Rams vs New England Patriots Prediction, Game Preview

Los Angeles Rams vs New England Patriots prediction, game preview, and fantasy player to watch.

Los Angeles Rams vs New England Patriots prediction, game preview, and fantasy player to watch.

Los Angeles Rams vs New England Patriots Broadcast

Date: Sunday, December 13
Game Time: 8:20 ET
Venue: SoFi Stadium, Inglewood, CA
Network: FOX/NFL Network

[jwplayer u1UpvV8e]

– All of the CFN Fearless Predictions

Los Angeles Rams (8-4) vs New England Patriots (6-6) Game Preview

For latest lines and to bet on the NFL, go to BetMGM

Why New England Patriots Will Win

The defense has been fantastic, and the formula is working with four wins in the last five games.

The Patriots grind out games with more rushing attempts than anyone in the NFL, they’re blowing off the passing game, and they’re relying on a defense that’s finding ways to come up with big plays in big moments.

The Rams are having turnover issues with 20 on the year and 12 in the last five games. New England? Two giveaways in the win over Arizona, and no others in this run of five games. It’s all part of the formula.

– CFN Experts Picks: NFL

Why Los Angeles Rams Will Win

When this defense wants to rise up and rock against one thing, it’s able to do it. What’s it great at? Stopping the run.

The Rams are already a rock against the pass – they lead the NFL in pass defense, give up the fewest touchdowns through the air, and allowing the fewest big plays – but they’re stuffing running game after running game.

That was a problem earlier in the year, but after the first four games, they’ve allowed over 100 yards in just three of the last eight games. New England is 0-3 when running for fewer than 100 yards.

– CFN Experts Picks: College

Fantasy Football Player To Watch

RB Cam Akers, Los Angeles Rams 
The Rams seem to have found their running back. Darrell Henderson might have come up with a huge dash here and there, and Malcolm Brown has taken away touchdowns, but it’s Akers who’s the new main man with 84 yards and a score against San Francisco and 72 yards and a score last week against Arizona. He’s not going to catch a whole lot of passes, and he has a banged up shoulder, but he’ll get the go-to carries.

What’s Going To Happen

Can Jared Goff stay hot?

After a horrible performance against San Francisco, he was fantastic against Arizona with the offense finding its groove again. New England will take the Rams out of their normal attack, and Akers and the ground game will get stuffed, but the LA D will be the star – it’ll hold down Cam Newton and make him throw – and Goff will be solid.

Los Angeles Rams vs New England Patriots Prediction, Line

Los Angeles 27, New England 20
Bet on Los Angeles vs New England with BetMGM
LA Rams -5, o/u: 44.5
ATS Confidence out of 5: 3

Must See Rating: 4

5: Wonder Woman 1984
1: A Holly Dolly Christmas

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Patriots’ lack of a No. 1 WR should have Jalen Ramsey back in ‘star’ role for Rams

The Patriots don’t have a true No. 1 receiver, which will allow the Rams to get creative with Jalen Ramsey.

In three of the Rams’ last four games, Jalen Ramsey was tasked with covering the likes of DK Metcalf, Mike Evans and DeAndre Hopkins. He didn’t exclusively line up across from those three wideouts, but more often than not, Brandon Staley stuck Ramsey on them.

It worked to near-perfection with all three receivers being held under 60 yards, but Ramsey’s role will likely change on Thursday night against the Patriots. Not only are they a run-first offense, but New England also lacks a true No. 1 receiver, which the Seahawks, Bucs and Cardinals certainly do not.

Casual NFL fans probably won’t even recognize most of the wideouts on New England’s depth chart, especially with Julian Edelman sidelined by a knee injury. The group is led by N’Keal Harry, Damiere Byrd and Jakobi Meyers, but none of them are truly game-changers.

That should cause Staley to adjust his plan for Ramsey this week, likely sliding him back into that “star” role he’s referred to multiple times this year.

Essentially, the “star” role is another word for the slot defender. With Ramsey’s versatility, size and speed, he’s a perfect player for that spot – and we saw him play there earlier this season against teams such as the Giants, Washington and in the first game against the 49ers.

It opens the door for Ramsey to do a lot of different things on the field. He can match up in man coverage on the slot receiver, drop back into hook zones and blitz off the edge, all of which he’s capable of doing.

The biggest benefit of playing Ramsey in the star spot is that he remains close to the action, which Staley mentioned in Tuesday’s media session.

“He’s risen to the occasion against the premier players in this league and the way we’ve tried to utilize him is to be where the action is,” Staley said. “I think that him being able to move right to left, outside to inside, has given us a great deal of flexibility. You talked about solar systems, the thing about Jalen is there isn’t any responsibility on the field that he doesn’t have command over.”

Against the Giants, he was matched up against Golden Tate often, but he also blitzed a handful of times and made plays near the line of scrimmage. His best play of that game was on a swing pass to Tate where Ramsey blew up the lead blocker and made a huge hit on the wideout.

When he’s in the slot, Ramsey can also help more in run support. Take a look at this play where he blitzes off the edge and assists on a tackle with Greg Gaines, stuffing the running back behind the line of scrimmage.

That’s not something he can necessarily do when assigned to take away a No. 1 receiver.

Ramsey will certainly be needed in run support on Thursday night against the Patriots. No team in the NFL has run the ball more than New England, and only two teams have rushed for more yards than Bill Belichick’s squad. Cam Newton is a big reason for that, scoring more rushing touchdowns (11) than passing ones (5).

The more often Ramsey can be near the line of scrimmage, either blitzing or simply coming up in run support from the star position. As he’s shown time and time again, Ramsey is more than just a cornerback.

“It’s a position that kind of combines several different skillsets. You’re a little bit of a corner, you’re a little bit of a safety, a little bit of a linebacker – inside linebacker and outside linebacker because you’re kind of a rusher too,” Staley said back in October. “So, it’s a spot that you have to possess all those qualities of those four positions. You’ve got to be able to process because things happen quickly inside. So, you need a guy that can see and a guy that can think and operate quickly. So, those are things that he does well.”

Thinking quickly, reading a play and reacting suddenly are all things Ramsey does well. They’re also traits needed when facing an offense that utilizes a lot of play-action, read-options and even RPOs.

There should be no doubt about Ramsey’s role in this game against New England.

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Rams vs. Patriots: 6 things to know for Week 14 matchup

The Rams haven’t beaten the Patriots since 2001 and have lost two Super Bowls to them in that span.

The Rams and Patriots will square off on Thursday night in a rematch of Super Bowl LIII, though both teams look very different than they did two seasons ago. Gone are the likes of Tom Brady, Marcus Peters, Rob Gronkowski and Brandin Cooks, though Sean McVay and Bill Belichick remain the coaches of their respective teams.

Heading into this matchup, the Rams have an edge at 8-4 and playing at home. But the Patriots just crushed the Chargers 45-0 on Sunday and are fighting for their playoff lives.

It’s a marquee matchup between two storied franchises who have met in the Super Bowl twice before. Here are six things to know for this Week 14 tilt.

After over-preparing for Patriots in Super Bowl LIII, Sean McVay won’t have that problem this time

Sean McVay admitted he wishes he would’ve studied less before facing the Patriots two years ago. This time, he’ll be in a time crunch.

If Sean McVay could go back and do it all over again, he’d prepare less for the New England Patriots ahead of Super Bowl LIII. That sounds ridiculous and illogical, but the coach admitted as much himself.

He said he watched too much film of the Patriots before the big game, rewatching every game New England played that season. It caused him to forget the things that the Patriots were doing more recently, bogging down his memory with less important games earlier in the year.

“You have so much time that you can over-prepare and get away from some of the things that helped you get there,” McVay told Sports Illustrated last year. “I watched every game from New England’s season. You see stuff that worked in, say, Week 3, but you forget about the amount of stuff that’s taken place since Week 3. You can watch so much film that you lose perspective. You have 18 games of film you can pore over. And then I even watched the Philly and Atlanta Super Bowls closely.”

McVay is once again preparing to face the Patriots – the first time since that 13-3 Super Bowl loss – and time won’t be of the essence. With the Rams being on a short week, McVay will only have three-plus days to get ready for Bill Belichick’s squad on Thursday night.

Needless to say, it’ll be hard for him to over-prepare for the Patriots with a week and a half less than he had two years ago before the Super Bowl.

“It’ll be the same things. It’ll just be an accelerated process,” McVay said of the focus during this short week. “The difference between what you can normally do in a typical week, as opposed to a Thursday game is a real big emphasis above-the-neck. Obviously, this is a team that really stresses you and challenges you in all three phases. I have tremendous respect for the ability for them to really play complementary football, shift their identity to mold and to figure out how they want to try to win the football game. You’ve really seen that reflected each of the last couple of weeks with the way they played the Cardinals, with the way that they played the Chargers yesterday. It was a good win by our team yesterday, but it’s about being able to move on and kind of hit the reset button and have a great week of preparation. And a lot of that will be mentally and that’ll be the big thing for us.”

The Rams are coming off an impressive win over the Cardinals, securing their eighth victory on Sunday, 38-28. The Patriots won in even more convincing fashion against the Chargers, blowing out L.A. 45-0 at SoFi Stadium.

McVay has obviously watched what happened in that one, but he’s not poring over the film like he did two years ago – simply because he doesn’t have the time to. He’s making sure to get some sleep to keep his mind fresh, something he’s learned to do over the last couple of years.

“No,” McVay said Monday when asked if he was up all night working after the Rams’ win. “The Sundays wear you out a little bit. I tried to get some rest last night, got up early and got started. But it is a quick turnaround, but no excuses on my end. That would not be smart. I would be brain dead probably right after this call if I didn’t get any sleep. So got some sleep got up early this morning and looking forward to seeing if we can do a good job of starting this game plan off the right way.”

After studying the Patriots extensively before the Super Bowl, McVay struggled to come up with a contingency plan after Belichick surprised the Rams with a more zone-heavy approach – quite the contrary to what New England had been doing all season. This time around, McVay wants his team to be able to adapt accordingly if the Patriots switch things up again.

“Let’s have a great plan. Let’s be ready to adjust and adapt accordingly,” McVay said of what he hopes to accomplish this week. “Because the agility that they demonstrate as a football team is something that I think has been a real strength of theirs. I think that’s something that we’ve gotten better at, but you’ve got to put yourself in a position to have great preparation and make sure that you do a great job of trying to make good decisions that are in alignment with putting the players in good spots.”

The Rams come in as the better team at 8-4, but Belichick’s team isn’t one to overlook. The Patriots have won four of their last five and currently sit at 6-6, fighting for their playoff lives as the season winds to a close.

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Rams’ special teams must be at its best vs. Patriots because ‘they’ll make you pay’

Sean McVay says there’s a “heightened sense of urgency” with the special teams unity this week.

Bill Belichick got his start in the NFL on special teams. That phase of the game is rooted in his coaching history, always emphasizing the importance of being great not only on offense and defense, but special teams, too.

The Rams have not had much success in that all-important third phase of football this season, struggling to find consistency at kicker and in the return game. On Sunday against the Cardinals, Matt Gay missed a 37-yard field goal and Nsimba Webster lost a fumble on a punt return, allowing Arizona to stay in the game.

On the contrary, the Patriots absolutely wrecked the Chargers on special teams in their 45-0 win, blocking a field goal and returning it for a touchdown, as well as a 70-yard punt return for a score.

Sean McVay isn’t panicking ahead of this matchup, but he does believe there’s a higher sense of urgency knowing how good the Patriots are on special teams.

“I don’t want to say concern, I think you have a heightened sense of urgency,” he told reporters Monday. “We know what we’ve got to be able to do. I think these guys clearly see the advantage that they’ve created. You go back to Coach Belichick’s history, starting out as a special teams coordinator. The kicking game and the way that they create edges and advantages for them, has been something that I’ve always noticed from afar. And then, especially when you look at the game yesterday, that was a true winning edge that really turned the tables and in a lot of instances was a reflection of why the score was so lopsided. So, it’s definitely something that guys have to really be aware of.”

Gay has done a nice job so far for the Rams, making all 10 of his extra point attempts since joining the team a few weeks ago. But he has missed two field goals, including the 37-yarder that clanked off the upright against Arizona.

“Clearly there’s some things in the kicking game that we have to get better at. That’s not a secret to anybody from yesterday,” McVay said, “but the beauty of it is, is you get a chance on a short week to be able to respond.”

If the Rams have any glaring mistakes on special teams, the Patriots will take advantage. McVay knows it, John Bonamego knows it, and the players know it – especially after seeing New England blow out the Chargers in the same building.

“We’ve got to figure out a way of getting guys in the right spots, understanding how to play well in really all the phases of the kicking game. And if we don’t, they’ll make you pay just like they did yesterday.”

Rams open as 6-point favorites over Patriots in Week 14

Despite New England crushing the Chargers, the Rams are still big favorites in Week 14.

With both teams coming off big Week 13 wins, the Los Angeles Rams and New England Patriots will square off on a short week this Thursday night. It’s a rematch of Super Bowl LIII, a game most Rams fans would probably rather forget, but both teams look very different than they did in that one.

This time, the Rams come in as overwhelming favorites, boasting an 8-4 record compared to New England’s 6-6 mark. According to BetMGM, the Rams open the week as six-point favorites over New England, with a money line of -275. That means a $275 bet on the Rams to win outright will return a profit of $100.

The Patriots have struggled in their post-Tom Brady transition, but it’s not solely because of his replacement, Cam Newton. And even though their record is unimpressive, the Rams shouldn’t take Bill Belichick’s squad lightly.

New England just crushed the Chargers at SoFi Stadium on Sunday, winning 45-0 thanks to a dominant effort on defense and special teams. And considering Bill Belichick shut down the Rams once before in the Super Bowl, he shouldn’t be doubted in this Week 14 matchup.

This season, the Rams are 7-5 against the spread, meaning they’ve covered in seven of their 12 games. The Patriots are 6-6 ATS, but have covered in each of their last two games. The over/under in this game is set lower, only coming in at 44.5 points, the lowest of Week 14 so far.

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Andrew Whitworth skeptical of Patriots’ intentions in videotaping scandal

Andrew Whitworth isn’t convinced the Patriots are innocent: “Why does it always seem to be that they’re involved in something?”

The Patriots have once again found themselves in the middle of a scandal involving the videotaping of another team’s sideline. The NFL is investigating the Patriots’ in-house video crew filming the Bengals’ sideline against the Browns on Sunday, which New England maintains is for a digital documentary series called “Do Your Job.”

Andrew Whitworth of the Rams isn’t as convinced. Given the Patriots’ history of Spygate and Deflategate, he’s not so sure they’re completely innocent of any wrongdoing in this situation.

He was on the “Rich Eisen Show” Wednesday and shared his thoughts on the incident, admitting it’s a different feeling when it’s the Patriots who are involved.

“I think it’s tough. Obviously, it’s one of those that’s going to send up everybody’s alerts across the league. Obviously, it’s one of those things when you keep being involved in a topic or something and it just centers around one team, it makes it tough because it’s one of those things where you go, yeah, it sounds like a harmless situation, but why is it always this team that’s involved in these harmless situations?” Whitworth said. “I think that’s one of the things that as players across the league in general, that’s really the thought most guys have, just because it’s tough that it always seems to be them involved in something like this.

“And also, it’s just funny – the whole situation. Like, we’re filming an advanced scouting documentary or something? I don’t know.”

Whitworth has been in the NFL for more than a decade, coming into the league in 2006 with the Bengals. He was in Cincinnati when the Spygate scandal happened and was obviously around for Deflategate, still as a member of the Bengals. So he knows how players feel about these types of situations and what the reaction will be, having been in NFL locker rooms for 14 years.

He believes this latest videotaping scandal is going to raise some red flags among players across the league.

“I think it creates a lot of skepticism,” he said. “It’s like, hey, why does it always seem to be that they’re involved in something? But at the end of the day, it sounds like it’s something that’s pretty harmless. But it’s also very strange that you’re just filming the Bengals sideline.”

Given the Patriots’ history, players and coaches are always on alert when playing them – especially in Foxborough. Whitworth has played there three times in his career and each time, it was treated differently than any other game.

“I think, in particular, when it comes to them, a lot,” Whitworth said of how paranoid teams are about the Patriots. “I know every time you play them or have gone there – when I was in Cincinnati, it was always like it was a different week when it came to that kind of stuff. ‘Hey, let’s be careful with papers that we’re handing out,’ or ‘let’s be careful about certain places.’”

He elaborated, saying players are always cracking jokes about the Patriots potentially spying.

“If you’re there in a hotel somewhere, like, who knows?” he said. “It’s always a joke, it’s a running joke – like ‘What person on the staff out here at the hotel might be talking to the Patriots?’ Most of the time, it’s kind of just being facetious and you’re just making a joke of it, but at the same time, you are thinking about that while you’re there.

“They’ve been a part of it, so it is what it is. They’re also a tremendous organization, they’ve had a lot of success. But they’ve also been involved in some things that raise the antennas a little bit.”

The Rams obviously played the Patriots in Super Bowl LIII, losing 13-3. Given the things Whitworth said about New England, it wouldn’t be shocking if the Rams took extra precautions in the week leading up to the game.

He’s certainly skeptical of the Patriots’ intentions in this situation, as are many others.

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