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I walked into the grocery store last Sunday night here in southern California to find an unattended merchandise table next to the entrance filled with LA Rams Conference Champion tee shirts. I didn’t see what the original MSRP was, but it took at most a week for these shirts to grow red clearance tags for $4.50. Seeing how great a deal that was, I wanted to fit in with the good vibes of Rams fans that were there. I followed their lead by immediately walking ten feet over from said table to the Starbucks stand and spent that $4.50 on a latte. Strategically speaking, this was a clever move. No, not the latte part – the grocery store management part. Put the Rams merch by the front door unattended and pray someone steals it all, thus allowing you to write this miserable investment off.
This experience provided me with a good barometer of the Super Bowl excitement level out here. On the official level of care scale, it’s sunken below comatose and is stealthily approaching Jay Cutler territory. As a Chicago native, this is simply bewildering to me. If this happened in the windy city, it would be as staggering of a sight as everyone falling under the Bird Box suicide spell. It feels like another planet out here. The whole talk about California seceding from the US might have not gone far enough. It should probably secede to outer space where, without any air to breathe, we Californians won’t have to worry about spreading measles from our unvaccinated offspring.
But rest assured: the rest of the nation cares about the Super Bowl. And aside from the homers and those affected by the Bayou Brouhaha, America as a unit are full-heartedly rooting against New England.
Nothing new there. Curiously though, while the nation’s heart is against New England, their wallets are strongly with them. A whopping 89 percent of spread money is going to New England -2.5. It seems that we, as a nation, are convinced that despite a desire for Bradichick and company to fall short again, we’re cool with accepting reality and cashing in on it. Basically, America is buying life insurance on its best friend: anyone playing the Patriots. The only thing more American than this would be the litigation that follows.
OK. After doing to proper analyses, I have determined whether or not the nation is doing the right thing by betting with their wallet and not their heart. When predicting success in the NFL, the single best statistic available is yards per pass attempt (YPA). Not many people know this. But that’s what I’m here for. This year, Jared Goff averaged 8.3 YPA vs. Tom Brady’s 7.7. It’s a slight edge for Goff. But let us not forget this is the same Jared Goff who revealed on Hard Knocks he thinks the sun sets in the east. Directional challenges seems problematic for a leader, so it’s easily worth a .6 YPA deduction to even out this score.
It’s also prudent to look into whether or not anyone has overachieved this year. Overachieving can be a sign of regressing back to one’s normal average. Think Tim Tebow in that playoff game vs. Pittsburgh years ago. Or, Nick Foles, late in the year of 2017. Or, Nick Foles, late in the year of 2018. I don’t see anything too glaring for either team. Both quarterbacks have performed within normal margins on all worthy statistics. Gurley has been every bit the Gurley of last year although it is pretty darn clear he will not be anywhere close to 100 percent healthy. In any case, I’m giving this another wash.
The next thing to consider is offense/defense rankings throughout the year. The Rams ranked second in the league on offense while the Patriots ranked fourth. Pretty darn close. However, the Rams mediocre 19th ranked defense pales in comparison to New England’s 7th. As wild as the game got for New England against KC in the Championship game, I think back at the atrocity of the Rams defense against KC several weeks back. Overall, they have been untenably bad. And there’s no way in hell anyone on the Ram’s secondary is getting any benefit of the doubt from the refs after the infamous Bayou Brouhaha.
This defensive gap is a pretty alarming edge for the Patriots. If you read my feature column investigation into whether or not defenses win championships, there’s a case to be made that a defense who is able to stay disciplined in this age of ever-growing offensive handicaps can gain a slight edge vs. equally ranked offenses.
Everything considered, I am predicting the third-year star quarterback Jared Goff gives a pregame speech so powerful, he convinces the rest of the team they can win doing the Bird Box challenge. This allows Jared to test his true leadership ability. With high hopes of a story book, ride off into the sunset type ending, Goff will lead his team precisely in the direction he intends as the silhouette of him and his blinded teammates slowly fades off into the sunrise.
Patriots 34. Rams 27.
