Falcons take on upstart Rams
LOS ANGELES — The Atlanta Falcons visited the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum late during the 2016 regular season before starting their run to the Super Bowl, and they easily racked up a blowout victory over the woebegone Rams.
When they return there tonight for a wild-card matchup in the NFC playoffs, they might hardly recognize the guys in the horned helmets on the other sideline.
That 42-14 loss to the Falcons was a catalyst in the
Rams’ transformation from
L.A. laughingstocks into NFC
West champions. Coach
Jeff Fisher was fired the next day, and one month later Sean McVay was hired to lead what became the most incredible one-year turnaround in recent NFL history.
“People are excited, and that was our goal when we came back here,” McVay said. “We wanted to be able to provide a good football product that our fans can be proud of and they want to come out and support.”
Led by the 31-year-old McVay, who grew up near Atlanta, and a roster of playmakers that includes quarterback Jared Goff, running back Todd Gurley and defensive tackle Aaron Donald, the Rams (11-5) are in the playoffs for the first time in 13 years. The NFC’s third seed drew a tough matchup with quarterback Matt Ryan — the 2016 league MVP — and the Falcons (10-6), who appear capable of making another conference run.
But the Rams expect to feed off the excitement of a city hosting its first playoff game since the Raiders’ last postseason trip 24 years ago. They moved back to Oakland two seasons later, and L.A. was without a football team until the Rams returned before the 2016 season. Now they also have the Chargers, formerly of San Diego, in residence.
“It’s definitely a cool thing,” Goff said. “After football has been gone from here for so long, and we come back in
year two and are able to bring a playoff game to the Coliseum, that’s very cool.”
Goff — a second-year pro out of the University of California who is coming off a transformative regular season in which he passed for 3,804 yards — is eager to face off with Ryan, who is in the playoffs for the sixth time in 10 years. Both teams have a wealth of offensive playmakers, from MVP candidate Gurley to star Falcons receiver Julio Jones.
The Falcons will be playing their first postseason game since that memorable Super Bowl LI collapse against New England last February in Houston. That overtime loss could have broken weaker teams, but coach Dan Quinn kept this bunch together — and now they’re the only franchise in the six-team NFC field that also made the playoffs last season.
“I love the resiliency and the toughness of this team,” Quinn said. “When you’ve been through some of the fire together and you come out the other side stronger as a brotherhood, we’re certainly improved.”
While the Falcons know everything about playoff pressure, the Rams seriously lack experience: Just six of their players have been in postseason games — including star left tackle Andrew Whitworth, who went 0-6 in Cincinnati — and McVay is the youngest head coach in a playoff game in NFL history.
“That’s really not an excuse for us,” said Whitworth, who cited the Rams’ series of games against playoff-bound teams down the stretch in the regular season as good experience under pressure. “I think we just need to go out there and execute.”
The Rams didn’t earn a firstround bye, but McVay essentially took one by resting his biggest playmakers for last week’s regular-season finale. The decision likely cost Gurley, a former University of Georgia star, the NFL rushing title, but it should pay off with rested skill-position players. In the ultracompetitive NFC South, the Falcons had to grind into the final week to secure a wild-card spot with a 22-10 win over Carolina.
Although both defenses are statistically solid, this game could turn into a shootout. The Falcons led the NFL in scoring last season, but the Rams took over the top spot this year in McVay’s worst-to-first revitalization of the offense. Ryan and Jones have the skills to pick at the Rams’ secondary if Donald can’t be disruptive, while Goff and the versatile Gurley are eager to make their own marks.