Playoff-hungry Rams control NFC West
Young Los Angeles routs seasoned Seattle
SEATTLE – Experience is overrated. Just ask Sean McVay and the Los Angeles Rams.
Much of the 2017 season has served as an expose of such as the first-year coach and his coaching staff have guided second-year quarterback Jared Goff and a retooled roster on a surprising run toward the playoffs.
Sunday’s 42-7 beatdown of the Seahawks further drove home the point and could have signaled a changing of the guard.
The Rams put on a clinic as they improved to 10-4 and took one step closer to clinching both the NFC West and a playoff spot. They scored at will, putting up a season high in rushing yards behind Todd Gurley’s 152 yards and three touchdowns. The Rams defense throttled the Seahawks offense, sacking Russell Wilson seven times and holding the unit to a season low both in yards and points. The Rams defense also ensured that its offense started six of seven firsthalf possessions in Seahawks territory.
Stunned would best describe the mood at CenturyLink Field, where the home crowd hadn’t seen its Seahawks lose by more than a touchdown since Russell Wilson took over as the starting quarterback in 2012.
This was supposed to be the hotly contested rematch of teams vying for the top spot in the division. In their first meeting of the season, Seattle pulled off a six-point victory in a shootout that saw Goff and the Rams fall short of a crucial late-game first down by just 6 inches while threatening on a gamewinning drive.
This Sunday, both teams found themselves coming off of disappointing losses — the Rams to Philadelphia, and the Seahawks to Jacksonville — and badly needing rebound performances to help their cases.
Los Angeles owned the better record, but a Seattle win would have given the Seahawks a two-game head-to-head edge as they clung to hopes of running the table and winning the division.
Typically, the Seahawks fare well in these high-pressure situations, and their familiarity with such seemed to translate into an edge over the upstart Rams.
But experience did nothing this time. Seattle’s battered defense — missing Pro Bowl players Richard Sherman, Kam Chancellor and Cliff Avril — offered no resistance, and the offensive line provided Wilson little protection.
Wilson, heroic in recent weeks in keeping his team in the thick of things, proved incapable of willing his team to a competitive level of play, let alone victory.
All season long, McVay has found a way to get his players to respond to adversity and capitalize on prime opportunities. And the 31-year-old did it again this week.
He got his team to understand the sense of urgency as they traveled to one of the toughest stadiums to play in and then delivered a smackdown. Mean- while, Pete Carroll — 35 years McVay’s senior and in his eighth season as coach of the Seahawks — couldn’t push the right buttons.
This game really could have concluded after one half. The defense swarmed Seattle’s offense so fiercely that the Rams offense repeatedly received prime real estate, starting six of seven firsthalf possessions in Seahawks territory while rolling to four touchdowns and a pair of field goals.
The first half concluded with the scoreboard reading 34-0 and the home fans booing heavily as the Seahawks headed to the locker room.
Little changed in the second half, and as the second half mercifully concluded with the stadium only a quarter filled and the Rams playing their backup quarterback, it certainly felt like the beginning of a changing of the guard.
The Rams are on the verge of making the playoffs for the first time since 2004 boasting a talented nucleus led by Aaron Donald and Robert Quinn on defense and Goff and Gurley on offense, and the future is bright.
Meanwhile, the Seahawks are in danger of missing the playoffs for the first time since 2011. Plagued by an aging defense and with Wilson surrounded by few offensive weapons, this franchise could be bracing for an offseason overhaul.