Super challenge: Rams open title defense vs powerhouse Bills
INGLEWOOD, Calif. (AP) — For nearly seven months, Sean McVay has told the Los Angeles Rams their Super Bowl championship guarantees them nothing in this new season except a banner.
“It feels like it was a long time ago,” said McVay, the youngest coach in NFL history to win it all. “It’s one that I’ll always cherish, but I think if you live in the past, you’re going to get exposed in the present. So we’re not going to do that.”
The Rams will unveil that banner Thursday night at SoFi Stadium before they get another reminder of just how little their championship victory on that same field last winter will mean this fall.
The NFL chose Von Miller and the powerhouse Buffalo Bills as the Rams’ opponent in their season opener, practically ensuring a difficult start to a season in which they’re widely perceived to have the league’s toughest schedule. The Rams know they’ll get every opponent’s best shot this year, starting with a visit from a team holding serious championship aspirations of its own.
“Going in to play the defending Super Bowl champs and watching them raise their banner, that’ll be an interesting feeling, for sure,” Buffalo quarterback Josh Allen said. “I’ve talked to a few people that have played and coached in this game before, and just really the unanimous thing that they were talking about was it feels like playoff atmosphere.”
The Rams are Vegas underdogs in their first game since winning their franchise’s second Super Bowl title. In fact, the Bills could send Los Angeles to a place it has never been with McVay — below .500.
The Rams have never lost a season opener or had a losing record at any point in the tenure of McVay, who took over in 2017 and immediately built a perennial winner with general manager Les Snead.
Sean McDermott got his job in Buffalo one week before McVay, and the still-young coaches already have the sixthand seventh-longest tenures in the league. But while McVay got the ultimate validation last season, McDermott is hoping this will be the year for the Bills’ first Super Bowl trip since the 1993 season.
The Rams already did it all in a season filled with superlatives, including the spectacular statistical campaign by Super Bowl MVP Cooper Kupp.
“The question we’re always trying to answer is, how can 2022 be better for the LA Rams?” Kupp said. “What can we do better? Who can we put on the field to stack blocks and build on this thing? Feels good to be back playing a meaningful game.”
DORSEY’S DEBUT
Ken Dorsey first made his name in football by going 38-2 as the University of Miami’s quarterback from 19992002, a stint which included a national championship in 2001. Dorsey now makes his debut as an offensive coordinator, running one of the league’s most productive groups after being promoted to replace Brian Daboll.
“Whether you’re a position coach or a playcaller or a head coach, I really feel like you’ve got to go earn it,” Dorsey said. “No one’s going to hand you anything. When you get to the point where I’ve been fortunate enough to get to right now, you don’t take it for granted, because you realize how hard it is to get there.”
TWO NEW RAMS
While Los Angeles lost Miller to a more lucrative offer in Buffalo, it added two key veterans in free agency. Inside linebacker Bobby Wagner debuts as the defensive signal-caller for his hometown team after a decade in Seattle, while receiver Allen Robinson takes over as Kupp’s counterpart.
JOHNSONBURG – Freddy Frey, from Duncannon, set the bar ‘high’ at Rolfe Beagle Club’s Statewide, 10Day Coyote and Crow Hunt by harvesting four coyotes from Somerset County.
Freddy hunts mostly private lands and farmer’s fields.
“I have several thousand acres to hunt via farms in the area,” said Freddy, “and the farmers are appreciative that we can thin the coyotes.”
Freddy uses both an electronic call and mouth calls, and harvests with a .223 caliber rifle. He harvested a coyote each morning of the 10-day hunt, to date – one each on Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. Freddy’s three male coyotes weighed 35 pounds, 34 pounds, and 26.2 pounds. The female coyote weighed
JOHNSONBURG – Sean Holjencin from Kersey and Nick Keller from Emporium successfully harvested the first two coyotes at Rolfe Beagle Club’s Statewide Coyote and Crow Hunt.
Sean harvested a 23-pound female coyote at 5:45 a.m. on Thursday morning. Sean calls with a FoxPro and harvests with a .243 caliber rifle. Sean harvested the coyote on private lands in Fox Township, Elk County.
Nick harvested in at 29.2 pounds.
“I set a personal goal to harvest 50 coyotes this year, but now that I’ve exceeded that goal, I’m going to try and reach 100 coyotes. The farmers really appreciate the service us coyote hunters provide. The coyote I shot a 30-pound female coyote shortly after midnight on Saturday morning. Nick calls with a mouse squeaker mouth call and harvests with a .223 Swift rifle. Nick harvested his coyote from a farmer’s open field in the Moorhill Area of Cameron County.
Weigh-in is at 6 p.m. every day. Categories include coyote, crow, and largest female coyote.
Additional information at the Facebook Page, Rolfe Beagle Club.
Sunday morning was my 80th coyote since the first of January. I like helping farmers,” said Freddy.
Weigh-in is at 6 p.m. every day. Categories include coyote, crow, and largest female coyote.
Additional information at the Facebook Page, Rolfe Beagle Club.