Free Friday: The Super Bowl Rams live one more week, at least

The Super Bowl Rams are winding down. We know this intuitively even without them trading Cooper Kupp. Aaron Donald is gone. The team has zero playoff wins since hoisting the trophy. Kupp is 31, Matthew Stafford is 36. Those two (and the IR’ed Tyler Higbee) are the only skill position players left from 2021, with tackle Rob Havenstein also still kicking it. An injured Troy Reeder is here to represent the 2021 defense, as well as an injured Darious Williams that left and came back. That’s the gist of it.

The Rams never really rebuilt. It was kind of hard for them to even attempt it without any first-round picks, as you may famously understand from the meme “fuck them picks.” So what is left is a mish-mash of the Stafford/Kupp passing game that torched the league three years ago and a bundle of younger players who are already making an impact — Puka Nacua, Kobie Turner, Kyren Williams, Jared Verse, and Byron Young.

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With rumors swirling about Kupp, this game almost took on the feel of a must-win for the old core. Lose and you’re 2-5, last place in the NFC West and almost eliminated from the wild card playoff picture. Win, and you’re one win over Seattle next week from being tied for first place. The Rams? They immediately activated Puka Nacua and put the chips in. They won.

It was a huge defensive disappointment for the Vikings. The Rams, to be fair, had some big penalties bailing them out on third downs, but a Vikings defense that had been utterly dominant earlier in the year gave up 30 points, got zero sacks, and produced only four quarterback pressures per NFL Pro. Stafford was only blitzed on 35.3% of his dropbacks. Why can the Rams set up this sort of scenario and not the Texans? Some of it is, I think, about using more pre-snap motion. Some of it is about an effective play-action game. And some of it, I’d put on the Vikings not having Blake Cashman to cover the middle of the field and that making them less comfortable blitzing.

Either way, one undeniable thing is that with his two best receivers back, Stafford was dealing.

The other major news coming out of this game for the Vikings is a potential long-term injury for Christian Darrisaw, their star left tackle. He was rolled up on right before the first half ended on a run-the-clock-if-it’s-bad running play. Brutal loss. David Quessenberry was the short-term fill in and immediately the Vikings line started leaking pressures all over the place in the second half.

While I still think Sam Darnold is playing solid ball this year, you could definitely see the pressure post-Darrisaw cascading on him. He just waits a little too long sometimes for something to open up. It gives me, if I’m honest, Ryan Tannehill vibes. And on the most famous play that this game will have going forward, he waited a little too long to just throw the ball:

Aaron Jones wide open to his right. The tight end chip underneath to his left. The line stands everyone up for the first few seconds of this play, and you just can’t take this sack.

Let’s briefly discuss the terrible non-facemask call: I am a replay abolitionist. And the reason I am a replay abolitionist is built in to this still happening. We have 10 angles of every football play and the system we build with them is so terrible that something like this can still happen and piss everybody off. So what ends up happening is we all end up watching a replay 15 times, knowing that the call is stupid, and not being able to do anything about it. Me? I’d rather just keep it moving if we’re going to still have bad calls. I understand that’s not a popular take in the face of the general NFL society, but the last thing I want to do with my life is Zapruder what was called a catch on the field for five minutes and come no closer to understanding if it’s a catch or not. In this case, we wouldn’t have had to do that, it was blatant.

ICYMI

This week’s pieces in various stops:

Monday: Week 7 recap
Tuesday: MNF recap ($), The end of the Dallas Cowboys
Wednesday: Fantasy Fallout: DeAndre Hopkins Trade
Thursday: Tank Dell ($)

If you’re an editor at a publication and are interested in having me write a piece for you, I accept DMs on X, The Everything App, as well as BlueSky.

Have a great weekend and I’ll see you Monday, where hopefully I won’t have to talk about Kenyon Green again.

Man, Free: A Football Newsletter is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.