The Rams won in Philadelphia and are 2-2, and our model still makes Los Angeles the Super Bowl favorite at 29 percent
Updated
Los Angeles finally played a game that looked like the team our model has believed in since July. The Rams went to Philadelphia and won 24-20, held the Eagles to 20 on the road, and climbed back to 2-2 after a start that included a 27-7 loss to San Francisco in Melbourne and a 30-26 loss in Denver in which Matthew Stafford threw for 403 yards. When we ran the rest of the season the Rams came out at 13-4 with a 99 percent playoff chance and a 29 percent title chance, which is still the highest in the league but down from 38.5 after Week 3 and 44 in the summer. The record projection has not moved. The title odds keep bleeding, and the reason is not the Rams. It is that Detroit, Jacksonville and Baltimore keep getting stronger in the same simulations.
Stafford's line is the one that needs explaining. He is 99 of 162 for 1,189 yards with six touchdowns and six interceptions, an 80.5 passer rating through four games, and our model has quietly cut his season projection from 34 touchdowns to 30 and lifted his interception projection to 15. The rating projection has slipped from 100 to under 96. That is a quarterback who has thrown for a lot of yards in a lot of trouble, and the Philadelphia game was the first in which the offense looked balanced rather than frantic. Davante Adams has 22 catches for 390 yards and two scores and projects for 94 catches and 1,494 yards. Puka Nacua is back from the groin injury, played in Philadelphia, and projects for 111 catches and 1,491 yards, which means the model still has two 1,400-yard receivers on one roster. Kyren Williams has 294 rushing yards and three touchdowns and projects for 1,354 and 13. The offense projects for 454 points, second in the league, down from 482 a week ago and 551 in July.
The defense is doing exactly what the summer sim said it would, and it is the reason the title odds have not collapsed. Los Angeles projects to allow 280 points, second in the league, and the fewest yards in football. Byron Young has four sacks in four games and his projection has climbed from ten and a half to 13. Kamren Curl projects for four interceptions. The team projects for 41 sacks and nearly 14 picks. Aaron Donald missed the Philadelphia game with the back injury that has bothered him since September, and the unit held the Eagles to 20 without him, which is the best argument the defense has made all year. His sack projection has drifted to seven and a half because of the missed time.
The division is the problem the Rams did not have in July. San Francisco is 4-0 and projects for ten wins. Seattle is 3-1 and projects for ten. The Rams are two games back of the 49ers, have lost the head-to-head, and still project to finish with three more wins than either of them, which tells you how much the model still trusts this roster over 13 remaining games. When we ran the rest of the season the Rams won the NFC West in most simulated years, but the share has shrunk every week, and the 49ers took it often enough that the division is no longer a formality in the model's eyes. Two games is a lot of ground to make up against a team that has not lost.
The next month is the most favorable in the league, and it needs to be. Buffalo at home at 94 percent, Arizona at home at 90, a trip to Las Vegas at 80, the Chargers at home at 88, and a trip to Washington at 90. When we ran that stretch the Rams went 5-0 more often than any other outcome, and a 7-2 record entering November would put them back on the 13-win pace the projection has assumed all along. Anything less than 4-1 would be the first real evidence that the model has overrated this roster.
The matchup record is the honest part of the Rams' season. We gave Los Angeles 90 percent in Melbourne, 96 against the Giants, 80 in Denver and 70 in Philadelphia. That is roughly three and a third expected wins from four games, and the Rams have delivered two. Only the Chargers, Texans and Buccaneers have underperformed our matchup projections by more, and it is the reason the record projection has slid from 14.8 wins in July to 12.9 now while the player grades have barely moved. Philadelphia was the first week the result matched the number. The model is asking for five more of those in a row.
The player lines moved more than the team line did. Stafford's touchdown projection dropped from 34 to 30 and his interception projection rose from 14 to 15 in one week, which is a large move for a quarterback the model had at 100 rating in September, and his rating projection is now 95.8. Nacua's return pushed his projection up from 105 catches to 111 and his yardage from 1,404 to 1,491, while Adams dropped from 96 catches to 94. Tyler Higbee's projection has jumped from twelve catches to 56 with Colby Parkinson sidelined by a shoulder injury and Terrance Ferguson on injured reserve, which is the model rerunning the tight end room from scratch. Kyren Williams' receiving line climbed from 41 catches to 60. On defense, Byron Young's four sacks have pushed his projection from 10.6 to 13.1, the biggest individual move on the roster, and Curl's tackle projection dropped from 104 to 90. The number to watch is Stafford's interceptions. Six through four games is the pace the model has started to believe, and 15 for the season is the difference between a 13-4 team and the near 15-win team it projected in July.
The market opened Los Angeles at eleven and a half wins. In July we sat more than three over it, which was the biggest lean on the board. We now sit a win and a half over it, and the lean is about a defense that has been as good as advertised and an offense that has been more careless than advertised. The read on the Rams has not changed much since September: the roster is the best in the conference, the quarterback has been the problem, and the division is now a race rather than a coronation. Philadelphia was the first step back. Buffalo at 94 percent should be the second.
