FMIA - Peter Kings take on the Rams week 1 win

FMIA

Rams 30, Seahawks 13

All summer, there was a rebuilding vibe around the league about the Rams. Rebuilding, with three keystone vets—Matthew Stafford, Aaron Donald and Cooper Kupp. When a hamstring issue sent Kupp to IR last week, the vibe shifted to Uh-oh. With strong playoff contenders on the schedule in September—at Seattle, Niners at home, at Cincinnati—the Rams looked to be a lot closer to Arizona and the bottom of the NFC West than to San Francisco and the top.

That’s the thing about week one. There’s been a crapload of talk and no playing for eight months. How can anyone really know what kind of team anyone has?

Who on earth could have figured a previously invisible 2021 second-rounder, Tutu Atwell, and this year’s fifth-round pick, Puka Nacua, would have twin 119-yard receiving games. Nacua, from BYU, is a lithe, 6-2, 205-pound strong route-runner with okay speed but an intense love of the game. Crazy for a rookie’s first game in the NFL: 15 targets, 10 catches, 119 yards. “This is football heaven for me,” Nacua said after the game. Those in the locker room said he couldn’t stop grinning and laughing.

“I’ll say this,” Stafford told me from the locker room. “Every year is a new year. Until you go out there and play the games, there’s always a little bit of the unknown. For us as a team, I was really confident in the guys that we were gonna go out there and play with. Whether that was gonna end up in a 17-point win, I can’t tell you that I knew that was gonna happen. But I definitely felt that if we just played the way we’ve been playing in practice, we were gonna have a good shot.

“Puka’s come in and we’ve asked him to do a lot. Every time we put something more on his plate, he does a great job making it come to life. Obviously has great run-after-catch ability and he’s a physical player. The game makes sense to him, if you know what I mean. And he grinds. I trust him.”

The Rams outgained Seattle 426-180. Stunning, too, was the Rams’ five second-half drives: TD, field goal, TD, field goal, field goal. And the 39 minutes of possession time. It all reflected what Sean McVay tried to institute this off-season—a more physical style of play in practice. For the Rams to win, McVay knew he’d have to be able to use multiple styles of play, particularly in the run game. The Rams rushed for a modest 92 yards Sunday, but the 40 rushing attempts chewed the clock and helped limit the Seahawks to 46 offensive snaps, 18 or 20 below the NFL norm. Smart coaches know sometimes you’ve got to play clockball. And McVay’s a smart coach. If week one is any indication, the Rams could be one of the NFL’s most intriguing teams.

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BeachBoy