Round Six: Your Vikes/Rams Open Thread

Welcome to Glendale, Arizona-home of the Arrowhead Town Center shopping mall! (seriously, that’s the third sentence in their wiki bio) Guh…

Fallout:

-They’re expected to fall to Detroit next week (as almost all have) but there’s more good news for Washington-the amount of cap space they’re expected to have this offseason? A mere 100 mil. The GM is Adam Peters and he has this team poised to be far above average for the foreseeable future-with the ability to sign free agents of high caliber he can even whiff in the draft and still be okay.

-Eagles starting linebacker Nakobe Dean is done for the playoffs with a torn patellar tendon. The dude knows how to fill out a stat sheet sheet what with 128 tackles, 3 sacks, 9 TFL, 6 QB hits and an INT. That’s tangible difference-making that is going to be hard to replace.

-Yeah, sure, Herbert had a bad game but the reason is that the Texans game plan from the defensive line was near-perfect. Herbert was pressured on 50% of his dropbacks and had less than 2.5 seconds to release the ball 11(!) times. Five of those times defenders were completely unblocked.

To The Game!

-Minny has the most wins ever for a non-#1 seed.

-Stafford averages 308 yards throwing in the playoffs, that’s #1 for all QB’s that have started a minimum of 5 games. Kurt Warner and Dan Fouts come in at second and third with 304.

-That said, the Rams are the lowest-scoring team (21.6) to make the postseason this year.

-With those scoring problems they’ve learned how to win ugly-their last three wins have come by scores of 12-6, 19-9 and 13-9. No one talks about their D.

-The last time they played the Vikes blitzed 12 times and didn’t record a single hit or pressure. How is that possible?

-The Rams have to get out of the gate much faster-they average only 6.8 points scored in the first half.

-I love the sports media’s take on Sam Darnold through the weeks. When he threw for 5 TD’s vs Atlanta it was all SAM THE MAN! When he threw for 0 TD’s vs Detroit (and no INT’s either) it was “Darnold Can’t Rise To The Occasion”. JFC…

DO YOUR BEST.