www.nbcsports.com
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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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r. Football Story of the Week: It’s paywalled, but if you get ESPN+, Seth Wickersham
on Asshole Face is worth the time.
s. Lots of nuts and bolts about what drives Payton, which is well worth it, and also a good bit on how he can never, ever forget a slight.
t. My favorite part of the story comes at the end, when Wickersham sits with Payton getting ticked off about what he sees on tape in a training-camp practice against the Rams. This is so Payton.
u. Writes Wickersham:
He tilts his chair back toward the flat-screen on the wall, finding it hard to believe anything but the worst of his team. He knows himself well enough to realize that this emotion will pass, part of a process. He hopes … He pulls out a yellow legal pad and kicks his feet up.
“All right,” he says. “I’m going to be pissed off watching this.”
Two hours pass and he utters only disparate thoughts, 10, 20 minutes apart ... Helluva throw by Russ … Horrible route … What are we doing … I hate this … clicking through plays, rewinding over and over and over. The Rams seemed more invested than the Broncos, both in the outcome and in one another. They jump and yell after a big play. The Broncos are flat. He’s frustrated about pre-snap penalties and that the receivers aren’t blocking downfield on screen passes, killing any chance of a big gain.
What troubles him more is something he sees on film but isn’t sure how to fix: It’s that the Broncos, after a bad play, are discouraged on the snaps that follow. They can’t forget …
He writes in all capital letters on his pad:
PEN. PRESNAP
4 OFFSIDES DEF
4 FALSE START OFF
1 FALSE START ST
9 TOTAL!!
He walks out of his office, and into a team meeting. The room quiets when he enters. He’s at the front, looking out on the players, his tone urgent but diplomatic. He shows some slides, detailing the Broncos pre-snap penalties last year. “Let’s not lose track of the part about knowing how to win first,” he says. “We’ve gotta fix that.”
He then shows plays from today’s practice, of mental errors and lack of effort, and his calm evaporates. He starts to simmer. “You false start, I’m pulling you out. Take a lap around the whole f---ing complex …”
v. You can just feel Payton simmering.
w. This is why Wickersham is so good: He figures out a way to get inside a guy. He gets inside the guy. He witnesses the crucial nugget that explains everything about a guy and his current lot in life. He explains the nugget (in greater detail than I’ve just given). And you know, now, about a guy who is famous and what ingredients have brought him that fame.
