Everything That Could Go Wrong for the Rams

Overwhelming Super Bowl favorites, the Rams can't expect Myles Garrett to fix their problems

Did the Rams win 14 of their last 15 games? Did the Rams outscore teams 101-46 in the playoffs? In the last six games, did the Rams beat the 49ers in back-to-back games (allowing nine total points), the Panthers, the Patriots, and the Rams twice? Did the Rams win the Super Bowl?

Then why are the Rams “unprecedented” Super Bowl favorites at +550 odds to win the next Lombardi Trophy?

It doesn’t matter to me if the Rams are favored and the Seahawks are not. When the quality of the Seahawks is undervalued and their presence in the media’s predictions of success is underrepresented—which is most of the time—I don’t get emotional and I don’t care if L.A. happens to be Seattle’s biggest rivals right now.

It’s the reasons for favoritism that pique my curiosity. Reasons that could apply to any team, it just happens to be that this year’s ‘flavor of the offseason’ is the L.A. Rams.

Earlier this year, I wrote about a writer at NFL.com giving the Seahawks a D+ for their offseason moves. I just disagree with the premise, as I did when ESPN’s Bill Barnwell ranked Seattle 32nd for their offseason in 2022, and I find the reasons to be lazy.

Reading the articles is like taking an “NFL 101” class. “Who spend most money? Me like them most.” When will the media’s top NFL professors start teaching advanced courses?

It’s frustrating, but personally I don’t get frustrated because it’s the Seahawks constantly at the losing end of basic analysis. Keeping in mind that Seattle’s general manager has experienced one losing season in the last 14 years, and that was the year that Russell Wilson got injured, we rarely see analysts attempt the inverse equation of grading:

If John Schneider does it, and the Seahawks are always in the playoff hunt, does that mean that the moves that Seattle makes could be the better way to do it?

That statement sounds far more glazified than I want it to, but it still holds true that nobody seems to be looking back at how the Seahawks won the Super Bowl—value signings, special teams domination, trade deadline additions for middle-round picks—to find Super Bowl-winning answers.

The majority instead crowns the next team to win the Super Bowl…which is apparently the Rams, according to many…and praises them for a job well done before a single game has been played. The Rams made headlines in the offseason, but so many things could go wrong and they barely addressed any of their true weaknesses from last season.

That doesn’t mean that L.A. couldn’t win the Super Bowl, and we’ve seen Sean McVay coach lesser Rams teams to the playoffs. From the very start of Saturday’s 12-question survey for Seahawks fans, the one true blowout race is “Who is Seattle’s biggest threat to earn the number one seed in the NFC?”

The Rams have over 90-percent of the vote so far and only one other team is above one percent:

Rams: 204 votes (90.7%)

Lions: 16 (7.1%)

49ers, Bears: 2 (0.9%)

Eagles: 1 (0.4%)

“Other” has gotten zero votes. So that means the Rams got 204 of 223 votes thus far, and you can continue to vote in the survey today if you missed out.

So you also feel that the Rams are probably Super Bowl favorites, if it’s not Seattle, and that’s fair because nobody else came close to upending the Seahawks during their championship run last year. I just happen to think that although their moves were flashy and could work, there are more weaknesses than you see at first glance. Issues that got overshadowed by headlines.

And if the Rams follow in the footsteps of some other “overwhelming offseason favorites” like the 2003 Bucs, 2009 Patriots, and 2010 Colts, they could fail to even reach the second round of the playoffs.

This is not a Rivals thing

This has nothing to do with Seaside Joe being a Seahawks newsletter and the L.A. Rams being Seattle’s main rivals.

I’d still feel this way if it was the Patriots or the Bills or the Eagles or the Lions being favored, if they were the teams that had traded for Myles Garrett and Trent McDuffie and expecting to get Aaron Donald at some point. I don’t care that it’s the Rams, although it does feel like so many people picked the Rams to beat the Seahawks in key games last year—which they lost—that they’re not quite over it yet and so they’re doubling down now.

I do care that the praise—as it would be for any team—is so basic, predictable, and short-sighted. For many, they don’t see any holes on the Los Angeles Rams going into 2026.

For me, I see more than one.