The L.A. Rams dominated Russell Wilson and the Seattle Seahawks on Sunday night and are right back into the playoff race in the NFC
The Los Angeles Rams blowout loss at home to the Baltimore Ravens in primetime on Monday Night Football now seems like a distant memory.
The Rams have resuscitated their once-dormant playoff hopes with consecutive dominant performances on defense, the latest a 28-12 victory over the Seattle Seahawks at the L.A. Coliseum on Sunday night.
Led by Samson Ebukam, Aaron Donald and Dante Fowler, the Rams pressured and harassed Seahawks quarterback Russell Wilson all game, sacking him five times and knocking him down on 11 dropbacks. Two weeks after being shredded by MVP frontrunner Lamar Jackson and the Ravens for 45 points, they held Seattle to just six points on offense.
The Seahawks’ only touchdown came on an interception return by Quandre Diggs in the third quarter. This comes after the Rams recorded six sacks in a 34-7 win over the Arizona Cardinals last week.
“They did their thing today,” quarterback Jared Goff told ESPN after the game. “They’re freaking balling.”
Wilson was held without a passing touchdown for the first time this season and was intercepted by Troy Hill in the end zone on a last gasp drive with 1:36 remaining in the fourth quarter. This is the first time in three seasons under head coach Sean McVay that the Rams defense has held the opposing offense to seven points or fewer in back-to-back games.
The play of Goff and the offense was a big reason for the Rams’ struggles in the middle of the season as the reigning NFC champions saw their chances of repeating slip away. Goff had a three-game stretch between Weeks 10-12 where he threw five interceptions and no touchdowns. In the past two weeks, though, Goff has thrown for 717 yards and four touchdowns, two of them on Sunday against Seattle.
The Rams scored touchdowns on three of their four drives in the first half and put the game away with a 95-yard drive in the fourth quarter capped off by a Todd Gurley touchdown run from seven yards out. Goff’s only blemishes were two interceptions by Diggs, one on a miscommunication with wide receiver Robert Woods who cut off his route while Goff faced pressure up the middle.
With three games remaining in the regular season, the Rams playoff hopes are now very much alive. They trail the Minnesota Vikings by one game for the sixth seed in the NFC and the Seahawks by two. They travel to Dallas to take on the slumping Cowboys next Sunday before a pivotal matchup with the NFC West-leading San Francisco 49ers in Week 16.
“We’re still in this thing,” Goff said. “We’ve got some fight to us. So we’ll see what happens.”
They walked off the L.A. Coliseum field against Baltimore 13 days ago a defeated group, a far cry from the team that represented the NFC in the Super Bowl in February. But the Rams haven’t quit just yet, and they showed the Seahawks that champions keep fighting until the very end.