The Los Angeles Chargers and the Los Angeles Rams will be on Hard Knocks.

HBO’s Hard Knocks will have a very Hollywood feel to it this summer.

Yes, the popular HBO series will feature not one, but two Los Angeles-based NFL franchises. The Los Angeles Chargers AND the Los Angeles Rams will be the stars of the 2020 season of the premium television product.

This will be the 15th season of the series. While it will be the first time the Chargers will be featured on it, this will be the Rams’ second time starring on the show. The Rams were the featured franchise during the 2016 NFL season when they first made the trek from St. Louis to Southern California. They join the Cincinnati Bengals and the Dallas Cowboys as the only repeats.

The new season of Hard Knocks will begin on Aug. 11. It will be shown on HBO, as well as available to stream on HBO Max. Though it won’t be the first time HBO has had to deal with a chaotic NFL offseason, this latest season will be stranger than the one back in 2011 during the lockout, as no team wanted to take part in it and HBO had to go the retrospective route instead.

Hard Knocks will feature the Los Angeles Chargers and the Los Angeles Rams.

In most cases, most teams do not want to be picked to appear on Hard Knocks. Who wants a camera crew following them around during the preseason? These coaches are trying to win enough games to keep their jobs and it’s incredibly awkward to see a player cut on live television. However, going with the Chargers and Rams combo this offseason is the only logical solution.

Admittedly, there may not be enough footage to get from one franchise this offseason during the global pandemic. Having two that share a stadium that isn’t in New York City makes a ton of sense here. Both clubs will play their first seasons at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood. The Rams were on it four years and were a captivating watch, something the Chargers are in desperate need of.

Though it is a twin-billing, we have to believe the primary team of focus of the two will be the Chargers. Head coach Anthony Lynn needs to win to keep his job heading into 2020. We know a lot players on the Chargers’ roster, but we don’t know them like we do the Rams from four years ago. Let’s hope Rams quarterback Jared Goff learned which way the sun sets in the last olympiad.

HBO plays it safe by going with the Chargers and the Rams for the new season of Hard Knocks.

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Jared Goff may never become a quarterback who can carry a team to a Super Bowl title, but that doesn’t mean he can’t win with the Rams in 2020.

In retrospect, the Rams made a massive mistake handing Jared Goff a four-year contract worth up to $134 million. That means they’re effectively stuck with him as their starting quarterback for the foreseeable future. That might limit Los Angeles’ ceiling, but it doesn’t mean they can’t be a solid playoff team with Goff at the controls.

The Rams didn’t make the playoffs a season ago, but it’s not as if their season was a total disaster. Plenty of their NFL peers would have been thrilled to finish with a 9-7 regular season record. The expectations are understandably higher for Sean McVay and his team.

Fortunately, the team has a solid roster of talent that can help prop up their relatively average quarterback. The Rams don’t need to win in spite of Goff, but they do need to excel in other areas of the game to make up for his deficiencies. Here are the top five reasons why the Rams can still win big with Goff as their starter in 2020.

5. Goff can cut down his interceptions

A big part of Goff’s ugly 2019 season was the fact that he threw a career high 16 interceptions. Those turnovers cost the Rams dearly in close games.

It’s easy to see how he can cut down on his interception total in 2020. First and foremost, the Rams are going to ask him to do less with the football in his hands. Look for their scheme to go back towards the play action offense that allowed him to thrive after his disastrous rookie campaign. That means simpler reads and larger throwing windows for Goff.

He’s not going to suddenly become the league’s most accurate passer, but he can stop throwing hte ball to the other team as often in 2020. Less interceptions can equal more wins for the Rams.

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The Los Angeles Rams have gone from first to worst in two years.

Sean McVay was the NFL’s newest coaching sensation. Jared Goff was its next great quarterback. The Los Angeles Rams’ defense under Wade Phillips looked unstoppable.

The 2018 Rams were a sight to behold until the Super Bowl, when their electrifying offense was embarrassed by Bill Belichick’s well-oiled defense. Goff looked scared in the pocket and frequently missed – in every sense of the word – open wide receivers, namely top target Brandin Cooks.

Perhaps the New England Patriots exposed the Rams offense to every other team in the league, because after signing a lucrative contract extension, Goff was a train wreck in 2019. Likened to Los Angeles’ version of Mitchell Trubisky, Goff threw 16 interceptions as the Rams tumbled to a 9-7 record.

Granted, they had a winning record and did so in the NFL’s toughest division. But that should come as no solace to the Rams organization, as the NFC West has only gotten more difficult. The Arizona Cardinals fleeced the Houston Texans to nab superstar wideout DeAndre Hopkins for Kyler Murray, who already looks like a much better young quarterback than Goff.

The Rams, meanwhile, had a disastrous offseason. In two years, Goff’s league-best offensive line has become a weakness, and it shows. Goff looks legitimately spooked in the pocket; it’s like watching a Derek Carr 2.0 situation on the west coast.

Los Angeles still has favorite targets Robert Woods and Cooper Kupp, but superstar skill players Todd Gurley and Cooks are gone. If Goff was buoyed by his supporting cast in the 2018 NFC championship-winning season, then the better half of his cast is now gone, replaced with precious little.

Though the Cardinals still have work to do and plenty to prove in both Murray’s and Kliff Kingsbury’s sophomore seasons in the NFL, the Rams seem to have their backs further up against the wall despite their past success.

As the 2020 season approaches, the Rams are starting to look increasingly like one-hit wonders, already forced to retool their entire roster after it seemed like they were entering their peak. Goff is no longer in the conversation as the next great quarterback; there are no doubts about his standing as a franchise quarterback, even if he’s paid more richly than McVay’s last “protege” Kirk Cousins.

And McVay no longer seems like a genius. The 2020 season could be the defining year for his reputation in the league.

Yet as Goff and McVay receive the brunt of the criticism, it’s fair to wonder where general manager Les Snead, who was a perennial loser before McVay joined the organization, stands and why his methods haven’t been questioned more.

And if the Rams really do finish as the NFC West’s worst team, he could be the one shown the door after another poor offseason.

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What if Kliff Kingsbury overtakes Sean McVay as the NFC West’s offensive wunderkind?

Two offseasons ago, everybody wanted to hire the next Sean McVay.

Of all the NFL teams looking for a new head coach, the Arizona Cardinals made a few bold moves heading into 2019. They punted on former head coach Steve Wilks and former first-round quarterback Josh Rosen after one season. Arizona was atrocious in 2018, allowing it to hire Kliff Kingsbury as head coach and take Heisman Trophy-winner Kyler Murray with the top pick.

Murray was the first quarterback under 6-feet to be taken in the first round of an NFL Draft since Ted Marchibroda went No. 5 overall to the Pittsburgh Steelers back in 1953. Kingsbury failed leading his alma mater’s Texas Tech Red Raiders in the Big 12. It was all offense and no defense whatsoever, as the Red Raiders were the epitome of an Air Raid Big 12 pillow fight.

Flash forward a year or so and the Cardinals are poised to contend for a playoff spot in the deep NFC West this season. Though they only went 5-10-1 in Kingsbury’s first year on the job, the future looks incredibly bright for the Arizona offense. Could the proud Mike Leach Air Raid disciple overtake McVay as the best new school offensive-minded head coach in the NFL?

Will Kliff Kingsbury create something better than Sean McVay ever did?

In an interview with Bob McManaman of the Arizona Republic, Kingsbury said he’s using this period of great isolation to his advantage to really tap into the “mad genius” label he’s been given as an offensive-minded coach.

Believe it or not, he’s made early returns of the collegiate Air Raid work in the NFL with his hand-selected superstar quarterback in Murray.

“Yeah, it’s definitely allowed me to dive into a lot of the college game a little more,” said Kingsbury. “I’ve always tried to study some of those top offenses, guys that I’ve had a ton of respect for and liked the way that they operated, but it’s really allowed me to watch a lot more of that. There’s a lot of great minds at that level, so it’s definitely a deeper dive into offensive football this offseason.”

The NFL game is taking on college concepts more than ever before. Not only is the college game incredibly innovative, but the NFL’s CBA severely limits practice time, and therefore hinders offensive line development. By assuming up-tempo spread concepts, NFL offenses can go no-huddle more readily without the most complex of zone or man blocking schemes.

What McVay brought to the table in Los Angeles was an offshoot of the Jon Gruden and Mike Shanahan offensive philosophies. Those offenses are predicated on running the ball and opening up the play-action pass. The Shanahan zone blocking scheme is nothing new, but McVay put fancy window dressing on the offense with a ton of pre-snap motion and adept use of the headset.

Truth be told, it was more smoke and mirrors than we’d ever want to let on. McVay was giving his quarterback Jared Goff all the answers at the line of scrimmage before only 15 seconds were remaining on the play clock. Opposing defenses figured that out quickly and all the Rams were doing was 11 personnel-ing its opponent to death under the disguise of pre-snap motion.

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Arizona Cardinals all-time Mount Rushmore

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Ultimately, the Rams’ Super Bowl window is closed after getting to the big game only two years ago. Surely, they’ll re-emerge in some time under McVay’s tutelage, but he’s got to show the NFL he’s more than a Chip Kelly one-trick pony on the offensive side of the ball. As for Kingsbury, there’s a chance he could be a deeper offensive-minded coach than we all originally thought.

“Kliff is one of the more mad-genius, offensive-minded guys in this league because of how he can put players in different positions to go out there and be successful and use your raw, natural ability to mirror up with the things the offense works best at,” said Cardinals running back Kenyan Drake.

“I have no idea what he could be coming up with, but I know once this season gets going and we get out there running around a little bit more, everybody’s going to get into a good flow and…we’ll score points and win more games this year.”

With Murray at quarterback, Drake as his bell-cow and a wide receiver trio of DeAndre Hopkins, Larry Fitzgerald and Andy Isabella, Arizona could have one of the most exciting offenses we’ve ever seen. Of course, protecting Murray is paramount, something the Cardinals have struggled at historically with keeping their quarterbacks upright. However, this season does feel different.

What will be the most interesting development of the Cardinals offense is how the running game factors in all this. We know Murray’s dual-threat playmaking abilities will be glorified in this system, but how Drake and the rest of the running back room manages will go a long way in seeing how good this Cardinals team can be. It might make us forget about McVay all together.

If his offseason film study pans out, we will have our next offensive guru head coach in Kingsbury.

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Looking through the long history of the franchise, here is the Los Angeles Rams’ all-time Mount Rushmore.

After a shade over a two-decade run in St. Louis, the Rams became the Los Angeles Rams again in 2016. They are set to move into a brand-new stadium for the 2020 season, and with new uniforms unveiled it’s a fresh era for the franchise.

The Rams started out in Cleveland from 1936-1945, when they won the NFL championship then moved to Los Angeles. From 1946 through the 1994 campaign, the Rams were Los Angeles’ constant NFL team as the Raiders moved there from Oakland in 1982 and eventually left themselves after the 1994 season to go back north. From 1995-2015, St. Louis was home for the Rams.

From “The Fearsome Foursome” era to the run as “The Greatest Show on Turf” in St. Louis,  in-between and/or since, here is the all-time Mount Rushmore for the Los Angeles Rams’ franchise.

But first, in no particular order, here is a list of honorable mentions for the Rams’ Mount Rushmore.

Honorable Mentions

DT Merlin Olsen
DT Aaron Donald
OT Jackie Slater
OT Orlando Pace
RB Eric Dickerson
QB Norm Van Brocklin
QB Bob Waterfield
DL Rosey Grier
WR Henry Ellard
WR Elroy “Crazy Legs” Hirsch
QB Kurt Warner
RB Steven Jackson
OLB Kevin Greene
DE Jack Youngblood
QB Roman Gabriel
QB Jim Everett
RB Todd Gurley
RB Lawrence McCutcheon

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The new Rams uniforms are here to stay and NFL rules say they can’t change them again for a few years, so good or bad, you better get used to the new look.

The new Los Angeles Rams uniforms are here to stay for at least a few years, so get used to it.

The Rams unveiled their new era jerseys Wednesday, May 13. The new uniforms are a part of the “Rams New Look” rebranding campaign the team has gone under for the 2020 season and beyond. They unveiled a new logo, earlier this offseason. While the uniforms definitely had shock value, it probably wasn’t the shock they intended from the NFL community.

One Twitter account tweeted a gif of Kawhi Leonard praying while captioning “plz tell me this ain’t the real uniforms.”

Another tweeted a gif of Britney Spears shaking her head “no.”

Knowing theses uniforms are here to stay, Rams fans should embrace them. While this may be an eyesore to opposing fans, use that narrative when backing this team. Flip this as another reason teams should fear playing the Rams, as they are a team the opposition doesn’t want to see.

When opposing teams play at SoFi Stadium, Rams‘ supporters should be decked in the new gear to swarm the opposing team when they look up in the stands. Well, that is probably a feature that may not happen until the 2021 season if the NFL plays this upcoming season without fans, but you get the point.

On the bright side, the Rams now have the most unique jersey set in the NFL. Under the Los Angeles sun, there will be no jersey that shines brighter than their home option dubbed as Royal x Yellow. As far as jersey sales go, this will definitely weed out the diehard fans from the bandwagons.

The quicker these uniforms are accepted, the more likely they are to rub off on folks. And all of sudden they’ll release their new uniforms before you even know it. Only then we’ll see if the future holds an upgrade or did the NFL community take the Rams 2020 new era uniforms for granted.

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The Rams have revealed their newest look and it’s been met with mostly criticism. These uniforms paired with the new corny logo could motivate the Rams to win and shut up the naysayers this season.

It’s been a tough offseason for the Los Angeles Rams. Earlier in the offseason, they tweeted that they’d have an announcement, but shortly after, it was leaked that the announcement was their new logo.

The new logo was not well perceived, as many thought it could pass more as the Chargers’ logo than the Rams’. Regardless, they announced it as planned and it was met with mass criticism. The Guardian wrote an article about how it “managed to anger an entire fanbase”, writing,

At the time, the Rams claimed that this was a rejected design and echoed the opinions of their fans. “It’s not a hat I would buy or we would ever want in the marketplace,” said Kevin Demoff, chief operating officer of the Rams, adding that it “was a terrible introduction to where we are headed, but there’s nothing we can do about how that came to be.”

That was one rough patch in the offseason for the Rams, but things would continue to unravel.

The next L for Los Angeles was when the team also announced they had a new look to go along with the new logo. Oh boy!

The comments on Adam Schefter’s tweet about the Rams’ new uniforms are mostly poking fun at how the uniforms look like something an IKEA-sponsored team would wear. It really does look like the outside of an IKEA building and all the team needs is a little IKEA logo in the corner of the jersey. Maybe they can get free cinnamon buns after each victory.

With the cruddy new logo and uniforms, the Los Angeles Rams have been ragged on all offseason. This might be motivation for the team in 2020 to shut up the masses and to get back into the good graces of NFL fans. They were an explosive team in 2018 and that ended with a trip to the Super Bowl but was ultimately a loss.

In 2019, the Rams were victim to being in a really tough division and, as a result, finished third. Had the new playoff rules been put into effect last season, the Rams would have been the seven seed in the postseason and would have had a shot at defending their NFC Champion title from the season prior.

Los Angeles made some changes this offseason, the biggest of which saw them cut bait with former star Todd Gurley, who fell off a cliff fast. Gurley was their saving grace for several years, but it was clear his stint with them was nearing the end when he barely played in the Super Bowl.

Sean McVay is an offensive mastermind and can get this team back on track, ugly uniforms or not. Jared Goff was paid a lot of money last year to be the franchise signal-caller for the more popular team in Los Angeles and he’ll have to step it up this year. This can be a good team, but the tough division is certainly something that works against them.

The new uniforms are an eyesore, but if the Rams want to quiet everyone, the best thing for them to do is to win games. If they can somehow win the NFC West – which is most certainly the toughest division in football – people might forget about how ugly both the logo and the uniforms are.

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The Los Angeles Rams forgot what day it is because they must think it’s April Fool’s Day with their underwhelming and well past due uniform reveal.

When Washington Redskins owner Daniel Snyder wished us a Happy Thanksgiving in January, we thought we had seen everything. Well, think again. The Los Angeles Rams released new uniforms in what has to be the worst April Fool’s joke ever.

Not only is it a month late, but it’s not a joke at all.

Let’s spare the hyperbole: They’re B-A-A-A-A-A-A-D.

When you relocate a franchise in Madden and need to rename your team, this is the type of uniform you end up designing as an amateur professional uniform designer.

All the Rams had to do was listen to Eric Dickerson and use the uniforms he starred in back in the 1980s. They’re great and are one of the best the NFL has ever seen. You don’t change perfection, and that’s what the Rams did here.

Have you ever heard of kintsugi? It’s the Japanese art of fixing broken pottery where something can be fixed but never truly be the same. That’s basically what we’ve got here. The Rams departure from the 1970s and 1980s look was criminal, but we dealt with it because “The Greatest Show on Turf” was so damn captivating.

After realizing that the Aughts look wasn’t going to cut in it a city of stars, the Rams went way old school with the Deacon Jones era white horns look. It was fine, but a less bland version of what we loved Dickerson, Jackie Slater and Jack Youngblood became Pro Football Hall of Famers wearing. That’s what it should have been.

Perhaps most importantly, all other iterations of the Rams uniforms have had one common thread: The horn logo. It’s an iconic logo, one that seemed impossible to get wrong given its simplicity and the fact that it’s the only thing that has ever worked no matter how bad the uniform combinations have been. The cherry on top of this awful uniform we’ll see every Sunday is that the iconic Rams horn has been turned into what appears to be a cheap Chargers knock-off.

You can fix something that’s broken, but it’ll never truly be the same.

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Is the shine off the apple when it comes to Los Angeles Rams’ head coach Sean McVay? The team followed up a Super Bowl appearance in 2018 with a 9-7 finish and failed to qualify for the playoffs this past season. But that was then and this is now, as in predicting every game on the 2020 campaign for a team that has lost a lot of talent this offseason.

Weeks 1-4

Final

Dallas Cowboys

31

Los Angeles Rams

24

For the first time since the 2018 NFC Divisional Playoffs, the Rams welcome the Dallas Cowboys to the City of Angeles. Of course, a year ago at AT&T Stadium (Week 15), Jared Goff and company were humbled by a 44-21 score. Is the Los Angeles’ secondary prepared to deal with Dallas’ potent passing attack?

Final

Los Angeles Rams

23

Philadelphia Eagles

24

For the third time in four years, the Los Angeles Rams and Philadelphia Eagles will renew acquaintances. But for the 1st time since 2014, the former will head to the City of Brotherly Love and will look to snap a six-game losing streak in this series that dates back to 2005. But Sean McVay’s club will come up short once again.

Final

Los Angeles Rams

21

Buffalo Bills

23

The Rams head cross country to Orchard Park for the first time since 2012 as this interconference series is renewed for just the 13th time When last these teams met, the Bills made themselves at home in Los Angeles and rolled to a 30-19 triumph. The venue will be different but the Rams will come up short in this series once again.

Final

New York Giants

19

Los Angeles Rams

24

The New York Giants invade Los Angeles while the Rams host Big Blue for the first time since 2016 when the setting was London, England. When last these teams met, Sean McVay’s club went into MetLife Stadium in 2017 and handed the Giants a humbling 51-17 setback. New York’s defense will have very few answers in this tilt.

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