2026 LA Rams Preview: Roster, Odds & Win Total

[Music] Welcome to the acclaimed podcast, The Deep Died, featuring your esteemed hosts, Andy Monitor and Drew Dinsick, powered by Betz Spurs. Welcome to The Deep Dive. We're talking rams. Boy, man, this is an interesting one. How long have we been handicapping NFL? Publicly, nine years. Five years. Five years. Five years. Five years. How many examples is there a one shot, one kill unanimous first overall team that goes wire to wire? One of those candidates, one of those candidates, St. LaLiga. One of those Kansas City teams that won the Super Bowl had to be like, they're starting with season 1 because they have Patrick Mahomes and they have Tyrick Hill and an amazing team. They would go on to win the Super Bowl. I mean, who started? I think we had Ravens as our top team to start the season last year. Yes. And I could not imagine who had the year before that. I could double check. Oh boy. But yeah, it's very tough and it's funny too. Maybe the Chiefs. I kind of downgraded a few things for Seattle because of the changes. Jesus, my raising desk things snap. But some of the things that I had to like pump the brakes a little on, I said, I'll raise my numbers as we get close for the season for Seattle for the rams. I'm just you're just really, really good. You probably were the best team last year. Things happen. You're still amazing. You still have a great coach. Like what's the knock on this team? I think there's only one really and it's quarterbacks 100 years old. But he maybe had his best season ever had what age 37, 38, whatever he was. I don't know if his wife is getting the same packages that paid him mannings was or what's happening with his health because every year for like five years now, I'm feeling all here and I'm here at rumors that you know this team, you know, it might be the end of it might be the end of the road for staffer. It's got a back thing. You might just retire before the season starts. And I guess maybe we'll do it again this year. But yeah, Patrick, yes. This is what happens when you're a good team. You are top heavy. Great teams. We have great teams who have, you know, the best player at several positions or at least the top three player at several positions. It's super hard to have good depth. And there's there's another there's another rinklet to this, which is why I was asking you about where to wire. The rams are very fragile. Yeah. And that's that comes along with the top heavy aspect. This is a, this is a, I feel like an annual conversation we have and last year, last year could be perceived one of two ways, I think. And I think that would have been they did solve something in terms of their health and conditioning and they had, you know, a successful season and just really just a healthy season thanks to the fact that they had something going on that was keeping specifically their quarterback healthy. And it would be the exception, right? There's absolutely world where last year was year that they got the break and they got a fully healthy year out of staffer and this year something goes sideways. And it's a very, very challenging and not very fun part of our, you know, of our, our general practice to come up with the probabilities on those sort of things. I don't think you can in any way realistically expect that you're going to for sure get 17 games and a fully healthy Stafford come post season and if that's not the case, it's, it's, it's tie some time. It's extremely difficult despite this team is number one power rated for me and it's not close. I have a gap between them and number two. Maybe bigger than I've had in previous years because of, we've, and I've said it a hundred times the power number I'm putting together is for the team that steps out on that field on week one to play against the other team. But when I start doing my other exercises looking at the fragility of teams and their schedules and starting to actually run simulations on how this team plays the year out. Like, yeah, Stafford missing even five to eight games. It's a, it's a whole different story. Because yeah, there's, there's just a lack of depth there. And there's a, you know, we have Puka, Puka's kind of banged up and camp right now. I think he's going to be fine. You miss him for any serious time that offense takes a step back. I don't think they're super deep on offensive line. Obviously the same thing kind of goes with some of the pieces on the defense. So it's, it's crazy because yeah, and Ryan, yeah, any team misses any team that loses a quarterback is going to be a big step down. But I don't know that there's, you know, we have that, the clipboard Delta, not every team. It's not every team is going to be the same step down. It goes beyond Stafford to. Yeah, the atmosphere is not young. Sorry. I think it's, Dave kindly use the weather, see for three, only because I looked at this like a little girl, but waiting to probably. Yeah, just a wide receiver three matter when you have receiving type, breading backs and, yeah, Puka and Adams, I guess does a little. The Puka, the Puka thing is probably maybe more, I mean, it's they're both relevant, top, top, top conversation. One year ago today, Matthew Stafford was not present for, you know, president available for much of the Rams camp and the back issue was so serious. People were wondering, would there be a surprise retirement? Would he take the, you know, would he, you know, kind of get injured over the course of the season and be, you know, kind of this was his last ride. In the end, he was fully healthy, fully functional and wins an MVP, you know, and, and, you know, some might say it was a little bit of an honorary MVP. That's fine. I won't really fight it. But the, but the general kind of key was you got a, everything clicked in your favor last year and even still you weren't able to win the Super Bowl. And now you're going into a season with a quarterback who's a year older with the wear and tear of playing three playoff games with the wear and tear of, you know, kind of trying to get ready and, you know, ramp up, you know, with an offensive line that has more question marks this year than it had last year. With the wide receiver room that is thinner this year than probably any other year you've been here. And while there is elite talent all over this roster at all of the important key key places, the backfill is is awful. And there are lots of lots of years where you can put your, you know, bet on a team that is, you know, sitting at the top of the odds board. And then get pumped by, you know, surprise injuries and learning that, oh, now we're at war with a guy that I just really had no interest or confidence that was going to make an impact. Yeah, this is one where, like I said, I swear to the team in the league for me, but can quickly fall off a cliff and there's a situation where this is a neutral team in five weeks, which stinks. Obviously, if you're a ramp fan, but that's what happens when you have such a top heavy team with, you know, star players who are all probably bigger injury risks than most because of the age in the, in the sense of Devonta Adams and Stafford and Puka just because he seems to be a little more prone to that and he's to volume guy too volume guy takes more hits. He cuts more times he runs more you know it banged up so such as life off season, you'll talk a little off season, I guess they did trade an edge for an edge, I have that as an upgrade. I don't know if you want to dig into that at all, I'd rather talk more about Trent McDuffey, but. Yeah, you got the best player and guess what drew as a little surprise to you because of feeling my oats we went on and we did a Vikings podcast and I said guess but we don't fuck around here we don't mince words and we don't we don't suffer fools and I'm not going to do a podcast about the Minnesota Vikings and pretend the changing McCarthy is going to start the year. Koc didn't like him. They don't uh. They didn't go get Kalimari for no reason he's going to play. So we did it that. And obviously that was announced. Everyone figured out figure that was probably going to happen anyway after the last few days. So feeling my outs, I am going to do this podcast under similar presence pretense. And I am going to rate this defense with Aaron Donald at Defense of Tackle as well. Call it it now. Shepters tweet was so scummy. Like we get it guy you went to Michigan. He was God. I don't know. It was it was pretty gross like it was extremely scummy. Like Chagy is agent and the president of Michigan. It was such a calculated spin in the words too. Yeah, like he's forced to be psyched. No, it's play forced. Oh, he's been it was almost like he's been wronged buyer beware if you decide to go to Minnesota because they're going to fuck you just like they fuck JJ never gave him a chance. Like what a fucking piece of shit. That was awful. I'm glad that came up. Anyway, I will make my defense of numbers with Aaron Donald. Of course, of course. But like that's okay. So that's so that's kind of actually a good place to bring up because as long as you want to talk about fragility, the fragility for me exists almost exclusively on the offensive side of the football. All of a sudden this team is now loaded and has depth and has youth on the defense at all three levels. So I'm kind of like, okay, well, like if you made me kind of like even though we're we're we're we're at this beaten into our head over the years that defense is less predictable than offense Andy. Have you ever heard that? You're over a year. Defense is less sticky and the reason that it's less sticky is because it's a lot of times a reflection of what quarterbacks did you play more so than it is a, you know, a true, you know, kind of indicator of the strength of your team. Well, even in the face of that, if you said, you know, if you sat me down, you're like, yes, what, what are these units finishes in the top 10? The other does not. I would say well, the defense finished in the top 10 and the offense did not. And that's because Matthew Stafford's back gave out the offensive line never came together and they just had, you know, they had issues facing a very tough schedule of past rushers. Pukinakua went AWOL because he got suspended and then hurt and then was rehabbing with, you know, with in the wrong mindset, which by the way had to be a lot. I was going to say had to my favorite NFL daily podcast and the hosts saying if Pukinakua could keep his nose clean this season, then everything's going to be just fine. I think those folks that have a little bit of insider knowledge into what's going on with the, you know, with the Rams personnel are hoping that Pukinakua does keep his nose clean this year. But even more so, it does sound like he'll be suspended for some portion of the season at least and that, you know, the backfill in the wide receiver department is super duper suspect. The one of the thing about the offense that I have as a bit of a buyer beware for the Rams is that they caught a lot of the league, I think, by surprise with the way that they deployed personnel last year. And now you get a year to open a year of defense coordinators figuring out how they're going to match up with you. I think a lot of the rushing success that the Rams had was basically just a numbers game. It was, you know, they put enough just absurdly good additional blockers out there and deployed them in ways that created space for their running backs where, you know, there were many examples of you give a good running back like Blake or Kyron LeBal and nobody touches them till three and a half yards are are gained. Like you've opened the, you've opened your top to surely a successful rushing attempt and potentially an explosive one. And I feel like that was largely what kind of kept the Rams ahead of schedule last year. Never really put Stafford in a position where he was asked to do too much on the lay down in distance. It was great. It was great. Long skin. Yeah. But the run was good and it helped. I think it was, I think it was a little shortcut by the personnel. Now everybody's got a year to kind of adjust to how are you doing this. So if we get through first half of the season and the run efficiency is down year over year for the Rams, not going to be stunned. If we get to the first through the first half of the season and Stafford's numbers aren't quite as clean because he's being asked to do more on the, you know, high leverage downs, I'm not going to be surprised. If Stafford is not the quarterback at the halfway point because his back is given up on him, I'm not going to be surprised. Which is to say, like, the fourth. Yeah. And this is like kind of a long way of saying you can have two thoughts in your head. The Rams are clearly clearly the best team in the NFL on paper and that betting a dollar on them today is a poor financial decision. Yeah. I mean, it's, it's, you're taking a chance on. I can't think of the name of the company. They make radar detectors or something. They work out of their mom's garage. They're sweet. Talk to her and the Ford. What is that? Love a wall street. Yeah, we're in the conflict that you have the pink slip company that he has to like pitch pitch a bond. But it's like, hey, some of those are, you know, you could be, you could go really well. But it's a high risk proposition, I think, because of the, most of it's because of the time that you're putting your money into play. You're putting your money into play. Right. A super bowl bet. You're putting it in for the time now. Time value of money is bad. The, the fragility and the downside is bad. And the prices are not even really that great. So what's the, what, like, why are we lose, why would you lose your mind just like, oh, yeah. And if they'll solved, like, they play 262 games. I can't remember how many games are up to now. They play 260 games in the Rams one. Like if you think it's that simple this year, I, I, I, good luck to you. I feel like there is a higher probability. I will bet on the Rams at some point this year. And I can tell you that it is not going to be before Christmas. With that said, I'm looking deeper than that as we talk about how to get that was the offseason. Robert Woods, Bobby Trees is on this, is on this team. Anyway, Miles Garrett, June 1st, cost you a Jared verse. Jared verse is not like a throw in Jared versus very good. That said, it's still the best defensive player in league. So you got to give up something. Garrett obviously is going to eat in the free agent markets. You picked up Trent McDuffee and Jalen Watson. From the same team. Those are Kansas City cornerbacks that you're putting in your secondary right now. The Trent McDuffee was a trade. That was, I think they actually had to give up a decently. I picked for that or some sort of pick so I'll triple check out that went. Not a lot else though. Grant Steward, a linebacker from Detroit to play it a little bit. He's a special teamer. You got a new long snapper from Miami. Joe Cardona. You got another linebacker that is from the jets that's just edge depth. The special teams in Tom and Fox. The bigger story outside of Jared versus some of the departures. Let's go be Durant Dallas. Good not great. It's still a PC after a place back there. Killer witherspoon to Washington who later retired and not he was a bang average corner if that at times. I am a query. This is like a theme for the Ramsey ox. Here's all these secondary pieces that used to play for you that are elsewhere. I think they lost five or six if you count some of the depth. Havenstein Rob Havenston the right tackle no longer on the 2026 roster. So you retire or is he just elsewhere? I got to double check that one. I think you retired. I think you did retire to too at well in Miami as we played that game over the weekend trying to name Miami receivers. We have McCurray Kendrick Williams witherspoon to rant bunch of secondary pieces and then some some other churn Jimmy Garoppolo is no longer on the team. You replaced the lung samper. So the other lung samper McQuade has gone Nick Vanitt tight end and Nick Hampton linebacker are gone and some of the churn you resigned to Cam curl in the offseason. You resigned Tyler Higby and you drafted tight simpson. You got you got tight. You want to comment on that? You want to comment or you're me coming. Go ahead. I'm so bad. It has distinct whips of a front office that's feeling themselves a little too much. It was a pretty high pick for a tight simpson. I will say this. I will say this. I will say this. I thought when the Rams traded out of the round one in the previous years draft and accumulated the extra pick for this year that that was going to be a pretty useful kind of tool to find your quarterback of the future. Right. like they were looking well into the future and they were like, we gotta replace Stafford at some point here. Let's accumulate some capital next year's draft and we'll get a guy that. And then they just kind of stuck to that plan, even though it's not obvious that they did need to replace Stafford that quickly and that there wasn't a guy that they really could do it for. Was it AeroTion? Was the-- - AeroTion. - AeroTion International. - A Mongoose Upside, thank you, Sam. - Thank you, Mongoose Upside. But yeah, it was like, it was not clear that with that pick that's what you should do anymore. And it also was clear as you look across your roster that there were other holes, particularly a wide receiver that could and should be addressed. And rather than addressing those, it feels like you wasted a pick on Ty Simpson and then everything after the draft where it felt like Sean McVeigh was pissed that that's the direction you went is never good for an organization to have internal friction like that. And then the further, further addendum to the story where there was personal relationships between the GM and this guy's family makes it all look like a monumental cluster fuck. And so if you're going to be that sloppy undraft night with the pick that's in the top 15, when you're pursuing a championship with as much yolo as we've ever seen, I don't understand why you why you conduct yourself that way. And I think it's going to probably turn out to be pretty similar to like the Niners going apesh trading their future, getting trade lads. And then ultimately, ultimately paying a price deep into the future when they're depth all the sudden is challenged as their follow famers age out. That's my gut. - Yeah, I mean, you're deep, or you're not deep, but you have established players at so many of the spots that are like, I'm not sure what you do there other than, hey, let's go get my kind of lemon, let's go get, you know, you're not drafting like a starting offensive lineman probably. I think you're kind of got your guys established, you know, Vega or Blake Miller, free Ling probably aren't bouncing somebody off the line. So I'm not sure what you're doing because it's, it's clearly a why don't you move back or why are you in the spot? Why did you know what was the Atlanta pick anyway? It did feel weird because even like a Ruben Bain, Ruben Bain maybe feels very superfluous because of the trade you made to get Garrett, but let the guy rotate in and kind of get a feel for the league. And maybe you have him for a good long time as well. So I'm not super sure what they would have what you do in that first round instead. You're probably drafting backups. You should be trading back as, you know, good teams tend to do. So it was, it was weird. They did like his fit apparently is that I think you can say this is true or you can say this is spin, but they do like the college tape fits the scheme. That said, if McVeigh doesn't like it, you know what McVeigh can do? I don't know what his contract looks like, but McVeigh can say trade me, you know, or if I'm not under contract for that much longer, I'm willing to take to eat some of this and leave. There's like 30 teams would be happy to have like either for the 10 teams right now. If they said, Hey, Sean McVeigh wants to be your head coach, but you have to fire the coach you have in place right now on all this golf. Be like, ah, what's this? What's what's giving me that guy's extension? He's fucking gone. Yeah, if McVeigh truly isn't happy with the situation, he's young still. He's got a lot of time. It kind of feels like he is pissed and will be interesting to see how that plays out over the course of the next few years. That's a conversation for a different day. The rest of the draft real quick, they drafted a tie-in from Ohio State. I don't know that he's going to be meaningful. They have Parkinson Higby Ferguson. So he's like tight end five. This is a second round pick kind of felt weird as well. I guess maybe he has a strong camp. Offensive tackle from Missouri swing depth. He could probably play in interior as well. Keegan Trost and then a wide receiver in the sixth round. They finally did go get another person to join that room, kind of a late round flyer and a defensive lineman for depth behind Puna. From Alabama, another album, they book ended it with Alabama players, Tim Keenam, the third. Another nose tackle. And that was if you were keeping track, your first defensive pick of the draft in the seventh round, two thirty two overall. Wow. Jeez. All right. Well, I don't know. I mean, getting Miles Garrett gives you an A plus for your off season. Yep. You went to jail. Very, very fuck them picks kind of a picks, periods here. And I would say that you're clear and obvious need across your roster from an upgrade standpoint was your cornerback play. And Jayden Watson and Trent McDuffier, both good cornerbacks. You ironically, your safeties and Quentin Lake were your best coverage players last year and you retained those guys. So like I don't, I don't see a hole with this. Yeah, they traded like six okay to bad corners for two good ones. And make and make and McDuffie can play like every position back there. If you know, I don't think you need him play safety of good safeties, but he can bump around to he can be a slot. He can be outside. I think you have some nice Watson is just good, but he's your CB too. So that's fine. McDuffie is excellent. And Watson is actually a boon in the runstop as well. Actually, they both kind of are. Like, I have McDuffian Watson with decent runstop grades again, small samples, but I have four there positions. Yeah. For being a corner. So a good job getting my scare. Maybe we let me, I mean, I again, like as I was positive for, but this was a win, win trade, putting my last year on a team that's going to be in the playoff. And pursue a Super Bowl is flat out awesome. Getting back a player like Jared verse for a player like Maliscared who's on your timeline with your rebuild is is good. So yeah, it's good. This was a win, win trade. And I hope Maliscared plays all 17 games and absolutely Rex League and wins D.P.O.I again, because that's the ceiling. I have milder. Kind of what to expect about Aaron Donald. He's been out of football a long time. I don't know that. I don't know that I'm like, honestly, even really dying to take Brandon Fisk, Punaford and Kobe Turner off the field all that often. I think the reports already have been the reports already have been like if he comes back this week, it seems like he's in pretty good shape still, but he hasn't played football. And they're like, I don't know, 30 snaps week one. Maybe if you know, he's going to be rotational to start. Which is still if you can put him and Garrett out there on like third and long. Yeah, I guess fuck you. Like fuck you. Yeah, your third down conversion rate could set an all time, all time low for a defense, which would be pretty killer. All right. Should have should have should have addressed the wide receiver room, but and honestly, they tried. They were very much in the mix for the H.A. Brown deal. And I don't know if they felt like they had to make a choice between pursuing Brown and pursuing Garrett or what, but that was that was not rumour that was actually in the, you know, like I was actually in the, the Rams, I think, were the the other major shooter there besides the Pats. You want to talk ratings? Are you getting any thoughts? Yeah, I was just trying to remember how they had the Falcons pick there. That was the all the swapping around for like, that was the Falcons trading up for Pierce after taking Jalen Walker. And they gave them their first rounder, which ended up being the 13. And it's funny because everybody, you mentioned the wide receiver, kind of last thoughts on that. Everybody who made a mock. Put a wide receiver in that spot to the Rams. It felt like sure lot. I mean, a lot. I think Mike Kileman had already bought a house in Englewood. He was right. He was expecting it to live there. Now granted, he wasn't going to make an immediate impact for you anyway, apparently. But yeah, there were a lot of really good wide receivers who were drafted in the range that you could have taken and you didn't. And if you were, even if you wanted here, you know, the process criticism, even if you were determined to come out of this trap with Tyson's and on your roster, there was no clamoring for Tyson's and he was a question mark whether he was going to go in round one. If he went in round one, it was going to be late in round one. Trade down. Trade down. Take a wide receiver. And or take Simpson there. I don't care. But the way they handled it and the highs they took him, I thought was they were feeling themselves a little. That's that Andy. Before we go, so quick, thank you to our sponsor, Circa and the Circa contest Circa survivor. a circle of millions and circle grand ismo. Get your ass up to the desert. Sign up in Nevada play from anywhere. Congrats to the guys in the discord. I have now a small owner of six survivor entries. Yeah. That's a fun way to do it. If you have a bunch of guys that want to get together on it and you have one person who maybe lives in Nevada, Utah, Arizona, or they're just willing to fly out there. Get in with your friends and try to split 20 to 25 million a few different ways. So we'll be signing up for a few entries of our own in a few weeks when we're out for a setup weekend. We invite you to join us and come have a beer with us because we are going out. We have dinner reservations for Friday. We have a podcast to do that'll take an hour. Other than that, I have zero things on the schedule outside of some. I think there's some open bars that they're going to have for for that and obviously we'll go to those and say how to people. But yeah, pop out if you want. We do have dinner on Thursday. Lockdown. Okay. Oh my god. I thought that was Friday. Oh Thursday. Sorry. Okay. Well, we got one we got one dinner that's locked in. Can't get out of that. Yeah. No, what I want to. All right, Paul ratings. I'm at a 7.1 for QVSE quarter, quarterback OC. I'm at a 7.4. We have Sean McVey who is a very, very big number. I'm going to assume that Stafford takes a step back in the interception department. There's just no way a guy goes out there and throws as many passes and touch-tons as he does and doesn't have any interceptions basically. So I'm a little lower on that. I just have to regress a little for the age. But again, this number is probably basically the only thing that's knocking this number down is the fact that he's 39 years old. You'd rather have a quarterback in his prime like age 29. Yeah, I'd rather have a I mean, I wouldn't mind Stafford in his prime. That's a fun one. Yeah. I think I don't want to see him wearing a lion's shoes. I'm at 7.4. If I just took his numbers from last year and assumed we were going to run it back identically, I would have been more like an 8.5. Yeah, somewhere in that range. But I am rating over a broader sample. And I am expecting that there is a high likelihood that last year's numbers are going to be as good as we ever see. And that's because they were as good as that then anyone has ever done. And so just gravity of your year, you know, kind of randomness. I think pulls it down into the 7s on that 7.4. And yeah, the turnovers are going to be a huge thing to watch. And really the turnovers if they're behind schedule, if they're a little bit behind the sticks where they should be on third downs, is kind of where I'm going to be mostly keyed into Stafford in this offense because they don't have very many get out of jail free cards in the passing game. And yeah, if they're asking to, yeah, if they have to go longer, things could get a little bit tricky for them. So that's what I will be watching for. The skill position group for me for the Rams is an 8.8. It feels high as I say it out loud. I guess I'm assuming that Nukuah is healthy and available for week one. If it's not, I'm probably in more like the five range, because my wide receiver won, win available and healthy. There was, I don't know if you saw this yesterday, Andy, but he got taken out of, or he took himself out of joint practice, they said it doesn't seem serious, which I'm going to take to me. And he's torn his groin in these out at least the first six weeks of the season. They do tend to lie about that sometimes. No, Puk is important. I'm at a 7.3. Pretty high, like Puk, uh, God, did he have, I think if he count the playoffs, like that's a 2,000 yard season, it's just so important. He had like 150 fucking catches, Devonta Adams had 15 touchdowns. From there, it's a little tough. Like I said, we have three, three tight ends and roster that are names that we know. I don't have massive grades on them, but some of them is just the volume that's going to Puk anyway. Williams, Quorum, Ronnie Rivers, decent running backroom that I, again, I'm going to tribute more to the scheme and the offensive line play than the running backs, but they're good. They're above average. So it's very good. And yeah, I'm a little worried about Puk, uh, I'm going to move this number based on two things. If he's healthy and playing and practicing for the next three weeks, and also if he's not suspended for biting a person, because there is talk of him being suspended, which kind of is a nice segue into the next section, because we also have the same worry with your left tackle, the lyric Jackson, who possibly could be suspended under the personal conduct policy with some offseason domestic battery accusations. It's downgraded. It's sounded like there were worries it was going to be a felony to start, which is like, hey, you're missing some time, buddy. It's not going to be a felony charges, which is a little better still don't, you know, don't assault people, people that's, it's going to be nice to everyone. But if he, if he misses and Pukum misses this brown, we, Quorum numbers, going to look a little different. Well, I was going to ask you this regardless of hearing the note yesterday about the potential suspensions, but um, if there's like pending criminal investigations, is there, you should wait. Yeah. Well, you should wait, but are there immigration visa issues with going to Australia? I don't know. That's interesting. They're really, they're really touchy about like small stuff, aren't they? Yeah. So they didn't let Joe Kovicchan in. All he did was he wouldn't, you wouldn't get the jab. Yeah. And the big worry for me for Jackson is the fact that like he's been suspended before under the PCP, personal conduct policy. And a lot of times when you get your second one, it's six games. Or the fact that no, excuse me, the baseline for domestic violence right now is roughly that 16 suspension. No, there's domestic violence usually six. And they're saying the, the worry is that because he's been suspended before already, they could go, they could hammer him for eight, ten, a season if this is really heinous that comes out. I don't know. So I, I don't want to speculate. I just obviously something to really keep an eye on because he is, he's your full-time starter. I'd love to tackle. Guys, um, my Rams, oh, my number is the weak part of their offense. And it is a six point six. As I look across this line, I have, I actually don't rate the tackles that well. No, it's, it's refers from Seattle. It's, it's mostly interior. Yeah. The interior is amazing. And I think if you get decent play out of Jackson and McClendon, this is maybe this could be a top line. I have a disney. Avola. We got Avola. We got Dotsin here. Yeah. Sheldon's, Sheldon's solid. So, yeah. I mean, eight. I mean, eight. And I really like a good interior for, I think just for it matches up well for having a super old quarterback who can't run fast. Hey, let's have a, let's have a strong interior so they can get immediate pressure up the middle. It, uh, it meshes well with the style of play. And by style of play, I mean his age. So I'm going to keep an eye on McClendon a little. See how that goes with him replacing Rob and I think McClendon Jackson might also have, uh, I guess that blood clot thing too. So a lot of moving pieces with the left tackle between the battery charges and him having to have scheduled maintenance days apparently. So keep an eye on that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Incredibly good thing you drafted Kegan Trost. Could have, that's why I said, like, you're not going to draft somebody to start probably with these linemen at the 13th pick, but you could have drafted somebody to maybe start if you needed them somewhere down the season to save your, to save your ass. So, um, Kevin dot, yeah, Kevin Dotsin, amazing. Run blocking number, uh, a few of those high, the Clendon actually is a high enough grade coming in. So, I have a pretty good offense here. Yep. Same. Uh, number one, in football, 76th percentile, uh, as rostered. Um, if, uh, Puka is out for week one. That drops my number and let's, let's take Jackson out to just so since we're doing this exercise. Um, they are 66.5 percentile, which is sixth best in the NFL and it knocks up almost two points off of my power. for them. My neutral power rating drops to about five. So lunch. Yeah. Um, defense. I'm warm, but potentially low. As of the fourth best defense in football here. My run stop is 5.4. Although I love me some Nate Landman. Um, and my past rush is 7.6. This is the best past Russian football. My coverage number is a 6.6, a 6.7. And, uh, I worried I'm a little bit high on the chiefs. Just be, I don't know. Do you have an opinion on the sneed leaving the chiefs and immediately sucking? And how much of the chiefs cornerbacks being good as a bag, no, no signal, not, uh, That's interesting. We did that with like, we did that with, uh, Alignment from the Ravens the other year. And some of that has a bit of signal. Of course, like, hey, these guys that believe Baltimore, they just don't play as well anymore when they're not. And some of it is just, I wonder if they're playing a different kind of game because they have Lamar back there. And what he does is unique to a lot of different quarterbacks. So, um, I don't know. I'm higher than you on all these kids. I have a better defense. Well, I remember. I have Aaron Donald playing 35 snaps week one guys. What is your past? Pass for a 7.9, you know, with Garrett and, um, I think. I just think like we love Miles Garrett, obviously best player, but like Byron Young. Byron Young would be the best pass for a shirt. I don't know a handful of not more than a handful. A bunch of teams. There's a bunch of teams that don't have a Byron Young. I love Byron Young. So you got a good, uh, a good outside linebacking duo. You have a good. There were a lot of weeks. Yeah, I'll perform Jared verse last year. Yeah. He was. He got the splash plays. Yeah, it's, it's crazy. But like when I go look at my Byron Young stuff, this guy. Super good. And then Fisk Ford Turner, great front, landman spates, bringing up the linebackers. Really good. God damn it. He's got to have good players. Yeah. And then I mean, my run stop. It's below Seattle's, but I'm at a 7.4. This is probably a little high. I just kind of made a manual adjustment for putting, putting Donald in there, but at the same time, I'm probably not putting him out there for run running plays. So I'm probably going to drop the spec down. Like if I'm, if I'm bringing him in, he's like, hey, you're playing meaningful. You're playing every third down and you're playing meaningful second downs or, yeah, some spots here and there. So. That said, it's still a very good run stop unit. And then my coverage was a 7.4. I do like both corners of the brought in. I do like the safety room quite a bit. And I don't mind. Quentin Lake is a fifth guy, man. I like Quentin Lake a lot. He's your, he's your, he's your third guy. And if you want to rank him one through, I always say like your necklace, your fifth guy, you know, okay. Yeah, that's fair. He's the most talented out of that starting unit, I think. Yes. No, that's not what you're saying. I don't actually know much about Cameron Kitchens, Kinshens. So that's kind of an interesting weird one. Run stop numbers, maybe a little lower because I actually as much as I like Nate Landman as far as a tackling machine, his run stop is a little bit question mark. He is a good cover linebacker though. I think this is a really good cover group. 6.7 for me is pretty close to right. You know, you're approaching rare air here like no one's touching Denver Denver Houston Seattle for me coverage wise, but. Rams are right in there on the next top of the next year. They were similar to the Seattle number as far as run stop for me as well, where I used more secondary pieces in that number that I'm doing on other teams. But at the same time, I look and I'm fine with it because they're, you know, run stop success rate was high at out fire. Those tackles are being made in the right spots. It wasn't safety is dragging guy down by the shoelace 40 yards down the field. Okay. What is the Rams overall run? They're overall defensive rating for you. Are they in the top three? Are you one? No Denver's ahead at them Houston's and third. Yeah, I have a third. Seattle. Seattle. So. I have Denver number one. And then it's pretty close with the Rams Seattle Houston Philly. I think it's crazy. The bills are so high on my rating, but their numbers way low for that. I have them had, you know, they had a Minnesota for now. Okay. I had of the Steelers and some of the other teams I can have in that secondary range. But they're up there. It's worth noting to me that teams like Minnesota Seattle. I think that's really good. Philly. Are a nice combination of scheme that I will go to war with and talent that kind of fits that scheme. Minnesota is probably the last of those three. Great coordinators. That's what I'm saying. Like it's the coordinator and it's the scheme that really kind of has my high confidence that you should have. And that's what I'm saying. It's not the same. And I think the Rams, it's literally just personal. I know I almost feel like. Chris Shula is the next defensive coordinator higher that doesn't work out as a head coach. Yeah. Does that mean? No, that's not mean. That checks out 100%. So. I'm a 6.2. I don't know if you moved your sit all but the the chart says you're 6.4. So I'm a 1 team. Yeah, no. Last year. Just. Still incredibly fragile. Let's look at. Scheduled. Yes. So it's worth notable even though you're overall team percentile is higher than mine because they have a number one offense and because I'm pricing nine as. And I'm just starting out. I'm starting out medium percentile against an average team that this offense is going to score minus medium percentile but they're going to concede to an average team to get my power number. Even though I'm a lower overall team percentile because their offense is so far out there as the number one. I'm pretty. I'm pretty rosy on them as far as being close to my close to a plus seven. They're favorite in every game but one. I will say though that whereas the Seahawks schedule feels set up pretty well to. Give them a soft landing on their championship defense tour. The RAM schedule to me feels like. You have a target on your back. Everyone knows you are the expected winner of the Super Bowl and we're going to give a lot of teams shots at you. I'm going to give you a few weeks early in this sequence. The key loss of a home game in division. To an international game is is a kick in the dick. And then at Denver at Philly back to back. I'm going to give you a little bit of a chance to win the first win in the season. That just sucks. That's that's a tough tough draw. And then you put a little cherry on Buffalo coming to town with a you know with a point to prove looking for their first win week five. I'm just kidding. I don't need Buffalo that much. I'm going to give you a chance to win the first five weeks. And then you also have to deal with flying to and from Melbourne. Yeah record after record after week five. Give me your percent to give me your percent chances that the Rams are. Five and no. Four and one. Three and two or two and three. I'm going 100% three and two. I mean that's that's that's I think that's my most common outcome there like you should just beat the ever live in tarot of the giants. You should you should split the Buffalo San Francisco. I think you split the Buffalo San Francisco. You split the Denver Philly like three to with two three is your second most likely. I don't want to. Those are those are three tough games in a row. And the Niners is not a music game as well, especially considering it is not technically a home game a weird travel spot. You're going to try out what we think is the right way to do it. Just take the red eye, sleep on the plane. Get the good plane where you have beds. kids show up in Melbourne, get the job done, go back home, you have 11 days before you have to play. You know, they didn't give you a buy, but at least they gave you a, you know, a fourth place team in that spot. Like they didn't, you know, no disrespect to the giants. It's still an NFL team and they have some very good players, but it could have been worse. It could have been San Francisco and then hey, guess what? We give you 11 days, then you head to my high. I think things can always be worse. So, as a tough stretch and then respite obviously with five very winable games in a row, three of them almost certainly have to have to happen with the two Arizona's and the Vegas. Like four and one is bare minimum through that stretch. If you want to be competing for this division. Yeah, that sounds right. It seems by the way, we're out to minus four for that Niners game week one. That crosses three for me if Pukas out. Yeah, I want better Niners. I don't really want to do it. I don't, I don't want to count on them being ready for week one with how fucked up their camp has been so far. But I think I'm going to have to play it if, I'm going to have to play it because I, I'm going to expect it to cross three if it sounds like Pukas no go. All right, man, key sequence for them for ultimately getting the one seed is coming out of there by you face Elite quarterbacks in Green Bay, Kansas City, San Francisco and Dallas for Elite quarterbacks. Your defense better be sharp as it's ever going to be for that stretch because that those are all like that's that's war war war every week with who you're up against in terms of being able to score 30 points against you. And then finishing with Seattle, Tampa Seattle decides whether or not you're a, you know, a one seed or a wild card. I don't have a ton of heartburn of being on the Rams as a wild card team in this NFC measma. What, I guess, I guess what is the strategy that stands out to you as the sharper strategy between trying to buy low on the Rams if there are two games behind Seattle at their biweek versus letting their regular season play out and then betting them weekend, week out, roll over style once they get to the playoffs. If they're a walk. I was going to say it's either it's either do that once they get to the playoffs because you have such a high opinion to the team. Plus you have much more knowledge at that point. You know if they're healthy, you know what's going to happen. Dave Connelly saying Rams to miss the playoffs. I think that's kind of a, it's kind of a fun bet just based on man, there's a, there's a floor that could fall out of one or two injuries. How then they are we've harped on that the whole podcast. But the other thing too is like after the buy possibly playing or maybe not after the buy before that stretch there, the Arizona Vegas Chargers Washington Arizona stretch. If there are like two and three, seeing what their NFC price is because I see like 10 more wins on the schedule after that. You know, if they win 11 or 12 games, they're in the playoffs and you're getting a better number on them and you know, some of that depends on the Seattle. They could, they could feasibly still win the division despite going two and three to start. You basically need to double up on Seattle late in the season. Then it's probably a, you finish with the same record as Seattle, but you've beat them twice. And then you are the two seed possibly even the one seed with 12 wins. I'm not sure that there's an NFC North team that's running away with 13 14. I'm not sure that's happening in the east and I'm certainly not feeling like that's going to happen in the South. So maybe the one seed doesn't need 13 or 14 wins this year and you could possibly sneak out on really ugly great path by beating Seattle twice late with that last one being at home. Imagine holding a decent NFC ticket after that stretch. I think that's the entry point. If you want to go against them like Dave pointed out it's them to miss the playoffs. That's one too. If you are a PM person, if you're like, if you want to do some round tripping, ramps to miss the playoffs, hope they go one and four and then just take your money, take some winnings instead of having to sit on the whole thing, take half of it and you know, at a 30 40% increase in value rather than sitting on it for another 12 weeks. What's you going to say of Seattle for survivor week 16? I mean, what do you make a tie Simpson on the road at Seattle and that Christmas night game? I think it'd be bad. I think it'd be Stetson Bennett. You think they're not even going to play tie Simpson if push comes to shove? I don't know. That's not a defense. I don't want to play him against Christmas on the road. Hey, buddy. Come on. But what's your stance in bet? All the same. I mean, sir, it's a pan. What is it? Is that an 11 and a half, you think if they've shut Donald Donald at that point because it's like, hey, we're bad. Like we, you know, staffers out. We're not going to play you. It's your old. Then we'll see where some of the other guys, but yeah, man, at Seattle, you're like an eight and a half nine, 10. Stafford Stafford to Bennett or Simpson is like a six to eight point move, I suppose. That sounds right to me. I mean, are you better off just starting miles Garrett under center? Well held cat with Garrett Donald Donald in the eye. That'd be fun. Oh, it would be fun. All right. In seriousness, this Rams team could and should consider themselves likely to win the Superbowl. But again, the schedule sequencing and the timing. Timing your market entry on the Rams makes you the most money in football this year, probably. At least in the future's pool. Is that right? It's not going to make you survivor of millions money, but it's going to make you, I think, a winner in the futures book if you're correctly timing when to get on and off the Rams or when to get on the CX on the Rams off the other hand. This is going to be fun. I'm going to absolutely, you know, a lot of my bankroll is not in the sports books because I've already spoken about this. I struggle with DJing on soccer too much and it's better for me if it's just not in there. I just leave enough to bet on golf. And when I read, you know, read, adjust where my money's going this fall, normally it would be a bunch of bookmaker, a bunch of better blind, a bunch of Nevada. I think the Cal she's in the no vigs are going to have a little more of that pie this year because I think I'm going to enjoy doing a little more futures betting. I've become a little disenchanted with futures betting. I used to love it. And then you kind of start to think more about your, the time value of money, like you said, that kind of bums you out. There's nothing cooler though than putting up a standing order at a price that you're like, boy, I would love it if it gets to this price and then bam. Yeah. You're in. It's good. No, no vigs a good platform. I enjoy Cal she, no vague, I use profit X a little too, but it's funny. Like Cal she often has the best, it's funny. Cal she often has the best golf prices. And then this weekend I get to talk to who I'm betting against. I think I'll ask you again rather. Save us the piece. Yeah, cut off. All right. Good pods. NFC West is a wrap. We'll be back with the FC West next week where we're probably going to have a little bit more disagreement. So excited to hear how that plays out. And we'll see you in a little bit.