I can't believe it's already the last game of the season! Feels like they go by faster every single year.
And so it comes down to the annual Tom Brady Invitational. Will the rams win, or will the Patriots hog more hardware?
SUPER BOWL LIII - New England Patriots (13-5) vs. Los Angeles Rams (15-3), NE by 2.5 - It's so hard to pick against the Belichick/Brady Patriots in the Super Bowl. Even though this is, on paper, one of the weaker teams of theirs that's ever made the big game (easily the weakest since 2011), there's just something about them, some kind of mystique, that makes them a sort of juggernaut.
I'd love to see the Rams win. I'm sure most of America would. But I have a feeling that this is going to be an extremely close contest.
The Rams do have many of the ingredients needed to beat Brady. They can rush the passer well without blitzing, especially up the middle, with Aaron Donald. In the Patriots' three Super Bowl losses, an up-the-center pass rush with just four men was crucial to victory. That being said, the Rams underperform on the back end of the defense despite having a talented secondary, so if the Patriots are able to pick up the pass rush, Brady could feast. Expect another Super Bowl with a whole lot of James White, who will probably get 10 or more catches.
On the other side of the ball, the Patriots have played below their normal standard on defense this year, which means they're certainly vulnerable. The Rams have plenty of offensive weapons to spread the ball around and beat the Patriots in different ways. i like the matchup of the Rams offense against the Patriots defense better than I like the matchup of the Patriots offense against the Rams defense.
On paper, this has the look of a Rams win. But nothing about the Patriots ever goes like you'd expect it to on paper. I'm going with another Brady/Belichick title, because God is dead and we killed him. Patriots 31, Rams 28