BOUNCE-BACK: How Los Angeles Rams Can Avoid Another BAD Loss, and Beat Cardinals, Storylines, & More

BOUNCE-BACK: How Los Angeles Rams Can Avoid Another BAD Loss, and Beat Cardinals, Storylines, & More

Can the Arizona Cardinals go toe-to-toe with one of the NFC’s favorites? Or are the Rams going to win another game and be on their way to another potential Super Bowl? Let’s discuss. Poor them. You are Locked on NFL Crossover, part of the Locked On podcast network. Your team every day. Ednesday week 14. Sweet mother, Alex Clancy, locked on Cardinals, Travis Rogers, locked on Rams. We are crossover Thursday. Thanks for being Crossover Thursday. Your first listen. Part of the Locked on Podcast Network, now the number one sports podcast platform on the planet. Trev, uh, Travis, you’ve been doing, this is year five. Uh, yeah, five. Well, six if you go back to the first year when Lockdown started. I was only there for a year and then left and then came back. So, yeah, five in a row at least. Yeah, that’s good. I mean, I I got you. I think that’s the only thing I got you on, which is season nine right now. Everything else is going to be in a Rams slant here. This is a fascinating matchup. It always is with these two teams. Uh both in going in different trajectories. Um I want to ask you about the coaches. We’ll talk about the biggest storylines. We’ll talk about the most important matchups usually, you know, in the second segment as we always do and keys to victory in the in the final segment. But, you know, before we get into it, this episode of Crossover Thursday is brought to you by Price Picks. Uh, download the Price Picks app. Use code lock NFL. Get 50 bucks in lineups after you play your first $5 lineup. So, the Rams are good. Surprise, surprise. Um, how does it feel to cover a team and work in a media market and have a daily sports radio show talking about a team that never goes through a rebuild ever? It’s like the crazy part about this, and I’ll I’ll let you get into this. Like, let me ask it this way. How different would this team be without Devonte Adams? Like if that didn’t happen, different, but I don’t know if it would be, you know, a major difference. I think it would be more of a a schematic difference. Like they they basically have played the entire Shawn McVey era without a player like Devonte Adams. They they’ve had a lot of really good wide receivers. They’ve had Cooper Cup, of course, who was terrific. Puka Nakua is a really really good player. We’ve seen guys like Robert Woods and Brandon Cooks and Odell Beckham Jr. for a brief period of time come through here. But this is a he’s a different guy. Like Adams is just Adams is the one guy they’ve had here that just can straight win in any situation. Like you just just throw it at him and see what happens is a pretty good play. And then you give Shawn McVey a weapon like that, it really does open some things up. But you know, like you said, uh, Alex, that the Rams are we we talk about this a lot on my radio show. we talk about a lot on locked on Rams too which is we’ve we’ve gotten this wrong a few times we thought that okay the window is Todd Gurley wasn’t Todd Gurley the window is Jared Goff wasn’t Jared Goff it’s Aaron Donald it wasn’t Aaron Donald it’s Matthew Stafford right now no it’s not the the through line through all of this is Shawn McVey that Shawn McVey is the window that as long as he wants to continue to do this here the Rams are going to be pretty good you can give him a lot of different ingredients he’s going to make you a pretty good meal we’ve seen him do it with running backs. We’ve seen him do it with really good quarterbacks, mediocre quarterbacks with makeshift offensive lines, kind of slap together a defense. He’s the secret sauce to this. So, if you just kind of pluck Devonte Adams out of it, I don’t think they’d be quite as good and quite as explosive as they’ve been this year, but I still think they’d be pretty good because I I just trust Shawn McVey to figure stuff out. Yeah. You know, it’s fascinating. Something that the Cardinals organization has struggled with is drafting, free agent signing. Obviously, the Rams are a little bit more of a destination place in Arizona at this point in their, you know, in their tenurs, his organizations. Less Sneeed decided that he wanted to be a good GM one day and it just happened. He was able, he started making moves. Stan Kroni may have just said screw it, go like outside of Jeff Fischer era, he just drafted well, late round picks, hit on, you know, first round guys and Jared Verse and then Braden Fisk in the second round trading for Jaylen Ramsey, trading away Jaylen Ramsey. Kairen Williams was a late round pick. Like it all just seems to work now and it’s a bunch of quote unquote no-name guys outside of the big three. Byron Young, you know, Jared versus Braden Fisk and other guys. It’s like how is this defense so good even though they were leaky against Carolina? How is this offense so good? And then you had Devonte Adams. It’s just like it just all seemed to work and that’s something the Arizona Cardinal haven’t been able to really achieve. Yeah, I I think they’ve been really good at figuring out guys that will work well for them, right? I I think that’s a one of those secret sauces that they’ve been really good at because they have missed a few picks along the way. You know, you go Logan Bruss was a second round pick. It didn’t he he he was off the team in two years. 22 Atwell was one of their first picks a couple of years ago. He hasn’t made any noticeable impact on this team really to speak of in the five years that he’s been here. But they’re able to get a lot more right later in the draft. You know, Puka was another fifth round pick. Kyron Williams, like you mentioned, was a late round pick. They’re finding starters in the late rounds. They’re find their left tackle was an undrafted free agent, you know, in in Allaric Jackson. You know, you don’t find left tackles just kind of walking around that you bring into camp as an undrafted guy. And he’s held that job down for a few years. They’re getting ready to do it again with Warren McClendon at right tackle with Rob Havenstein likely on his way out at the end of this year. They they they just they’re able to get enough of them right so when they do miss a guy, it isn’t a big deal. They also find guys, they don’t ask them to do things that they’re not capable of doing. I I think this is one of the great secret sauces of McVey and Sneed is okay, what is he good at? Let’s put him in a position to do that a bunch of times. A perfect example of that is what they’ve done with Terrence Ferguson this year, who was their first pick in the most recent draft. He didn’t play the first basically the b first half of the season. He barely even got on the field. But what they figured out was he not a very good blocker yet. He’s got to get a little stronger. he’s got to get a little bigger and those sorts of things. But when they went to their 12 and 13 packages, what he’s really good at is getting open. When he goes out there, he’s open almost every time and Matthew Stafford feeds him the ball. So, I think that’s a big part of what they do is just knowing what to ask their players to do and putting him in a position to do it. Yeah. And on the Cardinal side, it’s, you know, the plan was the same, the execution not so much. Like I think Jonathan Ganon isn’t as bad of a coach as his record would indicate over his time here. I think that it’s an astute observation the division in which he’s coaching has two coaches who are going to be better head coaches than him forever in Kyle Shanahan and especially Shawn McVey. Okay. Now, the Cardinals draft, this this past draft, looked to be one of the steels with Walter Nolan at 16 and then Will Johnson, who was the highest rated corner through six weeks before he got injured in the second round. And things just haven’t really molded the way you wanted them to. Obviously, the first story line was Kyler Murray. Now, it’s no longer a story line. They’re not opening his window to return. I think that’s the end for Kyler Murray. Um, the offense with Jacobe Brousette, it’s been okay. I mean, obviously, they’ve been moving the ball down the field. Trey McBride is an allp pro candidate this year. Um Paris Johnson Jr. has been good. The defense has been fine. But the Arizona Cardinals as an organization counter to what the Rams do is the Cardinals are always reactionary and not forcing others to react to them. And it’s not something that you know is it comes easy. You obviously have to have the talent. The guys have to be healthy. The Cardinals have been riddled with injury. Even though I don’t use that as an excuse ever. The problem is when the Cardinals have the ball and can go win a game, they don’t. When the Cardinals don’t have the ball and need a stop to win the game, they don’t. They’ve been they’re 0 and6 I think in the last one score games, 0 and seven, something like that. It’s it’s an institutional thing. And good teams win one-sore games. Bad teams don’t. And the Rams have always over the last decade have found themselves or whatever last six, seven years have found themselves a way to win games much more than they lose in those 5050 games. I think that’s a huge deciding factor between the two. That’s what was that was what was so surprising about last week when they lost to Carolina in one of those games. It’s like, okay, you need to make a stop. For the first time in a long time, they didn’t get one. They couldn’t get off the field when they needed to do it. When they had a chance to go down and and take the lead late and put the pressure back on Bryce Young and Carolina, Matthew Stafford took a really bad sack and got the ball knocked out of his hands, which we haven’t seen him do that in a really long time. that given opportunities where it could go either way, it goes their way a lot more often. And I think that’s, you know, the Rams are obviously a very talented team. They they’ve got a lot of good players in a lot of good spots and I think they’ve got a really good coach. But they don’t shoot their own foot off very often. They really don’t do that. That this is a thing that if you’re going to beat them, it’s usually because you played pretty well. That’s what was so weird about the early part of their season when they lost uh to San Francisco and Philadelphia. they they went, you know, six weeks with a with a kicking problem that was so glaring and that they just let it kind of sit there and happen over and over again was very unrammlike. Uh they finally got it fixed and and they’ve been pretty consistent in that uh regard since then. But yeah, they they don’t make a ton of like what are they doing out there kind of plays and when they do happen like they did last week, they really stick out. Yeah. What’s that like? So let’s get into the most important matchups. Okay. I’m even going to go first. Normally I defer. I’m going to go first because there’s nothing more exciting for me going into Sunday than the young corners of the Arizona Cardinals against Devonte Adams and Poop Nool. We’ll discuss that and the other key matchups next. Locked on Cardinals, locked on Rams. Crossover Thursday. 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So, something that could actually be, you know, a real contestant matchup with probably pound-for-pound to me when you got to have one game the best one-two wide receiver punch in football over Jamar Chase and T. Higgins over anybody else. These two, for my money, are the best. Devonte Adams is the touchdown scorer. Puka is the workhorse between the 20s. And Will Johnson has shown that he is not an NFL quarterback as a rookie. He is a bonafide superstar in the making at corner. And Garrett Williams was borderline allp pro the last two seasons when he was healthy. This is it for me. If the Cardinals cannot stop Puka, if they cannot stop the deep ball, if they cannot stop Devonte Adams, the Cardinals are going to lose by 30. So this is something that can be maintained by the DBs the Cardinals have. This is not going to be as lopsided as people think. Yeah, you you said it pretty well, Alex. I think what the Rams have done with those two guys in particular is they’ve kind of separated what they they when Cup and Puka were together, they were kind of the same guy, right? They were both really physical wide receivers. They both ran a lot of the same routes and you could put you could kind of interchange them in a lot of different ways and get them to do things like if you said Puka on a clear out, he could do it. If you sent Cup on a clear out over the middle of the field, he could do it. Devonte doesn’t do stuff like that. I mean, you’d be crazy to ask him to do something like that. That kind of goes back to what we were talking about earlier, just knowing you, you know, KY, know your personnel and put them in position to succeed. They throw the ball to Dvonte Adams when they’re inside the 20 yard line. They they will throw it to him occasionally between the 20s, but that’s usually where Puka does his work. That’s where they go to a lot of that 12 and 13 that they seem to have discovered in in in the middle of this season. But but you’re right as far as as far as the matchups go, I’m really excited to see it because not just from the the wide receiver cornerback matchup, but what does it do for Matthew Stafford? Because Stafford was I I I thought had separated himself a little bit when it came to that uh MVP conversation. You know, there was that group of guys for about the first eight or nine weeks and then then it was him and May that kind of popped out out of it and then it felt like Stafford had even popped out ahead of May. Well, he came right back to the pack with the performance against Carolina. And now I think that, you know, how does he bounce back? I I I have all the faith in the world that he’ll look pretty good. This isn’t a rookie. This guy’s been around a million years. He’s had bad games before and and come back and look pretty good. But I think you’re right that that is a a really intriguing matchup. The weird part about Matthew Stafford is he looks like he’s getting better every year, but he’s healthy. You know, it’s kind of it’s Tom Bradyish. Like I’m not saying it is, not saying he is. Matthew S been in this league for two centuries, okay? He was so much more talented physically when he was in Detroit and then he grew up and he had a coach and now it’s a controlled situation and like you went from a UCL maybe to never throw again to we were laughing about the offseason stuff about the hyperbaric chamber. Dude didn’t want to practice, bro. He’s 100. Let him not practice. And then now he’s reinventing himself in a more self-editing, controlled fashion. And now he’s got Devonte Adams. Like Devonte Adams plus him inside the five equals touchdown. It makes Mike Evans and Tom Brady look almost elementary like they’re making people like it’s like, “Hey, it’s going there. Hey, it’s going to be a slant. Hey, it’s it’s going right there. Hey, it’s going right there. Touchdown.” Like, yeah, seemingly every time. And it took them a while early on in the season because there were a lot of I remember this. There were a lot of red zone incompletions to Devonte and then they’ve just figured it out for the Cardinals. The problem with this is you can’t go haymaker for haymaker with the Rams. You don’t have it. Jacobe Brassette’s able to throw the ball down the field. Trey McBride is going to always be open. Um it’s going to be Michael Wilson or Marv. We’ll see. Marv didn’t practice yesterday. I think it was kind of a vet day. He had a heel last week. But what we saw and what you saw from afar was Michael Wilson explode when when Marvin Harrison Jr. didn’t play like the problem with this offense. What I found is which is my next most important matchup is Drew Petting versus skill position players is like you’ve got enough for one X. It was nine for over a 100 between Michael Wilson and Marvin Harrison Jr. last week. Do you have enough for an X and a Z and a tight end? Like with Trey McBride being the lion share dude, being the allpro guy, if Drew Petting wants to save his job, and some may think it’s too too late for that anyways, you got to be able to produce for both receivers and Trey McBride and not have them cancel each other out because the Cardinals can’t do anything more than they’ve already shot themselves in the foot with. And that’s the next iteration of this to see if they’re able to expound upon that against an opponent that’s, you know, going to make a deep playoff run. Yeah. You know, I I think it’s interesting because the one thing that the Rams struggled with last week, the thing that they struggled with through the early part of the season were their corners. Now, it’s changed a little bit in what they’ve done uh the last couple of weeks. They got a killer Witherspoon back. He’s going to he I I would expect him to play a lot more this week. Uh you know, finally working his way back into it. They went out and reacquired Darien Kendrick um who got cut earlier. They’re bringing him back again. You throw that in with uh Kobe Durant. you throw him in there with Darius Williams. And then the weird one is M Emanuel Forbes. I keep want to call him Malcolm Forbes. Emanuel Forbes. Uh Emanuel Forbes was a guy that Washington said, “Yeah, there’s the door. Please leave.” That the Rams came in and said, “Well, we’ll take.” He was a first round pick two years ago, right? That was Washington moved off of him really, really quickly. Came into the Rams basically never played and you’re like, “Okay, there’s nothing there.” And then this year because of some injuries, namely to Witherspoon, some underperformance in some other players, they basically said, “Let’s give Forbes a shot.” He got off to a really bad start and then really started to play well and had about a four or five week run where it’s like, “Hey, the Rams might have found something here and then he got abused against Carolina. They absolutely killed him. He had his worst game as a Ram. Um, I’m really curious to see how he bounces back. really curious to see how much they use him, whether they use the additional guys that they’ve gotten that they’ve brought in like Kendrick or gotten back like Witherspoon and push him. Um Shami Vay likes that competition, right? He you see what they’re doing at running back with Kairen Williams who’s a a really good NFL back. Blake Corm gets a a decent amount of touches and every time Cororm gets going, Williams goes back in there and runs like his absolute hair is on fire. It is a really good one-two punch. So, I’m curious to see whether or not Forbes can respond like Williams does because he had a very bad day and and if there’s a soft spot on that Rams defense, it’s in the back end for sure and especially late. Yeah. I mean, and the only, you know, the only equalizer to that is the Cardinals can’t run the ball right now. Yeah. So, um it’s not like you’re going to have to focus on Chuba and Rico Dattle who didn’t have much of a game, but I mean Chuba ate him alive. I know the touchdown was a screen pass and not a run or a swing pass, but like Bam Knight had 65 rushing yards last week and it was 10 yards more rushing than the entire team had the week before. So, it’s like this is going to be 50 dropbacks for Jacobe Brassette. So, the most important matchup for me, as I said, is Will Johnson, Gary Williams, and the DBs verse verse the white outs for uh for the Rams. But the right side of the offensive line’s a problem. The left guard is a problem. Paris Johnson Jr. is going to be the left tackle forever. But when you have Byron Young and Braden Fisk and and and Kobe Turner and these guys that are really going to wreak havoc, it’s really going to come down to, you know, Jorg said, getting the ball getting rid of the ball quickly because we saw five sacks in the first half against Seattle. They only gave up two last week to Tampa Bay, but they don’t have that great of a pass rush. This pass rush is going to tee off on the Arizona Cardinals after getting embarrassed by Carolina last week. This is a nightmare scenario for the Cardinals. And this is, you know, it’s not wo is me. It’s just what the hell was happening and what will happen most likely on Sunday. The the timing of it, I think, is is good news for Rams fans and bad news for for Cardinal fans because, you know, the Ram what’s what’s weird about where the Rams are right now is they’re not just competing to get that number one. They they had the number one seed for a hot second and then they lost to Carolina. Chicago jumps over. I don’t think Chicago has a a chance in hell of finishing with the number one seed. I really don’t. not knowing what their schedule is and what’s coming up. Now, I didn’t think they’d be nine and three either, so what the hell do I know? But I think that they’re going to at least drop one or two more games, so I think that’ll take care of itself. What’s interesting for me, and why I think this game for the Rams against Arizona this weekend is really interesting. The Rams are either going to be the number one seed or the number five or six. Yeah, that’s it. Those are the only options. The the winner of the NFC between LA and Seattle, I think, is very, very likely to be the number one seed. and everything else goes from there, right? The Rams in LA are a different team than if you have to go to Chicago, if you have to go to Philadelphia, if you have to go to Green Bay, if you have to go to Seattle. These are all outdoor cold places. That’s not what they do particularly well. Can they? Sure, if you have to. But I think that this is the beginning of their final push and they get Arizona twice. It works out really, really well. Like you were talking about, I you know, they didn’t get Bryce Young on the ground. They got him, they sacked him twice, but he wasn’t under a great deal of pressure. They ran the ball pretty well like you mentioned. Um if if the Cardinals are having trouble running the ball and the Rams can just pin their ears back and go get the quarterback, that’s that’s very good news for the Rams. Super sweet, guys. Awesome. Let’s talk about keys to victory. Guess what? It’s going to be turnover battle again. We’re going to do it next. Damn it. Travis Rogers locked on Rams. He and Ducky do a great job over there. Alex Lansancy locked on Cardinals. Um, subscribe to our respective podcasts, man, on YouTube. You know, it’s a number one sports podcast platform on the planet and probably other planets, I would think, inhabited and uninhabited ones. Uh, turnover battle. The funny part about this, Travis, is when the Cardinals played Jacksonville two weeks ago, they took the ball away four times and still lost. Didn’t give up one turnover, still lost. Bad teams find a way to lose games. I say on on my show, the Cardinals have spoke 40 different versions of cochnney English this year and it’s all losing. It doesn’t matter. It’s the same language. It sounds and looks different, but it’s the same language and it’s the same result. What the Cardinals have done for the most part with Jacobe Brassette is they’ve been good with the football and they’ve taken the ball away to opposing teams. They turned the ball over twice last week, but still it results in losses. This is something that’s thwarting my brain from any sort of rational thought. You turn over Trevor Lawrence, three interceptions and a fumble and you still lose by a field goal. And one of those was a pick six. That’s the world in which we’re living here in Phoenix. And unfortunately, a lot of what we see on game day is good, but the bad just far outweighs it. Even if it’s only for spot moments in the game, especially down the stretch. So for me, key to victory, turnover first. Talk about the turnovers with the Rams. Yeah, I I you know, the the R Matthew Stafford had thrown 28 consecutive touchdown passes without an interception and then he threw two and three plays. You know, it’s just it it happened that fast. He had two interceptions all season long and then he threw two and three plays. If they take care of the ball, they’re really hard to beat. Like you you think about with the game, they lost to Carolina because they turned it over three times, didn’t take it away once. They lost to Philadelphia because they couldn’t make a kick. They got two kicks blocked in the fourth quarter, which is as good as a turnover. And they lost to San Francisco on a Thursday night because Kairen Williams fumbled on the one yard line going in for the winning touchdown. Right. If they don’t turn it over, they don’t lose. Right. It it it really is as simple as that. You know, the one game where they were really dominant in that turnover margin and it still was a close call was against Seattle a couple of weeks ago where they they they turned Sam Darnold over four times and they won by two points. you know, that that was the one that was kind of weird. Like the Seattle kind of goes back to we were talking about before. I think Seattle’s terrific. Um, if they hold on to the ball, I I think they’re in a really good spot. I don’t think that they’re going to be, you know, I don’t think the Cardinals are going to be able to move the ball up and down the field on them all day long. I think the Rams will have some success uh on both sides. I’m still waiting for as far as the Rams needing to make a kick under pressure. Here’s one for you. I say this on all all the crossovers that I’ve done. The Rams went from week six to week 12 without making a field goal. I mean, that’s just crazy, right? They they they went from week six to week 12 without making a field goal. You know how many games they lost? One. You know, it it was it was just crazy how they were able to do it. They finally moved on from Cardi. They’ve got Harrison Mivas in there, the thicker kicker. Any kicker that wears number 92 is thumbs up in my book. Um it’s just it’s a it’s a tremendous look. So, I want to see that guy have to make a kick with a little bit of of something riding on it. Maybe he’ll never have to. I don’t know. It probably will, but yeah, turnovers make your kicks. I think they’re in a pretty good spot. Yeah, I mean, one thing I’ll push back on is the Cardinals have been able to move the ball against every team with Jacob Brassette in some form of fashion. Now, the problem lately, it’s been it’s stalled after getting over the 50, get a couple good chunk first downs, and then three and out, you miss a long field goal or you got a punt. Like what Jacobe Brassette can do when given two and a half seconds is find somebody hoping down the field. And what the Cardinals need to be able to do to to combat this pass rush because Jared versus, you know, he may as well be wearing 99. I know he’s not exactly the same. I know he’s not going to be as good, but he may as well serve that purpose because he is going to wreak havoc on the Arizona Cardinals for a decade to come. is quick out option routes to be able for Jacob said to get out of situations that he can’t run out of you know and that’s something unfortunately without James Conor without Trey Benson Bam Knight and Michael Carter aren’t at that level even though you know they’ve both shown flashes and that’s something the Cardinal have struggled with doing when trying to build you know longer drives so that’s something that’s going to have to be the get out of jail free card for Jacobe Brassette on Sunday with the offensive line they’ve got that’s one thing that the Rams and and that it’s not just this year this has been something that traditionally they have struggled This is something that Kyle Shanahan absolutely murders the Rams with week to week is get the ball out quick, right? That just, you know, snap one, two, ball gone. That I don’t care how good Jared Verse is and how many sacks Byron Young has and Braden Fisk and all the guys you mentioned, Kobe Turner, all those guys and you Tyler Davis has had a good year, too. They’ve had a lot of guys that have gotten to the quarterback, but no one’s getting home in a second and a half, doesn’t you know, Lawrence Taylor doesn’t get home in a second and a half. Doesn’t matter if if the ball is coming out that quickly, it doesn’t matter. And the teams that have done that effectively have given Carolina did it last week. The ball if the ball comes out fast, your pass rush gets neutralized really quickly. So that Arizona is pretty good at that. I think it will be interesting to watch. Real quick, I think Bryce Young may have the highest IQ out of any quarterback in the NFL. And I and I mean that like he’s 5’10. He has all of his angles down. Like he doesn’t take bad sacks. The dude knows every inch that he can move inside the pocket. His pocket presence is insane. Like I watched that game because I wanted to see what the Rams I want to see Carolina because the Cardinals beat him earlier in the year and this isn’t locked on Panthers. But that’s like jarring, isn’t it? That he doesn’t get more balls batted down and stuff like that. I I’ll be honest. I I think that’s the first time last week that I’d ever watched him play an entire NFL football game. I I was expecting, you know, a little guy like you said, balls batted down, him running for his life, pocket collapsing on top. He was really good, Alex. Like I’m like what what am I missing here? Like why why aren’t they better than they are? Because he did not seem to be the problem at all. I would now again maybe I caught him on his best day ever. I don’t know. But but he he certainly looked capable against the Rams. Yeah. Anyways, back to our crossover. Travis like before we start recording, we just do like a radio show together. It’s the like we just talk for 20 minutes. Sorry, we got to keep the angles on. We’re talking about two teams here. Um, the last thing for me, and this is probably the biggest thing, even more than turnovers and protecting Jakett, not giving up the deep ball to Puka. Like, that’s like that’s the biggest I’d rather Kairen Williams rush 25 times for 120 yards and churn and death by a thousand cuts and keep everything in front of you than one, you know, 65 yard deep ball dime that Puka catches 80% of regardless of how contested they are. We saw maybe the catch of the year last year from or last week from him and Devonte Adams can do that too. I know they throw the threw the ball a little bit more downfield to him earlier in the season. He’s good for one deep crossing route a game that he may either hit him or not, but like that deep ball thing just to puka. Nobody else. That is the absolute back breaker that the Cardinals cannot combat with their offense no matter how well Jacobe can throw the ball down the field. Yeah, you’re right. But one of the other things to kind of throw into the mix too is they usually have another a play like that as well that goes to neither Puka nor Devonte Adams, you know, like they’ll hit two with one. They’ll hit uh Xavier Smith caught one last week against Carolina. Like there uh uh you know, Kobe Parkinson gets down the field. I mentioned Terren Ferguson. Like when Terren Ferguson catches the ball, it’s probably and I’m just guessing here. I bet it’s close to 20 yards per catch on average. Like he’s not catching a bunch of four and five yarders. they push the ball down the field to him as well. So, you’re right, like Puka is the first target on those sorts of plays, but when Matthew Stafford has his full complement of weapons, and he really has most of this season, he’s really hard to defend because before it was throw it to cup, throw it to cup, throw it to cup, and then it was then it was just throw it to Nua, puka, puka, puka, puka. And now, you know, he’s hitting seven, eight, nine, 10 guys a game. And and good luck trying to figure out where he’s going with the ball. with the one exception that you mentioned earlier, they get the ball inside the 10 yard line, you can bet your house that it’s going to Devonte Adams. Yeah. And it’s most likely going to be a touchdown. I mean, with the Cardinals, like it’s it’s more pronounced to Trey McBride and Marv and Michael Wilson. It’ll be fascinating to see what those two wide receivers on the field on top of. Trey is going to catch 10 for 90 in a touchdown. It’s just what’s going to happen. Um, if you if if you’re a, you know, sprinkle person on FanDuel, the Cardinals can’t stop tight ends. They’ve never been able to. So, this is a, you know, Kobe Parkinson or um or Terren Ferguson game. I would lend to think Terren Ferguson has a better chance of scoring against because they run him up the seam and stuff. They they run him a completely different too. They he he he doesn’t catch a ton of passes, but when he does it’s a lot of them are in the end zone. Yeah. So, it’ll be fascinating to see, man. Like Cardinals are probably going to lose this game, but what the Cardinals have done all year outside of the post buy game against Seattle and the 49ers um is they’re in every game. Like this is not a team that’s a a pushover. This is not a dysfunctional organizational team this year. Between the lines, yeah, they haven’t been great outside. All the noise is gone. The culture is rock solid. And the problem is that doesn’t win football games. So if the Cardinals lose by three scores, I’ll be like, okay, they’re just not there’s not a good team. There’s some injuries, things like that. If it’s close, if it’s a 10-point game going into the fourth quarter, nobody’s going to be shocked here. Nobody’s gonna be shocked. So, um, with that said, Travis Rogers locked on Rams. Alexi locked on Cardinals. We will talk to you on our respective podcast tomorrow. Talk to you then. Nope.

Travis is joined by Locked On Cardinals host, Alex Clancy to preview the Rams week 14 matchup against the Arizona Cardinals. Key matchups, storylines, and more!

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