Los Angeles Rams Super Bowl 59 Chances: Experts Split on Contender Status

The Los Angeles Rams shocked the football world last year. Expected to win six games or fewer, Sean McVay’s team made a seven-and-one run to finish the season and earn the sixth seed in the playoffs. Expectations for this season have been raised, their win total over/under is 8.5 games, but opinions of this team vary wildly.

On Thursday’s episode of This Is Football, host Kevin Clark discussed the Rams Super Bowl hopes with PFF’s Seth Galina and Steven Ruiz of the Ringer . Clark is bullish on the Rams chances, but Galina can’t get past the looming questions on the defense.

The Case For the Rams Winning Super Bowl 59

“Rams might win the Super Bowl and can win the Super Bowl.” Clark states, “They have a top three coach and they have a good quarterback, who was throwing darts last year and the roster is pretty good. Sean McVay dragged a really young team to a bunch of wins last year. I understand the Aaron Donald thing is going to hurt, but I really believe Sean McVay can a work miracles.”

“Sean McVay with this roster can absolutely win the Super Bowl.”

The Case Against the Los Angeles Rams Winning Super Bowl LIX

While Clark was making his point, Galina seemed to take umbrage with his full-throated endorsement. Galina recognized that the 2023 Rams offense was fun to watch last year and that their philosophical shift around the running game created a ‘more sound’ attack, but he can’t move past the loss of Aaron Donald.

“Aaron [Donald] changes math for offenses. You have to double him even sometimes triple him.” Galina said, “Are we going to get the same play out of people next to him. What about the linebackers behind him without a dominant dominant player there and, like you said, uniquely dominant, that scares me. I don’t love a lot of the pieces on defense. It’s cool, the picks [Braden] Fiske and [Jared] Verse. I like them but like are they going to come in and be dominant players right away that they probably need on the D line.”

The Rams defense has undergone and full rebuild in addition to making a change at defensive coordinator and defensive line coach. They will have a new starter at 8 of the 11 positions. The defensive line is nearly entirely comprised of rookies or second-year players. The Rams are spending the least amount of their cap in the league on this side of the ball, by a large margin once you account for Donald’s $25 million cap hit.

In contrast, the Rams are spending the second most money on their offense. A large chunk of that is allocated to the offensive line, which is where the Rams invested the most money this offseason, re-signing Kevin Dotson and adding Jonah Jackson in free agency.

It is quite apparent what the Rams priorities are heading into the 2024 season. It’s clearly developing the young defense and leaning into a rushing attack that propelled them into the playoffs last season.

A point that all three of the guests recognized was that Matthew Stafford is still a quarterback that can march a team through the playoffs and win a Super Bowl.

More must-reads:

• Los Angeles Rams Hit Top 5 in Latest Offensive Line Rankings
• Matthew Stafford Named Best Over 30 QB by Award-Winning Exec