Can the Rams go all the way? | You Pod to Win the Game
Yahoo Sports’ Charles Robinson and The Ringer’s Kevin Clark discuss whether this will be the year the Rams talented roster takes the next steps needed to win a Super Bowl Title. Hear the full conversation on the You Pod to Win the Game podcast. Subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher or wherever you listen.
Video Transcript
CHARLES ROBINSON: Look, everyone is super hot and excited about the Rams going into the NFC title game. Are you a believer in this is Stafford punching his ticket and finally getting beyond all this Stat Padford kind of name that's been attached to him?
KEVIN CLARK: All right, so great question. I'm not gonna play "what if" game on the Tampa Bay game. Because they did go up. They won. Tampa Bay had its flaws. The NFC was an inherently flawed conference all year.
CHARLES ROBINSON: Right.
KEVIN CLARK: There was no Bills. There was no Chiefs. I'm not too concerned about either of these teams. What I'll say is that the Rams have more talent, and at some point that just wins out. There's a Kirby Smart quote I used a couple of weeks ago, no coach can out-coach recruiting. Can't out-scheme recruiting, right? At some point, the fact that you have 10, 12, 13 more great players than the team that you're playing, that tends to matter on the defensive side of the ball.
The fact they have a better quarterback and they're built differently than the 49ers, and they still have the same level of talent. Don't know the injury situation with a guy like Kittle. The 49ers seem a little banged up. I'm just gonna go with the Rams because of the roster.
CHARLES ROBINSON: Although the Rams, they made some key acquisitions on defense. You know, Ramsey's-- Mike Evans burning him aside, Ramsey obviously is playing at a high level. They're getting stuff out of Von. If I was like, hey, make a case for a team winning out, the Rams beating the 49ers and winning the Super Bowl, the case I would make is the front end of the defense. When you're talking about what Aaron Donald does, Leonard Floyd, Von Miller, I would say the front end of that defense has an ability maybe to affect the game the way Tampa's front end of the defense did in its stretch last year.
And so it's sort of a-- while they got hot at the right time, they completely disrupted what the Chiefs or Bengals are doing or whatever. They completely disrupted the line of scrimmage. That's why I kind of look at the 49ers and I'm like, Jimmy G doesn't go-- there's not a, hey, he didn't get sacked game. There's no way. If they don't get to Jimmy, something fundamentally broke down that I didn't expect, and that's kind of why I like the Rams in this game.
KEVIN CLARK: I think Von Miller had a 25% pressure rate in the last game.
CHARLES ROBINSON: Yeah.
KEVIN CLARK: You know, if he-- Leonard Floyd on the other side. If they have that kind of impact. Difference being the Bucs had the same injuries that the Chiefs had last year. They just ran out of offensive linemen.
CHARLES ROBINSON: Right.
KEVIN CLARK: Whereas the Chiefs offensive line is playing really well. So--
CHARLES ROBINSON: Right.
KEVIN CLARK: --I think you would need some injury luck in order to get that kind of pressure on the Chiefs.
