Rich Breaks Down the (MANY) Issues Plaguing the 2-4 Rams This Season

If you had been told before the season that six weeks in, one team would be 4-2 and another 2-4, and the teams were the Rams and the Browns, you'd have assumed the Browns were the ones at 2-4. You'd have gone full Tomlin, as Rich put it: the Browns have browned.

Instead, it's the other way around. And the Rams' latest loss came at home to the team Rich jokingly called the new home team in Los Angeles, the Arizona Cardinals.

The stat Rich couldn't get over: the Cardinals opened the year with a win over the Chargers at SoFi Stadium, and with Sunday's win, they have now won more games at SoFi this season than the Rams and Chargers combined. The Rams' own season has gone like this: a win over the Giants at SoFi in week two, a loss in Denver, a win in Philadelphia, a home loss to Buffalo, and now a home loss to Arizona.

The diagnosis was consistent. The Rams simply cannot play a full game mistake-free with all three phases working together. The defense was balling out on Sunday. The offense couldn't string together mistake-free drives that ended in points, against a Cardinals team that got lit up by the Detroit Lions the week before.

Rich thinks the Rams are just as talented offensively as the Lions. But the run game has no consistency, with carries split between Kyren Williams and Rich's guy Blake Corum. When Williams was asked about the lack of consistency on drives, he essentially said, don't ask me, I'm not out there. "That was crazy," someone in the studio said.

The kicking game turned into its own saga. The Rams have a new kicker, Blake Grupe, who Rich said looks, with all due respect, like Steve Rogers before the super serum. Grupe nailed his first field goal, and everyone thought the problem was fixed. Then on the ensuing kickoff he threw his body around like he'd just gotten the serum, bounced off a player about 100 pounds bigger than him, and left the Rams without their kicker.

That threw everything off. After a touchdown, the Rams went for two, which Rich noted is somehow not the forte of one of the league's greatest play callers. They haven't had a two-point conversion in three years. Later, after another touchdown with hardly any time left, they brought in punter Ethan Evans for the extra point, and it looked like it would have been good from 60.

Evans was going to be Rich's NFC special teams player of the week, even though Chad Ryland made five field goals. The problem is the Rams kept Arizona in it long enough for Ryland to make a sixth. Greg Olsen kept saying on the broadcast that settling for field goals loses against the Rams. The flip side, Rich said, is that if you don't score, don't play clean, and your kicker plays Captain America, "you are inviting the refs to screw it up for you."

And the refs did. The field position for the winning kick came from a throw over the middle and a 15-yard penalty on Josh Wallace, Rich's fellow Wolverine, for graze contact to the chin area with the top of his helmet while tackling a receiver making a circus catch. Rich thought for sure replay assist would pick the flag up. It didn't.

It's the second time Wallace has been at the center of it. He's the one whose game-sealing interception in Denver was ruled pass interference, even though he was being dragged across the field by Pat Bryant. The league apologized to Sean McVay, then wrist-slapped him for letting that become public.

Now the Rams are 2-4 and, because they lost to the Cardinals, in last place in the NFC West. "They are so much better than this," Rich said. "Anyone with a set of eyes knows it." But as Bill Parcells famously said, you are what you are. And right now, the Rams are "a mistake-prone two and four team laden with talent."

At some point, Rich said, Myles Garrett is going to take off the hat, put on a helmet, and join Aaron Donald on a defense that did its job Sunday. McVay, asked about the team's identity, gave a short answer: "We're figuring out. I can't answer that right now." Rich read it as a man who was stunned, and he didn't blame him. "Good humbling day," McVay said later. "It starts with me, and I got to be able to have some better answers so that I'm not up here saying the same things to you guys."

Next up are the Raiders, who can beat this team if the mistakes continue. That would make good on the prediction Akbar Gbaja-Biamila made on the show, calling the Raiders a 12-5 team that would start 3-0, lose three straight, and then beat the Rams. The Rams need to fix the kicking game and kick coverage, and Rich hopes Davante Adams, who had a non-contact limp late in the game, is healthy. After the Raiders come the winless Chargers, then visits to Washington and Arizona. Win three of those four, and they're 5-5 heading into the bye.

Rich reminded everyone that Tom Brady was once .500 at Thanksgiving and went on to win the Super Bowl. This team is talented enough, too. "If anyone thinks I'm jumping ship, I'm not," he said. He did admit he's considering dropping the Rams out of his power rankings this week.

And the comments? The studio admitted they read them, after constantly telling Rich not to. "We can handle them," came the reply. "You're too sensitive." Rich's headline stands: he's not jumping ship.