The Rams feature one of the most high-powered offenses in all of football, but Stephen A. Smith doesn’t believe Todd Gurley, Jared Goff and Co. will be Los Angeles’ X-factor in Super Bowl LIII.
L.A. on Feb. 3 will be running into the red-hot New England Patriots, who’ve looked as impressive as they have all season in their last two games. In addition to a recharged defense, the Patriots’ offense has been firing on all cylinders in the playoffs thus far, putting up a combined 78 points against the Los Angeles Chargers and Kansas City Chiefs.
The success of New England’s offensive attack of late largely has been due to stellar offensive line play. Tom Brady has yet to be sacked this postseason, and he hasn’t faced a whole lot of pressure in general. If the Rams’ front seven isn’t able to get to Brady in Super Bowl LIII, Smith believes the NFC champions will be leaving Mercedes-Benz Stadium on the losing end.
“I’m going to go as far to say this: the Rams’ only hope of winning this game is to get to him (Brady),” Smith said Wednesday on ESPN’s “First Take.” “When you look at the Patriots losing their two Super Bowls to the New York Giants — this is before they lost to the Eagles. Even though Tom Brady threw for over 500 yards, it was (Brandon) Graham getting to him at the end forcing that strip sack that sealed the deal. The Giants, what did they do? 2007 with (Michael) Strahan, 2011 with JPP (Jason Pierre-Paul), Osi Umenyiora and those boys. They got to him. You’ve got to get to him.”
“Only hope” probably is a bit of a stretch, but the Rams, of course, would do themselves well by making Brady uncomfortable. They certainly feature the personnel to do so, as Aaron Donald and Ndamukong Suh have made careers out of giving quarterbacks all sorts of trouble.
That said, Brady only has been sacked five times in the Patriots’ last eight games, which sets up for quite the battle in the trenches on the first Sunday in February.
