If you want to see something weird

Look at the scores of the Rams games this season, and then look at the yards gained by each team in those games. Very strange trend in many of them.

In 6 of their 10 wins the Rams were outgained by the other team. Including their last 2 wins where they won 13-9 and 19-9 vs Cards and Jets. They gave up 396 yards to Arizona and somehow only gave up 9 points. Those 2 games combined they were outgained by 218 yards.

Then you look at their 7 losses, in 5 of them the Rams outgained their opponent, including the last meaningless one vs Seattle.

Makes the team tough to cap. They win when they play bad and lose when they play good. 

@NutinButtLove

I see what you mean. It is puzzling and I don't know what to make of it. The Rams are my second leg of a moneyline play. 

Am wondering if Darnold has recovered from his nervous breakdown? Dude looked like he was having a panic attack. Wonder if Stafford can decipher how Flores will attack him? Goff had some problems early on with that Vikes' D last week. 

@NutinButtLove

Rams are surging in the last few months, perhaps wining some games in ugly fashions. But as weird as how they won games. At the end of the day, after  lost to the Eagles, they won five of their six games, including beat Bills. Weird record, but Rams still have a recent Super Bowl winning QB, some roasters and the head coach.

Great reservations you got here. Good luck to you on your Monday's bets!  

I wouldn't call wins of 12-6 over SF, 19-9 over NYJ and 13-9 over Arizona (a game they got outgaine by 139) surging. Besides the Vikings the Bills are the only other playoff team they beat. Buffalo had Detroit the next week and beat them, Rams lost to the Lions week 1.

Rams have had too many scoring droughts this year for me to like them.

Woah. Interesting 

High variance. Good coach. 

Thanks for the info 

Yeah I'm not going to start another thread on this game because besides that weirdness there's just a few other stats that I think spell trouble for the Rams. 

They are 31st in the NFL in 1st quarter points scored. Minnesota is 2nd. I think a good start will be key for Darnold, and his team seems more likely to get that. 8 of the top 10 teams in this stat made the playoffs. Nobody in the bottom 12 besides the Rams made it and they are sandwiched in between the Giants and Chicago. not great company to be keeping.

On defense a stat i always look at for the pass dependant NFL is yards per pass attempt allowed. vikings are tied with KC for 11th while Rams are down at 25 and nobody ranked 22-32 made the playoffs so again they are the worst playoff team in another important stat.

On offense Vikes are 5th in ypa while LA is 15th tied with the Steelers. 8 of the top 10 teams in this stat made the playoffs. Only Houston and Denver were playoff teams worse than LA in this stat and the worst one Denver got crushed yesterday.

3rd quarter points allowed, 8 of the top 10 teams made the playoffs and 9 of the top 11 teams and Minny ranks 8th. Only Houston and LA tied for 25th made the playoffs while ranking in the bottom 10 in this stat.

The Rams don't score much on offense to start games and aren't stopping teams when the 2nd half starts. Not a great combo.

Might seem like I'm just cherry picking stats here to suit my pick, I'm not. I actually bet the Rams bought a point up to +3.5 before the game got moved. I've since gone ahead and made a bigger bet on Vikings moneyline because I changed my mind based not only on the game being moved but the stats I'm seeing.

Rams do a good job taking care of the ball, 4th least turnovers in the NFL. But Minny leads the league in takeaways. That's always a good stat to have in the playoffs.

The Rams gave up the 5th least sacks while Minny has the 5th most on defense. Of all playoff teams this season Rams have the least sacks as a defense. But they are basically tied with Buffalo. Maybe that is partially why they could hang with the Bills and beat them by 2.

Finally, the Rams run game with KW will be facing the number 2 ranked rush defense. 12 of the top 14 teams in this stat made the playoffs. Only Washington has a lower ranking than the Rams at 27th and 22nd respectively and no other team ranked 15th-32nd even made the playoffs.

And Washington would have lost yesterday if Baker and the coach werent such boneheads. Not only did he fumble away the lead after a huge 4th down stop. Moron coach then calls the QB who just fumbled to get a 3rd and 1 and they got stuffed twice had to kick a FG. The Bucs beat themselves more than anything.

McVay is pretty good I agree. But Minnesota's coach must be okay if he can turn a former castoff and bust into a decent QB. Of course having Jefferson helps a lot. I think people are looking at the last Minnesota game too much. The game before that they were winning, it was much closer and Detroit just outlasted them.

I feel like they're the 2nd best team in the best division and the Rams could be what many said Houston was - the best team in a trash division. SF was awful, Seattle went down the drain, the Cardinals were a pesky team that covered a good bit as a dog and snatched some games late but weren't good enough to make the playoffs, and both times the Rams played them they were hideously outgained. The first game they gave up almost 500 yards and Staff got sacked 5 times - in the same stadium they play in tonight, mind. They also almost gave up 500 to Philly and Barkley set a franchise rushing record.

@NutinButtLove

 There's nothing wrong with changing your mind on a game. As a matter of fact, good cappers are the ones who know to put aside their initial leans(or god forbid bias) and let the #'s, stats, metrics or trends lead them to a better bet.

Kudos 

The other thing obviously important to look at is the game they already played.

The Vikings had to travel on a short week. TNF the Rams got both Kupp and Nacua back, spirits were high. Who knows if the fires have affected the players mentality but I don't think traveling when you weren't planning on it is a positive and neither is having to face a team with revenge on a neutral field when you were supposed to be at home.

I know everyone will root for LA and think the fires give them some extra motivation but I don't buy into that come playoff time, motivation is not an issue for either side. Who is executing? Rams aren't scoring a ton of points the last month outside that Buffalo game and the one they rested everyone. Minnesota has been way more consistent at scoring points, especially early on in games.

In 5 of the Rams last 6 wins they were shut out for 2 of 4 quarters. Half the game. That isn't sustainable. It also happened in their loss to Miami, in their win vs the Raiders, and in their loss to GB. It would have also happened in their loss to Philly except Kupp caught a garbage time TD with 1 minute left in the game when they were down 23 points and the Eagles were in prevent.

Would also have been shutout for the entire first half during their OT win vs Seattle except they got a single FG in the 2nd quarter. That's practically 10 games of zero points in half the game.

When you look at how their offense has struggled to score points especially TDs it's hard to back them in a playoff game vs a good defense. Nacua and Kupp are good but Jefferson has more TDs than they do combined. Nacua only has 3 this year, tho Robinson has 7 picking up the slack and likely benefitting from the attention they get.

Basically they only game they scored points in every quarter WAS that game vs Minnesota. So, should that make me wary of backing the Vikes? I dunno, it looks more like an anomaly that isn't likely to be repeated.

With a defense that has had some nightmare almost 500 yards allowed games and an offense that usually has 2 quarter scoring droughts, combined with the Rams losing home field and most of their wins being phony ones were they got outgained, I'm gonna have to back Minny here to move on and face Philadelphia. Like I said I changed my mind and I rarely ever do that (often doesn't work out) but as you can see i did my homework first, it's not JUST because the game got moved. The fairytale stories don't usually come off but if they defy all these stats and 'win it for the wildfires' I'll just have to shrug and say fair play to them because I don't think it's gonna be easy based on how I perceive the way these two teams have played this year outside of that TNF when Minny was in a mini slump.

Should be a good game but my position is now on Vikings ML. If they win by 3 or less I can actually get a middle.

I'm also throwing a little bet on for the game to go to OT at +1400. None of the other games have done so yet and it's the last one on MNF on a neutral field with 2 teams that played already so i could see it happening I could see Vikings being up early and it being tied late. Vikings have one OT game (W) and Rams have 2 (1W 1L).

And a couple other little props for fun, well, we have to go with Jetta for 1st Vikings TD and Robinson for 1st Rams TD.

yes it's called winning inside out no mater the score you win 21- 10 but hot outaned by 100 more ardsvery tems stats in akk games cab ve vied here in covers just pivk the weeks

@undermysac

 True, the mistake I made was actually pulling the trigger on the bet too early i usually try not to do that. I thought money would come in on the Rams and then it would be more expensive to get 3.5. that intial read was based on Minnesota defense trending downward towards the end, seeing Darnold struggle in a high pressure environment and situation vs Matt Stafford who never gets rattled and has won Super Bowls, and the fact they beat them already and were a home dog which is valuable in playoffs, and also the Rams basically had a bye week too. I thought others would feel the same and push the line farther down.

I never gave a thought that the game being moved. And I hadn't done a thorough job of really looking at the teams performances. 

Both those things combined changed my pick. Also important to remember the Lions were the top team in the NFC Rams look like possibly the worst team from the conference to make the playoffs. Darnold could easily bounce back from that this week, especially if his defense gets those takeaways they normally get.

Now I have two plays at 4/6 which is heavy juice but the Vikings bet is 3x the Rams one so it's a clear position for me now. Anyway not under any pressure after hitting 4 of 5 in this round a good overall season. Would be perfect if the Vikings could win by a FG in OT I would make a killing haha.

But this was the toughest game of the weekend to cap for me hence why I had to really dig deep. Sometimes you can do that, write a novel on it and still lose.. hopefully not.

Probably just comes down to coaching, defense, and how those games were officiated also curious how common a stat this is for other teams in the league.  I'm thinking it could be more common than you might think but definitely a strange stat indeed

Well a lot of it depends on turnovers, missed field goals, and even a sack taking a team out of field goal range forcing them to punt.

Football can be weird. Remember when Goff threw 5 picks vs Texans? Who won that game?