The season will begin 7,921 miles from home, and end in their own backyard.
They will be untouched through it all.
The Rams upcoming 22-week journey will take them far and wide, from Melbourne, Australia to Washington, D.C. and back to SoFi, a circuitous and challenging journey with but one consistent stop.
The win column.
The Rams are not losing a game.
Seventeen-and-oh in a favorable regular season schedule.
Three-and-oh in a postseason conducted entirely at home.
An NFL record combined 20-0 culminating in a Super Bowl LXI victory on Valentine’s Day at SoFi Stadium.
This obviously sounds crazy. This clearly sounds like a blazing hot take that will chill soon and embarrass often.
No, this is real. This is serious. The Rams are heavy Super Bowl favorites for a reason.
They’re that good. They’re that loaded. They’re that ready.
Even their understated owner is pumped.
“We’re excited,” Stan Kroenke told me in a conversation last week. “We have great players, a great team, a great coach, Les [Snead] and Sean [McVay] have done a great job, with Aaron [Donald] coming out of retirement … it’s a great team, and it has a chance.”
Although Kroenke was not addressing this idea of an unbeaten season, why not?
They might not be underdogs in a game until Christmas. Most of their cold-weather games — at Denver, Philadelphia and Washington — will be done by the first week of November. They get Buffalo, Green Bay and Kansas City at home.
And both of their games against the defending champion Seattle Seahawks are in the last three weeks of the season, a finishing kick that the Rams do well.
Remember, they were basically the Seahawks’ equals last season and, barring a special teams fumble and a couple of questionable calls by McVay, they would have won an NFC championship game during which they gained 479 yards against the league’s top-rated defense.
Not that the Rams believe any of this potential greatness has been guaranteed. This is a McVay-driven culture that has never bought the buzz. They live in a locker room that sounds the same every week, whether they’re celebrating a Super Bowl win or mourning a Monday night loss in Atlanta.
“This doesn’t do anything for you, whoever the favorites are, whoever is talked about, offseason, all that,” McVay told reporters recently. “None of that means a damn thing. We have to put the work in. We have to stay humble. We have to handle the adversity that’s inevitable that we’re going to face. If things go the way that we want, we stay humble and we keep going to work. And when they don’t, let us really lean in and see what the heck we’re about when that does happen because it is going to happen.”
But don’t get it twisted. Entering his 10th season, McVay knows exactly what he has, and exactly what this team can do, and he can’t wait.
“I’m excited to navigate those challenges with this group because when you go through the individuals … feel really fortunate to be in Year 10 and top to bottom, this is the best group that I’ve been around in terms of the individuals,” he said.
The best group that he’s been around? They have the potential to be one of the best groups in recent NFL history.
They have a future Hall of Fame quarterback in Matthew Stafford. They have one of the league’s best running back duos in Kyren Williams and Blake Corum. They have two of the league’s top receivers in Puka Nacua and Davante Adams. They have seemingly a dozen powerful tight ends. They have a veteran offensive line that spent all last year playing together.
Then there’s the defense. Goodness, what a defense. It’s a defense so potentially good, defensive tackle Aaron Donald willingly threw himself back into the grind after two years out of the game to join it.
“I know for him to want to be able to explore this and come back into the mix, it’s a real credit to the special people that he has got a chance to be around,” said McVay of Donald canceling his retirement.
Foremost among those special people is edge rusher Myles Garrett, who joins with Donald in giving the unit two future Hall of Famers. Garrett was acquired in a blockbuster trade that married the NFL’s best defensive player with its best team, and his arrival understandably led Donald back into pads.
“I already thought it was a stacked D-line … then you bring a guy like Myles Garrett, a generational talent, and [I was] like, ‘That can be fun.” Donald told reporters.
When you add cornerbacks Trent McDuffie and Jaylen Watson — both former Kansas City Chiefs — it gets seriously fun.
The return of Donald is truly an endorsement of the entire Rams organization. Former players don’t decide to rejoin the brutal NFL for just anyone.
“I think it is cool that he decided he wanted to be able to do this,” said McVay of Donald. “He is one-of-one.”
The only question about these headed-for-unbeaten Rams is something that haunted them all the way to their final loss last season.
Will special teams still stink?
Well, they have an energetic new special teams coach in Bubba Ventrone, a placekicker with Rams experience in Harrison Mevis, a veteran punter in Ethan Evans and…
Hold up. That might be the only time you read the punter’s name all season.
If the offensive line can stay healthy, thus keeping the 38-year-old quarterback healthy, even a slightly-less-than-special teams can’t hurt this bunch.
Stafford and Donald and Garrett, oh my!
“Just being here and being a part of this team, potentially doing something special, that’s what it’s about,” Donald said. “I think the Super Bowl being back at SoFi [Stadium] excites you too.”
See you there.
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