Los Angeles Rams: Get to know the 2018 Seattle Seahawks
By Jason Reed
The Los Angeles Rams are making the annual trip to CenturyLink Field to face a Seattle Seahawks team that is lacking the luster of past seasons.
The Los Angeles Rams and Seattle Seahawks will play the first of two games against each other this Sunday in CenturyLink Field. For most of the decade, going into Seattle was a huge hurdle for every team to overcome.
However, the Seahawks are no longer the Legion of Boom that they once were and the Los Angeles Rams are the best team in the NFL by a country mile.
The Rams obviously cannot underestimate the Seattle Seahawks, especially in their home stadium. Since this team is nothing like the past years, though, we are going to see a much different Rams-Seahawks game than we are used to.
With that in mind, we reached out to Ed Stein, the site expert of our FanSided sister site, Emerald City Swagger. EWC is the Seattle locals site in the FanSided division, so Ed definitely knows the Seahawks.
We asked him three questions about the Seahawks to get a grip on what to expect.
1. Who is the Seahawks’ MVP the first quarter of the season?
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“The ECS staff kicked this one around a bit. At the quarter pole, the Seattle Seahawks MVP race is pretty close. Any success they have had is the result of a total team effort. Up until last week, it might have been Earl Thomas, but that could also be due to the surprise factor after he missed all of camp.
We are going with an offensive MVP, Tyler Lockett. The Seahawks were without Doug Baldwin for the first three games. Without many other weapons in the passing game, Lockett drew most of the attention from opposing defenses. He still has 17 receptions for 249 yards and three TD s.
On defense, safety Bradley McDougald has been everywhere. He has two tackles for loss, a forced fumble, five passes defended, and two picks so far this season. Other players may have gotten headlines, but he’s been the glue.”
2. Obviously, the biggest story surrounding the Seahawks is Earl Thomas. Do you think that incident will change the way any of the guys look at the organization and how willing they’ll be to put their bodies on the line?
“It’s no secret that the Seahawks don’t like to give out the type of third contract Earl Thomas wanted. They could have handled him better than they did, but the Hawks weren’t acting out of character from their business as usual.
If the young guys didn’t realize that NFL football is a big business, they do now. In general, the Seahawks players were very supportive of ET3 during his holdout in the preseason and missed practices after he came back. They should also be (or their agents) smart enough to know that Thomas didn’t handle himself very well during the whole thing, either.
Whether or not other Seahawks put themselves out for the organization isn’t an issue. Any player who needs a new contract should do as well as they can for themselves, to maximize their value on the open market. From the Seahawks standpoint, they probably won’t get too many “hometown discounts” when negotiating contracts for a while.”
3. What is Seattle going to have to do to shock the world and win this game?
“No one expects the Los Angeles Rams to go 16-0 this year. This is the NFL, a .500 team winning game five of the regular season isn’t going to shock the world, it would be a pleasant surprise, however.
The Seahawks are now without almost 30 percent of their regular defense. You know about Earl Thomas. Outside linebacker K.J. Wright has been out all season. Mychal Kendricks, the other outside linebacker, was indefinitely suspended by the NFL, this week, for insider trading. Those are three players the Seahawks really needed to stop L.A.’s high powered offense.
In my opinion, this should be the Seahawks game plan. On offense, ground, and pound. Keep the ball on the ground and control the clock. On defense, make Gurley run between the tackles, at Bobby Wagner and McDougald. Additionally, Seattle has to find a way to get pressure on Goff.”
dark. Next. Jared Goff is among three MVP candidates
We would like to thank Ed for taking the time to answer those questions. At the end of the day, though, we still have to expect the Los Angeles Rams to win by blowout.