https://theramswire.usatoday.com/2018/12/06/nfl-rams-bears-week-14-matchups/
Rams vs. Bears: 5 key matchups to watch
By: Cameron DaSilva
The Los Angeles Rams are a difficult team to match up with because of their immense talent on both sides of the ball, but the Chicago Bears are well-equipped to do so. They boast one of the best defenses in the league with an NFL-high 30 takeaways, while also having an offense littered with playmakers.
Here are five key matchups between the Rams and Bears on Sunday night, which could wind up deciding the outcome of this game.
Andrew Whitworth vs. Khalil Mack
What more could you ask for in a matchup between two All-Pros? Whitworth has been one of the best left tackles in the league this season, while Mack is the game-wrecker he’s always been – the Bears’ version of Aaron Donald. Mack has forced five fumbles and has nine sacks this season, so he knows how to get after the quarterback.
If he continues his dominant season on Sunday, Goff could be in for a difficult game. One of his biggest issues is holding onto the ball in the pocket, coughing up seven fumbles in 12 games this season. Whitworth has to do his best to keep Mack away from Goff because when he gets near the quarterback, he sets his sights on the football and attacks.
Aaron Donald vs. James Daniels
What Mack is to the Bears, Donald is to the Rams … and then some. No one in the NFL is playing better than Donald right now, regardless of position. Offensive linemen can’t block him no matter how much help they get from their peers and he’s recorded at least two sacks in five of his last six games. In that same stretch, he’s hit the quarterback 24 times and has recorded 16 tackles for loss.
Daniels will have his hands full on Sunday, as will center Cody Whitehair and right guard Bryan Wiltzmann, but don’t expect any of them to successfully stop him. He’s going to get at least one sack and probably hit Mitchell Trubisky at least twice, while also making a tackle for loss or two.
Since 2017, when Donald has at least one sack, the Rams are 16-0. Need we say more?
John Johnson vs. Trey Burton
Burton hasn’t necessarily been the Travis Kelce of Chicago’s offense – he has five games with two or fewer catches this season – but he’s still a dangerous weapon for Trubisky. The Rams have struggled to cover tight ends with Jared Cook and even Levine Toilolo going off against them for big games, so Burton is someone who should worry Los Angeles.
Johnson has been matched up on tight ends plenty, as has Marqui Christian, so expect those two to cover Burton the most. They’re both athletic defenders, but staying with Burton in man coverage can be difficult. This is an important matchup for the Rams to win on Sunday night if they want to keep the Bears offense off the field.
Rams LBs vs. Tarik Cohen
In addition to Burton, Cohen also presents a difficult matchup for the Rams. He lines up all over the field, whether it’s as a running back, slot receiver or boundary wideout, as the Bears have found creative ways to get him the ball. He leads the team in catches and receiving yards, so you know Matt Nagy loves to utilize him as a receiver.
Mark Barron and Cory Littleton will need to be at the top of their game and improve their tackling on Sunday so that Cohen doesn’t break off big plays. Any single missed tackle could prove to be costly, given his speed and agility in the open field. He’s the Bears’ most dangerous player and someone the Rams have to pay extra attention to.
Brandin Cooks vs. Prince Amukamara
Chicago’s corners typically play sides like the Rams’, which creates a matchup between Cooks and Amukamara on the left side of the field. That’s where both players typically line up, but that doesn’t exactly bode well for Amukamara. Keeping up with Cooks is difficult for any cornerback, even for one who ran a 4.43 40-yard dash at the combine.
Fortunately for the Bears, they have two outstanding safeties in Eddie Jackson and Adrian Amos, who can provide help over the top of the defense. Josh Reynolds has a difficult matchup with Kyle Fuller on the opposite side and Bryce Callahan has been outstanding in the slot, so Robert Woods has a tough battle on his hands, too.
https://theramswire.usatoday.com/2018/12/07/nfl-rams-bears-week-14-concerns-mack-cohen/
Rams' 3 biggest causes for concern against the Bears
By: Cameron DaSilva
Having beaten three NFC North teams already, the Los Angeles Rams are looking for the season sweep on Sunday in Chicago. It’s a difficult matchup that has the Rams favored by just a field goal and despite currently holding a three-game lead over the Bears, this is a huge game for playoff seeding.
This won’t be an easy win by any means and there’s a very real chance the Bears pull off the upset. Here are the three biggest concerns facing the Rams on Sunday night.
Containing Tarik Cohen
The Bears have a lot of weapons on offense – from Allen Robinson to Trey Burton – but none are more dangerous than Cohen. He leads the team in catches and receiving yards, while also adding 315 yards on the ground. Matt Nagy uses him in a variety of ways, too, both as a running back and true receiver. Essentially, the coach looks for the best matchup and uses Cohen to exploit it, much like the way Sean McVay does with Todd Gurley.
The responsibility of covering Cohen will fall on Mark Barron, Lamarcus Joyner, John Johnson, Cory Littleton and possibly even Nickell Robey-Coleman, so it’ll take a complete team effort to contain him. If he gets loose for a couple of big plays, it’ll completely change the game for the Bears.
Their offense isn’t built upon striking quickly, but rather wearing a defense down with Jordan Howard and short passes. Scoring with big plays to Cohen is just an added bonus, which the Rams have to limit.
Cold, windy Chicago weather slowing the offense
In the past two seasons, the Rams have played exactly two games where the temperature was below 40 degrees: at Denver in Week 6 and against the Titans in Nashville last year. That’s it. In those two games, both wins, the Rams scored 23 and 27 points, respectively. Jared Goff played extremely well against the Titans with 301 yards and four touchdowns, but he struggled in the frigid temperatures against Denver. He completed 14 of 28 passes for 201 yards, no touchdowns and an interception.
The forecast in Chicago is calling for 27 degrees and 5 mph winds on Sunday night, which would be the second-coldest game the Rams have played in the past two years. McVay is aware of the weather forecast and says it’ll be similar to the Denver game.
“We know that it’s going to be a little bit colder than what we’re accustomed to,” McVay told reporters this week. “Fortunately, we’ve had some experiences like that playing in Denver earlier this year. If you look at the weather forecast, which you never know this far out if it’s accurate or not, but it sounds like it’s going to be pretty similar to kind of what that climate was and kind of the situation that we’ll be playing in. But whatever it is, we’ve got to adjust, adapt and we’re not going to allow that to be an excuse for why things do or don’t work out for us.”
There isn’t enough evidence to say the Rams truly struggle in cold weather, but it’s definitely a different atmosphere than they’re used to. This will definitely be something to watch on Sunday night.
Khalil Mack wreaking havoc
How can the Bears’ best defensive player
not be a concern? Like Aaron Donald, Mack has the ability to completely take over a game with his pass-rush skills and run defense. Not only is he a sack artist, but there aren’t many players better than him when it comes to taking the football away when getting to the quarterback. Mack has five forced fumbles this season alone and assuming you’ve watched Goff play, he tends to cough up the ball when hit in the pocket.
That’s not a good combination for the Rams.
Mack has a difficult matchup with Andrew Whitworth, but even the best tackles have trouble with him. The Rams need to take him very seriously and send extra reinforcements Mack’s way, even if it means leaving Leonard Floyd and Akiem Hicks in one-on-one situations. Protecting Goff’s blindside is priority No. 1.
https://theramswire.usatoday.com/2018/12/08/nfl-rams-bears-week-14-breakdown-analysis/
What the Rams can expect from the Bears
By: Andrew Ortenberg
The Los Angeles Rams will get one of their stiffest tests of the season this week when they travel to take on the Bears on Sunday Night Football. It’s a road game at night in cold weather, but as we broke down recently, the Rams and Jared Goff
have been great in primetime since Sean McVay took over. That being said, the Bears present a ton of problems on both offense and defense.
Here’s what the Rams can expect on both sides of the ball:
Offense:
It would be hard for the Bears’ 2018 offense to look less like their offense from last year. It’s undergone a radical transformation thanks to new head coach Matt Nagy, and is unrecognizable from last year’ anemic unit. Under John Fox, the Bears’ offense was extremely conservative, run-heavy, and outdated.
Nagy, the former Chiefs offensive coordinator, came in and immediately opened things up. The Bears are now passing the ball a lot more, and Mitchell Trubisky has grown tremendously. After averaging 6.6 yards per attempt last year, he’s up to 7.7 yards per attempt this year. While Trubisky and the Bears offense are nowhere near as good as Goff and the Rams offense, the leap from Fox to Nagy is somewhat similar to the one from Jeff Fisher to McVay before last season.
That being said, Trubisky hasn’t exactly looked great. He’s still mostly incapable of scanning the field and going off-script, and if his first read isn’t there he often takes off and scrambles right away. It’s why the offense didn’t decline too much the past couple of weeks with Chase Daniel under center, as Nagy is the most important piece of the offense.
The Bears have a pretty underrated group of skill guys with Allen Robinson, Taylor Gabriel, and Anthony Miller making for a solid trio of wideouts. Tarik Cohen is electric catching passes out of the backfield, and Trey Burton is a good playmaking tight end.
The Bears signed Burton to a massive contract this offseason to be their featured tight end, and while he’s made some nice plays he’s mostly been a disappointment. Burton hasn’t cracked 40 yards since Week 7, and has never shown much chemistry with Trubisky. But the Rams have been burned by tight ends a few times recently, so they’ll definitely need to watch Burton closely.
The real question mark of this offense is Jordan Howard. Howard looked really good his first couple of years in the league, but has struggled mightily this year. He’s averaging only 3.4 yards per carry, as teams have often sold out to stop the run. His role had been reduced recently, but he showed a little bit of life last week against the Giants, running for 76 yards on 16 carries.
The Rams’ run defense has been very shaky this year, and I would expect the Bears to run a lot early on to try and take things easy on Trubisky in his first game back from a shoulder injury. As such, shutting down Howard will be the key for the Rams defense in this matchup.
Defense:
The strength of this Bears team is, as most people know by now, their defense. Nagy made a great move by working to keep defensive coordinator Vic Fangio on staff after most of Fox’s staff was let go. Fangio is one of the best defensive minds in football, and has continued the growth that the defense made last season.
The blockbuster trade for Khalil Mack has made the Bears’ pass rush scary, and they have one of the best defensive fronts in the league. Goff has really struggled under pressure at times this season, and the Rams’ offensive line has regressed a bit after pass protecting at an elite level earlier in the season.
Goff was under a lot of pressure against Detroit last week, and consequently had his worst game of the season. For this game, it’s absolutely essential that the Rams keep him clean and upright and if they can’t do that, the Rams’ offense could really struggle for the first time all season.
Kyle Fuller has blossomed into one of the best cornerbacks in the NFL, and Adrian Amos and Eddie Jackson are quite possibly the best safety duo in the league. This Bears defense has playmakers at all three levels of the defense, and tends to take it to a whole other level when they’re playing at home.
The Bears’ run defense has mostly been stout this year, but it’s cracked a little bit the past couple of weeks. They’ve given up big games on the ground to Saquon Barkley and even LeGarrette Blount the past two weeks, so it’s possible Todd Gurley could have a big day here. With the way their pass-rush and secondary have been playing, he may need to.
When you factor in the crowd noise and the cold weather, the temperature will be somewhere in the 20’s at kickoff, it’s by far the toughest matchup the Rams will face all season. They’ve been able to get it done in primetime on the road in the past, but this is a whole new animal.
The bottom line:
This game should come down to the wire and will likely be decided by one or two plays. On paper it’s one of the best matchups of the entire season, as each team’s strength is countered by the other’s. If the Rams can gut this one out, it’ll go a long way toward establishing them as themselves as the clear Super Bowl favorites.
https://theramswire.usatoday.com/2018/12/09/nfl-rams-bears-week-14-final-score-prediction/
Final score prediction for Rams vs. Bears
By: Cameron DaSilva
With the season coming down to the wire, the games are becoming all the more important. The Los Angeles Rams, unlike any other NFL team, can
clinch a first-round bye with a win on Sunday, so despite having a fairly large cushion on everyone in the NFC not named the Saints, this game does carry plenty of weight.
They’ll have to get by a dangerous Chicago Bears team first in order for that to happen, which is no easy task. The Rams are once again heading east for a second straight road game after beating the Lions in Week 13.
Kickoff is set for 8:20 p.m. ET from Soldier Field and you can bet Rams players are thrilled to be back in primetime, given the success they’ve had in
night games under Sean McVay. The spread is just three points in favor of the Rams and with Mitchell Trubisky back after two missed games due to injury, the Bears are ready to roll for Sunday.
Unfortunately for them, getting Trubisky back still won’t be enough to earn them a win. Their fourth-quarter struggles and inferior offense to L.A.’s will prove to be the difference in this one as the Rams should come away with a win, albeit by a narrow margin.
There are plenty of things working in the Bears’ favor on Sunday night. Los Angeles doesn’t have someone who matches up well with Tarik Cohen, which could prove to be costly. The cold, windy weather could slow down the Rams’ offense, too, just as it did against the Broncos earlier this season. Jordan Howard is also a physical runner, which is the type of back that has given the Rams trouble up the middle of the defense.
However, despite those factors, Los Angeles should still come away victorious. The Bears have really struggled both offensive and defensively in the fourth quarter, partly because Trubisky hasn’t played well late in games. The Rams have been just the opposite in the last quarter, ranking among the league’s best in that department.
Ultimately, Jared Goff will avoid the costly turnovers that the Bears have capitalized on throughout this season, while Todd Gurley will wear the defense down, just as he did against the Lions last week.
The Rams should move to 12-1 on Sunday.
Final score prediction: Rams 28, Bears 24
