Houston Texans @ St. Louis Rams Matchup

Rams. The high flying Houston Texans (6-7) are coming off their best performance of the season a 34-7 victory against the Seattle Seahawks. Those are the same Seahawks that have beaten the St. Louis Rams 10 straight times and outscored the Rams 55-17 this season.

At 6-7 Houston has an outside chance of finishing 9-7 and making the playoffs. Last week in their victory both sides of the ball were explosive. The offense rolled up 365 yards by halftime behind Matt Schaub and Andre Johnson. Andre Johnson is arguably the best WR in the game. Through 13 games he has 81 receptions for 1237 yards and 8 TDs. Schaub could be the best second tier QB in the NFL. He is posting great numbers this year, 324 of 473 for 3814 yards a 68.5 completion percentage and a QB rating of 98.2. On the ground the trio of Steve Slaton, Ryan Moats and Chris Brown have been disappointing but have combined for 10 rushing TDs. Slaton is also dangerous on of the backfield with 44 receptions. Look for the Texans to match him up against the slow Rams outside linebackers.

On defense the Texans are middle of the pack but are coming off their best game of the season last week against Seattle. Houston had an amazing 15 tackles for loss in their game last week. Look for more of the same this week as Mario Williams and company will try to break through the Rams patchwork offensive line to attack Steven Jackson and Keith Null. As great as we think James Laurinaitis has played with his 104 tackles, don't overlook the Texans first round draft choice Brian Cushing who has 112 tackles and 2.5 sacks. I thought last year Cushing could be the best pro of all of the USC linebackers that came out. With the Rams starting O-line of Barron, Greco, Brown, Setterstrom and Goldberg look for the Texans front 7 to manhandle the Rams. As if you want to see another piece of the puzzle the Rams are missing check out Bernard Pollard today. Pollard is the Texans Strong Safety who they picked up after the Chiefs threw him away. Pollard is the kind of hammer the Rams need. If Null hangs out Gibson or Avery today look for Pollard to lay a missile shot on them.

What can you say about the St. Louis Rams offense? The Rams are last in scoring and lately have had trouble getting to 200 yards of offense in a game. With injuries to the O-line, sickness among many of their starters, and Keith Null possibly starting don't look for things to get any better today. If Steven Jackson can not go because of his back injury and sickness the Rams will turn to Gado and Darby. If that happens the Rams may easily be shutout today. Even with Jackson in the game the Rams have score 10 or less points in seven of their thirteen games. On defense today I have no idea what the Rams can do. The front four is going to have to create a lot of pressure on Schaub or this one will be over early. At Free Safety the Rams are starting David Roach and at Right Cornerback Quincy Butler. The Rams do not move Ron Bartell around so Andre Johnson will be able to freely move to create the matchups they are looking for. I am sure Johnson is not afraid of the Bartell matchup but you have to think they will test and burn Quincy Butler all day. The Rams are several pieces short of having a decent defense and once you add the injury issue to that they are even worse. Only the Detroit Lions have allowed more points than the Rams this year.

Overall it is a good day to go see a team that the Rams rarely play. In addition you can see some great players like Johnson, Schaub, Williams, and Cushing. I plan the spend the day in the Bud Light Party Zone wondering why the Rams have not put pieces like this together? Dez Bryant and Colt McCoy, anyone?

Prediction Houston Texans 34 - St. Louis Rams 3

Week 6 – Rams @ Jacksonville Matchup

Well Rams fans it has now been over a calendar year since the St. Louis Rams won a NFL regular season road game. a 19=17 victory over the Washington Redskins. The Jacksonville Jaguars are coming off a 41-0 pounding against the Seattle Seahawks. Even the Rams only lost 28-0 to the high powered Seahags. On the positive side the Jags lost 41-0 so they must not be very good right, or will they be that more pissed off and take it out on the St. Louis Rams? The Jags are 30th on defense in total yards and passing yards allowed. On the flip side the Rams are 31st in points allowed and 32nd in points scored, an awful combination.

The Jags took an interesting approach to the offseason one that the Rams could have taken. With their first two picks in the 2009 NFL Draft the Jaguars selected offensive tackles Eugene Monroe & Eben Britton. The Jaguars have each already in the starting lineup, while the Rams are still trying to get Jason Smith on the field at RT. The Rams were looking for more long term upside but meanwhile we are losing game after game, will the gamble ever pay off? The Jags then followed up drafting a DT, CB and 2 WRs seems like they had the same needs heading into the draft that the Rams had. Which has done a better job of filling their needs?

As for this game I think you simply have to follow the numbers. David Garrard has 5 TD passes in two home game, while the Rams have only scored 4 touchdowns the entire season and NONE on the ground even with Steven Jackson. The Jags are capable of putting some points on the board while the Rams rank 31st in points against. In addition the Jags will be getting WR Mike Sims-Walker back today. With Sims-Walker and Torry Holt on the outside and the Rams inexperience at CB the Rams could struggle again today. Maurice Jones-Drew and David Garrard are very hard to tackle so it will be very important for the Rams to get a great game from their front four today.

The Rams will have Marc Bulger back in the saddle at QB today. The Rams are only completing 56% of their passes which is bad news since rarely do they even throw the ball more than 10 yards down field. Bulger is coming back from another injury and I expect him to stay rusty. Steven Jackson has been putting up numbers and is on pace for 1400+ yards rushing but he has ZERO touchdowns, has fumbled a couple of times and continues to miss blitz pickups. I expect Maurice Jones-Drew to outplay Steven Jackson today.

The bottom line is there is still no reason to believe that the Rams believe they can win a game. Until they can believe it and do it, we will continue to pick against them. The numbers are just too heavy against them. In addition to losing 15 straight games, the Rams have also been outscored 146 to 34. Jacksonville is coming off an embarrassing loss and Jack Del Rio is not going to let that fly. I expect Jacksonville to be nasty on defense today and try to knock the Rams around and out. The most telling number may be the fact that in Las Vegas the Rams are a 10 point underdog to a team that just lost 41-0. The Jags can also still salvage their season with 3 straight games against the winless Rams, Titans, and Chiefs. Could the Jags be 5-4 through 9 weeks? I will exit with a quote from Brian Billick "Rams need more talent
Jacksonville has shown signs of being a very good team. I'm not sure St. Louis has the talent yet to beat anybody".

Prediction Jaguars over the Rams 31-10