Brutal NFL Schedule Puts Rams Through Early-Season Survival Test

The Rams missed out on reaching the Super Bowl last season, with their campaign ending in heartbreaking fashion, and they received no consolation from the league office.

Los Angeles got handed one of the more arduous stretches of games to open a season in NFL history, not just from a level of competition standpoint but in terms of actual miles traveled. 

The Rams will play in four different time zone, and multiple continents, within the first six weeks of the season, which is somewhat unfathomable, including the league’s first foray into Australia.

Sure, the schedule lightens up some late in the year, but the gauntlet to open the season originally left some mouths agape around the league, and within the Rams front office. 

And now it’s basically become a rallying cry.

“You just have to (stinking) adjust and adapt, baby!” is how one member of the organization put it.

Use It To Their Advantage

It’s easier said that done, especially this far removed from having to get on and off their plane, but head coach Sean McVay is a master motivator and he will have no shortage of motivation from this itinerary. 

The Rams open with a midweek game against the rival 49ers in Australia and then host the Giants on Monday Night Football, before being asked to go to altitude in yet another time zone and face the Broncos, who reached the AFC title game last season and nearly won despite having to use a back-up quarterback. 

Then the Rams go all the way to Philadelphia, which has been a house of horrors for them both in the playoffs two years ago and then early in the regular season last year. 

And then they host the Bills, back in LA, in, you guessed it, another prime time game.

There will be plenty of adjusting required of them and plenty of adapting, and if they come out of that with a winning record, it will be quite an accomplishment.