With all 32 NFL teams preparing for OTAs and mandatory minicamps, Athlon Sports is going under the hood to see what key questions remain for each team before training camps open in July. These questions might not get answered at minicamps, but any opportunity for new coaches to get familiar with their roster, rookies to get a feel for life in the NFL and free agents to get comfortable with a new team can be helpful.
The focus today is on the Los Angeles Rams, who came very close to the third Super Bowl appearance of the Sean McVay era, and have been fortifying their roster with big-time moves ever since their NFC Championship loss came down.
Five points.
That's all that separated the Los Angeles Rams from Super Bowl LX.
The Rams and the Seattle Seahawks had tangled twice in the regular season, splitting the NFC West series by a total of three points. So, when the two teams met at Seattle's Lumen Field for the NFC Championship Game on January 25, 2026, anything could have happened.
In the end, the Seahawks took the Rams' defense to school just enough to come out with a 31-27 win in a game that was far more difficult than their 29-13 beatdown of the New England Patriots in the actual Super Bowl.
With those three games, the Rams and Seahawks established themselves as the main characters in the NFL's most compelling rivalry.
To enhance that defense in the offseason, the Rams went all-out as you would imagine from an aggressive front office led by general manager Les Snead and head coach Sean McVay. They traded for Kansas City Chiefs cornerback Trent McDuffie, and signed McDuffie's Chiefs teammate Jaylen Watson, to build up a positional group in need. Then, the trade for Myles Garrett, which should put that defense all the way over the top.
If these Rams don't get all the way to Super Bowl LXI, which by the way is set to be played at SoFi Stadium — which is their home — it certainly won't be for lack of trying.
“I think the biggest thing is that we want to be inside out," McVay said on June 8 of the expectations. "The reality is that we’re not naïve to the things that are said, but that doesn’t affect us and we have to be humble. We have to stay connected. Inevitably, there is going to be some adversity that we have to be able to deal with and the separator is going to be handling those storms and not allowing any of those external things to affect our ability to be in the moment right now, to be present, to be grateful and to continue to be courageous. That’ll be a very important thing, to make sure that, hey, you don’t ignore some of those different things. You acknowledge it but you also understand that that means absolutely nothing. Whether we had none or whether there is some, it’s about how do you come together as a team.
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"This is the greatest team sport that there is, 11 moving parts on each side of the football at all times. The enemy does have a say. We know that those things really mean nothing. It’s fun because there is attention and people pay attention to this league, but that doesn’t affect our ability to be inside out.”
So, the Rams are seemingly set for an all-time run. Here are three questions they'll need to answer if all the work is going to pay off.
What if there's an offensive drop-off?
This seems like an insane question, right? McVay is one of the best offensive minds of his generation. Matthew Stafford is the defending NFL Most Valuable Player. The Rams finished first in Offensive DVOA by an absolutely crushing margin, and everything seems set for a re-run of the only NFL offense that gave the Seattle Seahawks fits over and over last season.
Ah, but there be potential dragons. Stafford is coming off that amazing season, but he also turned 38 on February 2, and that season was a bit of an outlier. Including the postseason, he threw for an NFL-best 52 touchdowns (Drake Maye of the New England Patriots finished second with 37), but Stafford also threw for 60 touchdowns total from 2022-24. Injuries have been an issue before, as has been the potential specter of Stafford's retirement. Any regression from 2025's amazing results could fall hard.
Puka Nacua, who amazed in 2025 with 153 catches on 200 targets for 2,047 yards and 12 touchdowns (again, including the postseason), entered a rehab facility in March following a number of off-field issues, and though he was present at recent OTAs, one never knows how much things will affect somebody on the field until the games begin. Again, it's a case of any regression after a season where there's almost nowhere to go but down.
And McVay's in-season turn to 13 personnel set the entire league ablaze and affected personnel philosophies to an extreme degree this offseason, especially in the draft, but what happens if enemy defenses learn to counter those schematic and personnel conceits?
We are not suggesting the Rams' offense is going to fall completely apart, but if there's any kind of precipitous drop in efficiency from a season in which everything came together in ways it usually doesn't, that could complicate things in ways the team would obviously prefer to avoid..
How much will the new defensive pieces pay off?
Of course, McVay and Snead prepared for any regression on one side of the ball by adding serious talent on the other side. The defensive overhaul could indeed be the thing that brings the franchise its third Lombardi Trophy, but is this an automatic thing?
In Steve Spagnuolo's Chiefs defense, both Trent McDuffie and Jaylen Watson were among the NFL's most prominent press cornerbacks, because that's what Spags demands. The Chiefs had at least one cornerback in press coverage on 87% of their snaps last season, by far the league's highest rate — the Chicago Bears ranked second at 76%. Well, last season, the Rams had no cornerbacks playing in press coverage on 44% of their snaps. Perhaps that was an adjustment by defensive coordinator Chris Shula and his staff based on the guys they had, but that could be an adjustment that takes a minute.
Myles Garrett is one of the NFL's rare scheme-transcendent players; the only real concern there would be that he's now on the wrong side of 30... though the 2025 tape would blow those potential worries out of the water. The linebacker and safety rotations are less certain, but when you add Garrett to a defensive line that was already ridiculously loaded, and you paste McDuffie and Watson into a defense whose cornerback play was the clearest liability that kept the Rams from the Super Bowl last season, it all should be good over time.
Will the Ty Simpson draft pick upend the Rams now and in the future?
It was a rather interesting move for the Rams, who once again went all-in on the short term, to select Alabama quarterback Ty Simpson with the 13th overall pick in the NFL Draft. Whether you believe in Simpson's NFL attributes or not, taking a quarterback you hope won't be a starter for at least two seasons because you want Stafford to be at his best over that time? Well, that was a thing.
It was also a thing because the Rams could have availed themselves of talent at more prominent positions of need that could have put them even more over the top. Imagine if McVay had added Oregon's Kenyon Sadiq (who went 16th to the New York Jets) to his ever-expanding tight end room. Or USC receiver Makai Lemon (who went 20th to the Philadelphia Eagles) to amplify the passing game in a different way. How about Georgia offensive tackle Monroe Freeling (who went 19th to the Detroit Lions) to add in for recently retired right tackle Rob Havenstein? A first-round tackle would look even better right now given left tackle Alaric Jackson's recent arrest on suspicion of felony domestic violence.
Part of creating a championship team is creating contingency plans for the worst possible scenarios. Do the Rams believe that Simpson would be able to sub in right away for Stafford should the unthinkable (but possible) happen, and the superstar was to miss time?
“We'll see," McVay said after the pick was made. "He's going to compete with Stetson."
That's backup quarterback Stetson Bennett, selected in the fourth round of the 2023 draft.
Maybe Simpson turns out to be the quarterback the Rams hope he can be over time, but it's not an automatic slam-dunk, and if he's not, that's quite a different way for the team to "F them picks" than they usually do.
