WOODLAND HILLS — I’m in the mood to complain. If you’ve been following the Rams this season, so are you.
Were you also looking forward to seeing where they picked up after last season’s late surge? Were you intrigued by that spirited stretch when they won seven of their final eight regular-season games to ?
Raise your hand if you feel cheated by all the ugly twists and turns and sprains and tears that have shredded the plot to start this season.
Yeah, same.
But I’m not just going to whine about what coulda been. I’m going to file a complaint with the Universal Department of Competitive Affairs.
Person filing complaint
Anyone watching Rams games
Address: Number and street City State / City State ZIP Code
1001 Stadium Drive, Inglewood, CA 90301
Date of repair, service, or purchase
Jan. 14, July 25, July 26, Aug. 7, Aug. 11, Sept. 8, Sept. 15 …
What type of product or service is the complaint about?
Physical harm. Inadequate IR limits. Unmitigated misfortune. A bad case of déjà vu.
Briefly describe your complaint (be specific – who, what, when, where, how). Use additional paper if needed.
Briefly? Yeah, right; two games into the season, there are ! And more hurt who didn’t even make the list, so many that even the deepest team wouldn’t be able to withstand this amount of carnage.
But here goes:
*Tight end in January’s playoff game against the Lions on a low hit by Detroit safety Kerby Joseph.
*Cornerback during the Rams’ first training camp practice
*Wide receiver in Week 1’s , where offensive linemen injured their MCL and ankle, respectively.
*Wide receiver in a 41-10 loss to the Arizona Cardinals in Week 2, when safety John Johnson III also sustained a hairline fracture in his scapula, left guard Jonah Jackson aggravated a shoulder injury and even the rookie kicker, Joshua Karty, .
(See additional pages for the complete list.)
What do you want done to satisfy your complaint?
Turn off injuries.
Please attach copies of any documents, receipts, warranties, invoices, correspondence, photos, etc. that will help substantiate your complaint.
Attaching a copy of my Southern California ɫ̳ Group colleague Adam Grosbard’s story on the for an extended period of time. It details how that especially poses a conundrum for the Rams. The NFL is allowing teams to designate only as many as eight players to return from IR during the regular season, and the Rams are fast running out of return spots.
Actually, I’ll just link you to – worthwhile reading, even if half of it is going to bum you out because it’s so heavy on the who’s-hurt-now of things.
https://twitter.com/MrMatthew_CFB/status/1832962440927097172
And I’ll attach some depressing video of , alone on the cart except for the driver who wheeled him away into the bowels beneath Ford Field. And some hard-to-watch footage of the , the star receiver’s planted ankle bending beneath the safety’s weight.
And I’ll add some audio from Coach before practice Friday at the Rams’ new practice facility: “We’re in the midst of a little bit of a storm right now, and you learn a lot about people when you go through it … and the types of men that we expect in terms of how we handle this.”
And finally, I’ll attach a few reminders that the Rams were this preseason’s trendy dark horse to reach the Super Bowl, as an indication of the high potential cost of these dark storm clouds that have gathered.
There were pundits who foresaw the Rams playing for another title to add to the one they won a couple years ago – the season before the 2022 campaign, when they were they went from champs to out-of-the-playoffs chumps.
Now here they are again, huge underdogs entering Sunday’s game at SoFi Stadium against the rival San Francisco 49ers, who are , but not nearly as badly. For the first time since 2011, the Rams are staring down an 0-3 record that spells trouble: Of the NFL’s 162 teams that have started 0-3 since 1990, only four have made the playoffs.
A few weeks ago, no one could have predicted a repeat of such a painful slide. ESPN’s Jeremy Fowler answered “what’s your early Super Bowl LIX pick?” by suggesting we’d see the Buffalo Bills beat the Rams, the latter of whom were “.”
His colleague Field Yates predicted Kansas City Chiefs over Rams, for similar reasons.
CBS Sports’ John Breech wrote that the Rams were his in the NFC: “The Rams were totally slept on last year and I kind of feel like everyone is sleeping on them again this year.”
I don’t know that anyone is sleeping on McVay’s squad anymore so much as sending thoughts and prayers and maybe some get-well-soon cards.
Not wanting your money back so much as wishing to see the team with so much promise much closer to full strength. Wanting to be mad about it and wishing there really was an entity with whom to lodge a complaint about the unfairness of it all.
