SEATTLE — When the Seattle Seahawks cut longtime captain Bobby Wagner this offseason, the 32-year-old veteran suddenly had options to explore for his new team.
Wagner, who had spent all 10 years of his career with the Seahawks, signed with the defending Super Bowl champion Los Angeles Rams, a move that was part revenge on his former team and also gave him a chance to compete for a championship.
Turns out, it was really neither.
The Rams are not even competing for the playoffs, much less the Super Bowl. Meanwhile, the Seahawks have surprised critics. A playoff berth is not only possible but realistic.
Wagner's first game against the Seahawks will be emotional, but it won't be the type of game he was likely envisioning when he signed in March.
Against all odds, the Seahawks will be the team with more on the line this Sunday.
Game info
- Matchup: Seahawks (6-5) vs. Rams (3-8)
- Time: Sunday, 1:05 p.m.
- Location: SoFi Stadium, Inglewood, California
- Key Seahawks: Geno Smith (QB), Kenneth Walker III (RB), DK Metcalf (WR)
- Key Rams: John Wolford (QB), Bobby Wagner (LB) and Jalen Ramsey (CB)
Reeling Rams
All it takes is one tweet to put the Rams' disastrous 2022 season into perspective.
That's about $136 million in salary that won't be on the field Sunday against the Seahawks. The NFL salary cap in 2022 is $208.2 million, meaning almost two-thirds of a total team's payroll won't be available in a single game.
A combination of injury luck, lack of depth to begin with, and Matthew Stafford having one of the worst seasons of his career, spelled a lost season for the defending Super Bowl champions.
Just 10 months ago this team was winning the Super Bowl.
Now the Rams are 29th in scoring offense (16.2 points per game) and 18th in scoring defense (23.0 points per game). Los Angeles has lost five consecutive games, the second-longest losing streak in the NFL. Now a 3-3 start before the bye week is a 3-8 record without any hope for a playoff push.
To make matters even worse, Los Angeles spent the last few offseasons turning draft picks into expensive veterans to buoy a championship-ready roster. Now that many of those players are either injured or flat-out declining, the Rams cupboard of draft picks is bare.
The Rams' 2023 first-round draft pick would be the No. 4 overall selection. That pick, of course, will belong to the Detroit Lions as part of the Jared Goff for Stafford trade in 2021.
You'd make that trade again – the team did win the Super Bowl – but the future looks especially bleak. That's the trade-off of the Rams' high-risk approach to team building.
Seahawks playoff push
The Rams' lost season did open up opportunities for the other NFC West teams to get into the playoffs.
The Seahawks, for one, have capitalized with a resurgent season that has them one of many NFC teams vying for the playoffs.
They still have some work to do.
The current playoff picture in the NFC has the Seahawks as the No. 8 team in the conference, meaning they'd be the odd team out of the playoffs.
Seattle, which has lost two straight games, has a few pathways to get into the playoffs. The first path would be as NFC West division champions. There is just a one-game gap between the Seahawks and the division-leading San Francisco 49ers. A head-to-head matchup will be in a few weeks.
The second path is as a wild-card team, but the NFC East being stronger than expected has thrown a wrench into these plans. If the season ended today, the entire NFC East division would be in the playoffs. The Seahawks are also one-game behind the Washington Commanders, who would be the final NFC team in the postseason.
Quite simply, the Seahawks cannot afford to lose either of their two games against the Rams. Any slip-up from here on out could be the difference between playoff football and an early vacation.
Game prediction
Seahawks 27, Rams 10.
There's no reason to lose this game.