The 2013 Bowl

It may sound odd, but a pretty strong argument can be made that tomorrow’s game against the Washington Redskins is the Super Bowl of the Ram’s season.  Yes, I know that the Rams would only have a .500 winning percentage at 1 and 1 if they win the game tomorrow, and yes, the Redskins are not exactly the best team that the Rams will be playing this season.  I guess someone could make an argument about the games against the San Francisco 49ers meaning much more for this team and their aspirations of playing in the playoffs not only this season, but also having the confidence that they can compete in the future.  All these things aside, there are two reasons that this game is going to be more important than any other on the schedule for this season.

The first reason is simple: the Rams need a win.  With games on the Rams Schedule against the Bears, Packers, Patriots, and Jets in addition to the games against division rival 49ers and Seahawks, there are not enough games that look winnable to not beat teams like the Redskins when they get them.  While the Redskins did just come off of a game in which they beat Drew Breese and the Saints in New Orleans, they are still a team with more sub .500 record seasons than competitive seasons.  For a team like the Rams who are starting a new era with Fisher and hoping to stick here in St. Louis, they need some victories to get momentum, and the Redskins may be the only game where that seems likely in their first four games.

This game will be particularly important to Sam Bradford.  How can he not look across the field and see a Quarter Back who he will be measured against for the rest of his career.  This offseason, the Rams needed to decide which direction they wanted to go for the future, and they chose Sam Bradford over Robert Griffin III.  It may be unfair to compare the two considering the differences in the athletic ability, but as a Rams fan, I will always be wondering how this team could be if they had someone like RGIII on the team as opposed to Sam Bradford.  This does not mean that Bradford needs to find some way to wow us, but he better be a competent manager of the game who makes the necessary throws to give the Rams a chance.

Then there is the big picture reason that playing the Washington Redskins is the biggest game of the Rams season.  The more the Redskins lose, the better the Rams will be next season.  The Rams will own the Redskins draft picks in 2013 and 2014 so quite simply, they need to beat this team and hope that the rest of the league does the same.  The Rams could get a whole lot better in a hurry if the Redskins could have difficulty losing games for the next couple seasons.  From that aspect, this game is worth much more to the Rams than it does to the Redskins.