All Ball Sports: Rams hopeful, Redondo rolls over Costa, Ellison returns
by Paul Teetor
Beating the Arizona Cardinals was the easy part for the Los Angeles Rams.
Now comes the hard part of their Super Bowl journey.
First the Rams will have to beat Tom Brady and the defending Super Bowl Champion Tampa Bay Buccaneers next Sunday, on five days rest.
In Tampa Bay.
And if they pull that upset off, in all likelihood they will then have to go into the frozen tundra of Green Bay, and beat another future Hall of Fame quarterback in Aaron Rodgers and the NFC champion Packers.
Or there is a long-shot chance that the Rams will have to beat the San Francisco 49ers, should the 49ers pull off a major upset and beat the Packers in Green Bay next Saturday. It’s certainly possible, given that San Fran beat the Rams just last Sunday in a game both teams desperately wanted to win.
But the odds are that it will be Rodgers – sure to be the NFL MVP this year – and Green Bay that the Rams will have to beat if they first beat Tampa Bay. And if it’s not, don’t forget: the 49ers have now beaten the Rams six straight times. Pro football players aren’t supposed to believe in hexes and jinxes, but it sure feels like the 49ers, and Coach Kyle Shanahan have some kind of mental mojo on Coach Sean McVay, and his Rams. So either way the third game the Rams will have to win certainly looks daunting.
But if the Rams can pull off that on-the-road doubleheader of stunning upsets, then they will indeed deserve their spot in the Super Bowl next month. As you may have heard by now, it’s going to be played at the Rams home field at SoFi Stadium on Feb. 13.
That’s been the game plan all year: do whatever it takes to get to the Super Bowl – including mortgaging the future — and then cap off a season to remember with a stirring Super Bowl win to make money-bags owner Stan Kroenke happy in a way that only rich old guys can be happy: by buying something that’s not usually for sale to anyone, even the average millionaire or billionaire.
But while McVay, quarterback Matthew Stafford and the rest of the Rams now have to focus on the next task at hand – figuring out a way to beat Brady, aka The Greatest of All Time – the rest of us can savor Monday night’s inspiring beat-down of an Arizona team that had already beaten the Rams once this season in a blowout of their own.
This smash-mouth win was the way it was supposed to be all season long, but rarely was: an explosive Rams offense that ran as well as it passed, a dominant Rams defense that controlled the line of scrimmage and prevented any long, damaging pass plays, and an easy win for a team that had it all going on with stars shining brightly on both sides of the field.
In short, this 34-11 victory over the Cardinals Monday night was the best game the Rams played all year. Or certainly their best game since they beat the defending Super Bowl champs 34-24 way back on October 3. But that was at the Rams House. That’s a huge difference right there. Beating the Bucs in Tampa Bay will be much, much harder.
But it’s certainly doable if they continue to play the way they did Monday night.
So let’s look at all the elements that came together to make this such an overwhelming win and lift the Rams back into legit Super Bowl contender status.
It starts with Stafford, as it usually does. His recent slump was marked by eight interceptions in the last four games. As All Ball noted last week, that trend absolutely had to be stopped in its tracks for the Rams to have even a chance to win a single postseason game, let alone the four consecutive victories it would take to win a Super Bowl.
To Stafford’s credit, he did exactly that. He connected on 13 of 17 passes for 202 yards, two touchdowns and ZERO interceptions. That was one key to the victory right there.
But you also have to give McVay credit for that improvement. He knew that over the last half of the season he was placing too much responsibility on Stafford and he was determined to fix it.
Which brings us to the next successful element: the return of running back Cam Akers. After taking six months to rehab an Achilles tendon tear – a fearful injury that normally takes 9-12 months to heal – Akers played his second game of the season and looked almost as explosive as he did last season when he had started to resemble the departed Todd Gurley, the once-great running back who was the real engine of the incredibly high-powered offense McVay cooked up in his first several seasons in LA. Jared Goff was just along for the ride.
Akers’ return and his slippery, speedy running style gave McVay a nice counterpoint to the ground-and-pound game of running back Sony Michel. Together, they gave the Rams a Thunder-and-Lighting rushing game that McVay kept going back to for a total of 140 yards. And the more the Rams ran the ball, the more the Cardinals had to back off their pass rush led by J.J. Watt, who has won the NFL Defensive Player of the Year award three times.
Rams lineman Aaron Donald has also won it three times, so this game featured two of the most dominant defenders in league history. The difference was that Donald had plenty of help all around him while Watt did not.
The Rams other defensive star, Jalen Ramsey, shut down the Cardinals best receiver, Christian Kirk, holding him to just six catches for 51 yards. In other words, Kirk didn’t impact the game at all. And with the Cardinals’ real best receiver, DeAndre Hopkins, out with an injury, their passing attack was effectively defanged.
Meanwhile Donald and his posse – edge rusher Leonard Floyd, linebackers Von Miller and Troy Reeder and nose tackle Greg Gaines – put relentless pressure on Cardinals quarterback Kyler Murray, who had reached superstar level early in the season before a mid-season injury put him out for three games. Since returning he just hasn’t been the same unstoppable run-and-pass machine that he had been.
The Rams intercepted him twice, and one of those has already found its place in the record books for the shortest pick six in history – regular season or post-season. It’s a bizarre play that will be replayed so often that it will soon be the enduring image from this game.
With the ball on the Cardinals’ three-yard line, Murray was scrambling to avoid a sack in the end zone when Reeder hit him and he started to go down. Just before he hit the ground Murray flung an under-handed hand-grenade lob/pass up in the air. Defensive back David Long spotted the wobbling football, rushed towards it, grabbed it just before it hit the ground and kept going right into the end zone for a three-yard, pick-six that effectively ended the game before halftime with a 21-0 Rams lead.
McVay also gets credit for another element that was key to the victory. Wide receiver Cooper Kupp had one of the most dominant pass-catching seasons in NFL history, leading the league in catches, yards gained and touchdowns. At times during the season it looked like the Rams game plan was to target Kupp on every play.
So it made sense that Arizona’s game plan was to shut down Kupp by double-teaming him on nearly every play. McVay anticipated that tactic and wisely used Kupp as a decoy, knowing that other receivers would be open due to the focus on Kupp.
The beneficiary of McVay’s smart plan was none other than Odell Beckham Jr., the fallen star who was dumped by Cleveland and signed by McVay as a free agent after he promised to be a good soldier and fill whatever role they needed. McVay, in turn, promised to help him revive his former All-Pro career.
That transaction was working out nicely for both sides. Beckham caught five TD passes in the last part of the season, and gradually became the team’s number two receiver, a role they desperately needed to fill after the loss of Robert Woods.
Beckham’s new role in the offense came to a climax Monday night when he caught four passes for 54 yards and one touchdown – the first one of the game for a quick 7-0 lead that established the narrative for the game. As a bonus, he even threw a 40-yard pass that showcased the wide-open kind of offense that McVay loves to run if he has the proper personnel to do it.
Now, finally, he has the players he needs.
Which is why they have a chance – a puncher’s chance – to pull off the Super Bowl dream scenario they have been promoting from the day the league named SoFi Stadium as the site of the 2022 Super Bowl.
Whose House? Rams House!
See you there.
Brillana Boyd (10) drives by JuJu O’Brien (33) during Redondo’s 47-34 victory over Mira Costa Tuesday night at Redondo.
Sea Hawk Girls, Boys dominate Costa hoops
It was a night of total triumph for the Redondo basketball program Tuesday night, after both the girls and the boys destroyed their Mira Costa arch rivals.
The girls got the festivities going with a 47-34 rout that was never close.
“Redondo simply outplayed us,” said Costa Coach John Lapham. “They went to the boards harder than us and they scrapped for every loose ball harder than us.”
The veteran coach admitted he was disappointed in his team’s effort.
“Redondo is a very talented team, so if they play harder than us, well, this is the result,” he said.
The Redondo boys team looked like it wasn’t going to follow suit, falling behind in the first quarter by a score of 10-0 to a Mustang team hungry for a win after a three-week layoff. At that point Costa had it all going on: point guard Will Householter was penetrating and finding his shooters when he wasn’t finishing the drive himself. When his lefty scoop shot made it 10-0, Redondo Coach Nick Welch called a timeout to rally his troops.
It worked – especially for senior guard Tyler Doiron, who proceeded to score 17 points over the next 12 minutes and stake the Sea Hawks to a 31-24 halftime lead.
It started with a 3-pointer and a 10-foot baseline jumper that drew the Sea Hawks within 12-5. Nick Lundy stopped the bleeding for Costa with a nice lefty drive, but soon Doiron was back at it and chipping away at the Mustang lead, which shrank to 14-9 by the end of the first quarter.
Doiron really got hot at the start of the second quarter, pulling up for a 3-pointer, then quickly adding another to tie the score at 15-15. When he scored on a power drive and hit a foul shot Redondo had its first lead of the night at 19-17. In the next two minutes Doiron added yet another trifecta and a layup in traffic that pumped the Sea Hawk lead up to 22-18. It was a lead they never lost.
“The kid was shooting lights out,” Costa Coach Neal Perlmutter said. “We knew he was a capable scorer, but tonight he was special.”
Redondo’s lead grew to 41-27 early in the third quarter as Doiron’s hot shooting became contagious among the Sea Hawk players.
Costa got it down to single digits a couple of times but Redondo ended up with a 53-45 victory.
“We just had a cold shooting night,” Perlmutter said. “Our defense was good enough to win, but we’ve got to make shots and tonight we didn’t make enough.”
Because the Bay League has trimmed its schedule down to one meeting between each team, this will be the only game between the arch rivals unless they meet in the Bay League post-season tournament.
Regardless of whether they meet again or not, this game will always be known as the Tyler Doiron game, the game in which he scored 24 points – almost half his team’s total.
A Sea Hawk homecoming for Keith Ellison
Hope will be on the Redondo football schedule next fall.
That’s because Keith Ellison, who earned all-Bay League honors at Redondo as a player before graduating in 2002, was named as the new head coach of the struggling Sea Hawks this week.
“Keith is a smart and detail-oriented coach who is passionate about helping players succeed,” Redondo athletic director Evan Fujinaga said. “Football and teaching are in his blood, and I believe he will be an outstanding asset to the Sea Hawk football program.”
Ellison replaces Matt Ballard, who stepped down at the end of the fall 2021 season after 10 years.
Ballard had achieved success early on in his tenure, taking the Sea Hawks deep into the playoffs several times.
But the program fell on hard times the last few years, and hit rock bottom last fall with a 2-8 record, a last place finish in the Bay League, and a 55 to 34 rout in the annual rivalry game with Mira Costa. During the Covid-shortened season a year ago, the team went 1-4 and also was beaten by Costa.
After starring in both basketball and football at Redondo, Ellison concentrated on his football career at El Camino College and later at Oregon State. He had a five-year NFL career after being drafted in the sixth round by the Buffalo Bills.
Ellison is familiar with success at the prep level. In football, he played quarterback, linebacker and safety. As a senior, he was named the Bay League’s Defensive Player of the Year and made All-CIF.
In basketball, he was a four-year starter. As the point guard he was the glue guy on the powerhouse teams led by the Zahn brothers, Andrew and Adam, and Dijon Thompson, who went on to star at UCLA.
A journey of a thousand miles back to the mountain top starts with a single step. The Sea Hawks football program took that single step this week.
Contact: teetor.paul@gmail.com
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