BY ADAM GREENE<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Not only are there no complaints this week with the Thursday Night Football match up, we might actually get to watch it played on Thursday. The Los Angeles Rams vie to hold onto the top spot in the NFC West when they host their old Super Bowl arch nemesis the New England Patriots at empty SoFi Stadium.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
NEW<\/strong> ENGLAND<\/strong> PATRIOTS AT LOS ANGELES RAMS (-5.5, O\/U: 44.5)<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Location:<\/strong> SoFi Stadium, Inglewood, Calif.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Kickoff:<\/strong> Dec. 10, 8:20 p.m. EST<\/p>\n\n\n\n Broadcast:<\/strong> FOX\/NFL Network<\/p>\n\n\n\n THE HISTORY<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n The real history of these two teams is all about the Super Bowl. They\u2019ve met twice, with the New England Patriots winning both times. The first was capping the 2001-02 season in which the Rams were about to be coroneted as the NFL\u2019s 2000s dynasty, only to have that title usurped in a 20-17 upset in Super Bowl XXXVI. It was the beginning of the Tom Brady- Bill Belichick era and it was certainly not the last Super Bowl they played in.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Ironically, what turned out to actually be their final Super Bowl together was also against the Rams, Super Bowl LIII, the lowest scoring Super Bowl in history. The Pats won 13-3.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In all, the Rams and Patriots have met 14 times and New England holds a 9-5 advantage. The only win Los Angeles has as an organization over the Belichick-coached Pats is a 24-17 victory on Nov. 18, 2001 that previewed their Super Bowl match up that same season. New England has won six straight over the Rams.<\/p>\n\n\n\n NEW<\/strong> ENGLAND<\/strong> PATRIOTS (6-6)<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Just when everyone was ready to count out the 2020-21 Patriots, they win two straight and are hovering right outside the AFC playoff field. Last week they absolutely dominated the Los Angeles Chargers to the tune of 45-0. It was mostly thanks to their defense and special teams. The D held the Chargers to just 258 yards and forced two interceptions. New England\u2019s special teams returned a punt for a touchdown and blocked a field goal, then returned it for a touchdown. Cam Newton passed for 69 yards and a TD. He added 48 yards and two touchdowns on the ground.<\/p>\n\n\n\n LOS ANGELES RAMS (8-4)<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n The Rams bounced back from a shin-kicking loss to the San Francisco 49ers two weeks ago with a dominating performance of their own. LA took out the upstart Arizona Cardinals 38-28 in a game nowhere near as close as its final score. Jared Goff showed he\u2019d taken the spanking the week before to heart, protecting the ball and passing for 351 yards and a touchdown. He also rushed for one. Cam Akers led the team on the ground with 72 yards and a TD. Robert Woods caught 10 passes for 85 yards.<\/p>\n\n\n\n THE PICK<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n With the way the Rams play defense, all they need is their offense to be competent and they\u2019re more than fine. Last week, Goff and Co. were much better than that. LA, as a franchise, hasn\u2019t beaten New England in nearly 20 years, but they could also say the same thing about Tom Brady until a few weeks ago. Rams 31, Patriots 20<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Follow our BetOnline Twitter accoun<\/a>t for the latest sports news and betting odds, and stay tuned on the Instagram feed<\/a> for more good information too.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" BY ADAM GREENE Not only are there no complaints this week with the Thursday Night Football match up, we might…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":14758,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[129],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14757","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nfl"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14757","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14757"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14757\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14759,"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14757\/revisions\/14759"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14758"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14757"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14757"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.betonline.ag\/news-room\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14757"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}