Week 6 Preview: St. Louis Rams vs. Washington Redskins

The St. Louis Rams will take on the Washington Redskins Sunday at 12 noon CST. This will be a game of contrast. Washington will be trying for their 5th straight win. Washington also has upcoming games against Cleveland and Detroit. The skins will only have themselves to blame if they do not start off 7-1 in the tough NFC East. The Rams are coming off four straight loses and have Jim Haslett at the helm this week. The Rams are looking at upcoming games against the Dallas Cowboys and New England Patriots and an 0-7 start, again.

I am already on record as not liking Jim Haslett at all. The media in St. Louis went from calling out Haslett to telling everyone he is fiery and the team will now be playing harder. Why? Why is everyone now on the Haslett bandwagon? Haslett's D finished 31st in defense in 2007, and is once again at the bottom of almost every stat. Now that he is spending less time with the defense they are going to play better and harder? I again ask why? If they play better now, was Haslett trying to get Linehan fired?

This is another awful match up for the St. Louis Rams. The Redskins are a hard-nosed tough NFC East team playing at the top of their game. Clinton Portis is 2nd in the NFL in rushing yardage and has 4 touchdowns as well. Jim Zorn knows that rushing and rushing D is key in the NFC East. Portis will once again get 25+ touches against the Rams 28th ranked rushing defense which is allowing 166 yards per game.

Haslett says he is going to get the ball to Steven Jackson a lot. Well that is what Al Saunders was going to do. Jackson is not doing bad in total yards from scrimmage but the Rams offense is just awful. The Rams are 30th in total offense and going up against the Redskins who just did a great job shutting down Dallas and Philly. Marc Bulger will be back in the lineup. However the offensive line is still the same as prior to Linehan getting fired. In addition the Rams are now missing Randy McMichael. I see no improvement coming today.

Prediction:


St. Louis Rams 13 - Washington Redskins 31