Tom Krasovic: Expect the retooled Rams to make a big splash in 2025

Tom Krasovic, The San Diego Union-Tribune on May 31, 2025

Published in Football

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SAN DIEGO — So long as Sean McVay’s football obsession doesn’t burn him out, the Rams can outsmart most NFL teams.

McVay raised the Super Bowl trophy four-plus years ago. Then he considered taking a TV job before immersing himself in a grueling rebuild, which has gone well.

Now, McVay must be smelling a second Super Bowl victory is possible if his team gets a few favorable bounces.

That’s why I’m again picking McVay’s Rams to beat their over-under victory line.

They’ll win 10-plus games, eclipsing the 9.5 marker. They’ll do the impossible, making me look smart a third time — my total of over-beating picks under McVay.

This nightmare scenario for 49ers fans is realistic: When Super Bowl LX is played in Santa Clara on the Niners’ field, the Rams could be representing the NFC.

Matthew Stafford, who’s still a top-tier quarterback at 37, will lead an offense that general manager Les Snead and McVay have improved since it finished 20th in scoring last season.

Newcomer Davante Adams, 32, and Puka Nacua, 25, will complement one another, giving the Rams their best veteran tandem at receiver since Cooper Kupp and Odell Beckham Jr. fueled the Super Bowl-winning offense.

McVay has his top tight end group in a while, an exciting prospect for the coach’s football chess options.

Tyler Higbee’s ghastly knee injury in the 2023 season’s playoff game at Detroit, followed by reconstructive surgery, shouldn’t be as limiting as a year ago.

Watch out for Terrance Ferguson, 22. The rookie tight end from Oregon can make plays in space. Colby Parkinson, 26, and Davis Allen, 24, each played in 16-plus games in McVay’s offense last year. This is an underrated four-deep unit, and there’s enough talent here to buy rest for Higbee, 32.

The offensive line, challenged last year by an overhauled interior, injuries and a move to more gap blocking, looks ready to have a Grade-B season. The line’s continuity has become a strength with coach Ryan Wendell entering his third season and all five projected starters having at least one year together

The top offseason addition, Coleman Shelton, a 29-year-old center, knows the offense from his previous Rams tenure.

Beaux Limmer, 23, will make it difficult for Shelton to win the starting job. Their line coach, Wendell, started at center for Bill Belichick’s 2014 Super Bowl-winning Patriots.

One key question: does the line have championship depth, especially at tackle behind starters Alaric Jackson, 26, and Rob Havenstein, 33? This week, the team signed veteran tackle and La Costa Canyon High School alum David Quessenberry, 34. Showing faith in the line, Snead and McVay drafted no offensive linemen this year.

For the Rams to reach the Super Bowl, their defense will probably have to overcome a Grade-A offensive line — whether it’s facing the Eagles, the Lions or both.

There’s two reasons to believe they can.

One, Jared Verse. He’s a wrecking ball within an explosive and young defensive front.

Verse’s play strength is astounding. Five months ago the 260-pound end/linebacker, 24, knocked Eagles guard Mekhi Becton — who’s 6-foot-7 and 363 pounds — onto his rear end in the Divisional Playoff game and staggered Eagles All-Pro right tackle Lane Johnson.

Two, Chris Shula may be the NFL’s next Super Bowl-caliber defensive coordinator.

True story about Shula: in San Diego a decade ago, as Shula began his NFL coaching career as a quality control defensive assistant, a Chargers executive expressed reluctance about letting me interview him in the 2015 preseason. The executive quipped that my article would further encourage NFL teams to try to hire him away. In relenting, he likely assumed Shula was destined to be hired by McVay, a close friend and former teammate at Miami of Ohio.

Shula in fact joined McVay’s staff in 2017 and worked up to the coordinator role entering last season. By year’s end, the Rams’ pass rush — which Shula coordinated in 2023 — had evolved its blitz-and-stunt game and posted 16 sacks across the two playoff games.

It’s true that in the NFL, nepotism is so prevalent that Nepo Football League isn’t a bad spoof.

It’s also true that Shula has had access to varied NFL expertise his whole life. Grandfather Don Shula was a Hall of Fame head coach whose specialty was defense. Father David Shula was a former offensive assistant under Don Shula before leading the Bengals as head coach for four-plus years. Uncle Mike Shula, now an offensive assistant at South Carolina, was a longtime NFL assistant coach and Alabama’s head coach for four years.

Yet as it applies to the journey ahead, Shula’s best education is the eight years spent under McVay. Most of McVay’s assistant head coaches are hired away within only a few years. Several of them are now NFL head coaches.

The Rams will open the 2025 season at home against the Texans, before facing the Titans. Although Houston’s defense will pose major challenges, look for them to be 2-0 going into the road rematch against the Eagles.