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Saturday will mark the latest attempt for the Dallas Cowboys to get to the NFC Championship Game and in order for them to have success they’ll have to get through the Los Angeles Rams.
Dallas will be visiting the Rams and will likely draw a sizable crowd on the road so they’ll surely feel comfortable from that perspective. Where the Cowboys, and the Rams too honestly, could be in trouble is with the stadium itself. The Rams don’t exactly have the best football field to play on.
Who would have thought weather in Los Angeles would be a problem?
Current weather forecasts only show about a 20% chance of rain on Saturday in Los Angeles, but it’s the dew that becomes an issue. This plagues all Rams home games.
Evening Rams games, including last year’s playoff loss to the Falcons, have been marred by players slipping like crazy on dewy Los Angeles nights. With all that being said, a game of this magnitude being played in Los Angeles was exactly what the NFL was hoping for when the Rams announced their move west three years ago.
It’s true that the NFL is likely foaming at the mouth for this Cowboys contest in LA, but the playoff game that the Rams hosted last year did indeed see field conditions play a factor. SB Nation chronicled it all as it unfolded and it wasn’t pretty.
Players are slipping, and it’s making it hard for either offense to get much going. The Rams had just 14 total yards of offense in the first quarter. Todd Gurley had just 15 total yards with just under six minutes left to play in the first half. It’s hard to get yards when you can’t keep your feet.
We wouldn’t exactly have objections to Todd Gurley not performing well, but something like this would not be great to see for either team in a game two rounds away from the Super Bowl.
The turf obviously didn’t get better as the game wore on and if you remember the game you’ll know that players were slipping left and right throughout it all. Falcons quarterback Matt Ryan even slipped on this touchdown pass to Julio Jones. Touchdowns are great, but slipping is not.
Dew and potential rain are going to make Saturday night interesting. Hopefully the Cowboys are able to overcome whatever factor it does play. Here’s to it not playing one at all.