The Los Angeles Rams will have at least one home game in the playoffs, but it is fair to wonder if that will do them any good. If the situation at SoFi Stadium next Monday night looks and sounds anything like it did on Sunday, the Rams may not benefit from much home-field advantage.
The Rams lost in overtime to the San Francisco 49ers in their regular-season finale. After the game, Matthew Stafford admitted to reporters that it was difficult for the Rams to communicate with one another late in the game. Why? Because of crowd noise at their home stadium.
“We had a chance there at the end of the game. I thought our guys did a good job communicating. It was a tough environment for us to communicate in, really, the whole second half,” Stafford said, via Cameron DaSilva of Rams Wire. “Our guys did a nice job and we got that lead back. Just didn’t finish it the way we can on offense and could’ve — had we gotten a first down there, the game probably would’ve been over.”
Niners fans tend to travel well, and that was certainly the case on Sunday. The Rams are also still fairly new to Los Angeles, so they’ve had a lot of visiting fans at games this season. The question is whether that will continue in the playoffs.
The Rams host the Arizona Cardinals next Monday night. Cardinals fans don’t usually travel as well as Niners fans, so crowd noise shouldn’t be a huge issue for Stafford and company … they hope.
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