Cardinals’ playout percentage: 49.9
Rams’ playout percentage: 82.3
The winner of this match picks up a playoff spot. If Los Angeles loses, the Rams could still reach the national season with a Chicago defeat against Green Bay.
With Jared Goff’s new thumb surgery, John Wolford makes his NFL debut on Sunday as the starting point for the Rams. After working as an AAF analyst during the league’s only season, I took a closer look at Wolford’s last real game action as Arizona Hotshots’ starting point. Wolford led the league in passes (14), while finishing fourth on the interception front (7). The area of his game that stood out the most? Deep past, as in throws of more than 20 meters. Wolford’s low of 53.6 percent (15 for 28) was the highest point in the league. He achieved the deepest success between the numbers (with a perfect 158.3 passer rating, per Pro Football Focus) and outside right (125.0 passer rating, per PFF). One concern is how Wolford will perform under pressure. The Hotshots’ O-line let him down as Wolford took the second most sacks in the AAF (14), but he also put the most interceptions under pressure (6).
On the other side of this game, Cardinals receiver DeAndre Hopkins is likely to see a lot of Jalen Ramsey. In the Rams’ 38-28 victory over Arizona in Week 13, Next Gen Stats had Hopkins perform on 85 percent of the routes against Ramsey. According to PFF, Hopkins was targeted eight times while being covered by Ramsey, and he caught three balls for 20 yards. NGS shows that Hopkins did not receive more than ten yards in that game in that game and in last Sunday’s loss to San Francisco, zero – his only two games of the season without catches in the series. NGS also shows that Hopkins’ 75 receipts on passes from less than ten airfields in 2020 are considered the sixth most among wide receivers, but he has only one receipt on such pitches.