NY Jets: Game breakdown and prediction for Week 15 at Los Angeles Rams

The NY Jets will travel to Los Angeles to take on the 9-4 Rams in Week 15.

The 2020 NFL season is shortly coming to an end and this nightmare of a NY Jets season will soon be over. The Jets lost again last week, but the good news is we were able to nail down the game from the Moneyline to the spread to the over/under.

Rain was in the forecast in Seattle, but to my chagrin the skies were clear. Just when I started giving the weathermen some credit, they turn around and remind us why nobody watches the weather anymore.

No harm, no foul, we still got the result we expected. The Seahawks won, they crushed the Jets and covered the 13.5 points, and even though it looked as though there might have been a backdoor over hit, the game stayed under 46.5 points as the final score went 40-3.

Once again the Jets get their doors blasted in. Once again they cannot score after their first possession.

That now makes it seven straight games where they’ve put up points on their first possession. If this were a normal team, you would say that team is surely contending for a playoff spot.

Will it be more of the same this week now that the Jets travel to Los Angeles to take on the Rams? Probably if we’re being completely honest.

We have the worst offense in football taking on arguably the best defense in football on the road after back-to-back West Coast trips from East Rutherford.

But let me try to tempt you a bit with some numbers that might surprise you.

Do the NY Jets actually have a shot against the Los Angeles Rams this week?

The Jets are 17.5-point underdogs this week, which is their second-highest mark to overcome this season. For the most part, the Rams haven’t had such big spreads to cover.

They’re only 5-4 against the spread as favorites this season and even in their biggest margin to cover of 11.5 against the New York Giants, they failed to do so.

The Rams are 8-2 in their last 10 games against the Jets and 10-4 all-time. When at home, they’re 5-1 in their last six and 5-2 all-time. But here’s where the numbers start to get a little wonky and lean Jets.

Jared Goff has never faced the Jets before, but he is 1-4 against the AFC East in his career with a 58 percent completion percentage, five touchdowns to six interceptions, and a passer rating of 71.3, which is his worst passer rating against any of the eight divisions in the league.

When we look at the Rams as a team this year, they may be 9-4, but they’re currently on a two-game winning streak and actually have not won three-straight at any point this year.

Against the spread, the Rams have eight wins this season. However, the same thing is true here that was true of their outright wins. Six of those eight wins against the spread have come paired together (so back-to-back).

At no point this year have the Rams covered three straight games, and once again they come into this game having covered two straight games.

On the flip side, we also have the Jets who are 4-3 against the spread in their last seven games and have not lost back-to-back spreads since they snapped their 0-6 streak to begin the season.

How about percentages?

The Rams have actually covered 17.5 points in four of their 10 all-time wins over the Jets (40 percent). That’s outstanding. But let’s compare that to the rest of the field this week and look back at the past five weeks to get a clearer picture.

That 40 percent ranks as the 14th best percentage of overall covers in past matchups against each favorite’s opponent this week out of 16 favorites.

In the past five weeks, the 14th ranked favorite in this category covered its spread only once out of five tries. And if we narrow it down to the past three weeks, the 14th-ranked favorite covered their spread again only once of 33 tries.

When the Rams beat the Jets at home, they covered 17.5 points in three out of five wins (60 percent). Again, pretty fantastic to win that percentage by such a margin.

But when we compare again, the Rams rank 11th out of 16 favorites this week in the category of percentage of covers based on the location of the game.

In the past five weeks, the 11th ranked favorite in this category covered its spread in only one of five weeks. Narrowed down to the past three weeks, we see that the 11th ranked favorite covered zero times out of three weeks.

Seven out of 14 games between these two have gone over 43.5 points (50 percent). That ranks as fourth-best this week out of 16 games.

If we look back five weeks, the fourth-ranked game went over their total only one time in five tries. If we look back only three weeks, the fourth-ranked game went over only once in three tries.

Four out of seven games between these two at the Rams have gone over 43.5 points (57 percent). Compared to the rest of the field this week, that ranks second-best among 16 games.

The second-ranked game in this category went over only once in the past five weeks and zero times in the past three.

All these numbers lead me to the conclusion that this game goes under 43.5 and that the Jets somehow manage to cover 17.5 points.

I feel as though the Rams might be able to cover this total all by their lonesome, however, what the numbers are saying is that this is going to be a low-scoring game and the Jets are going to keep it within 17.5.

I don’t believe this will quite be the Jets scaring the Rams even though Goff’s bad numbers against the AFC East and the Rams’ line of wins and covers this year certainly point to it.

I have the Rams winning this game 24-9. We know the Jets will struggle to score on the Rams defense, but what I think people aren’t going to be ready for is the Rams offense struggling to blow this game open.

They run the ball a lot, so that should run a lot of clock. And with Goff’s poor numbers against AFC East opponents, don’t be shocked if this game isn’t 43-0 by the end of the third quarter. I think it’s going to be a low-pace type of game with not much action.

Rams win. Jets cover 17.5 barely. The under 43.5 points gets hit. Let’s try to make it back-to-back weeks where we nail the game.