Hunt For Ram October: A countdown to the Week 5 showdown

Today is Friday, September 28. Counting today, there are ten days until the Los Angeles Rams visit the Seattle Seahawks, in what could be the game of the year for both teams. Could be. A lot of promise left in the year, for both teams.

Between now and then, there’s a lot of time to kill. Every day, this space will feature an important or memorable moment from the rivalry. Some plays will be warm and fuzzy. Karate chops, plural. (Plural!) Others will be visits down a darker memory lane. Even when the Rams were bad, which was almost all the time, they still gave the Seahawks fits, more fits than appropriate.

You’re still on Field Gulls, though, so you’re gonna get treated to mainly the best moments of the series.

Ground rules: We’re not going back as far as the unfortunate incompletion to Bobby Engram in the end zone, with no time left on the clock in the 2004 wild-card game. Keeping it to this decade — WHICH GIVES US MORE THAN ENOUGH MATERIAL TO WORK WITH, SUCKERS.

Number 10: Home teams don’t fumble, silly

When: October 19, 2014. Week 7.

Game state: Rams 28. Seahawks 26. 3rd and 1, 1:14 remaining. Ball on STL 37.

What happens: Tre Mason carries the ball for a first down that would ice the game, but he fumbles, helped by Malcolm Smith and Earl Thomas. Chaos ensues.

The film:

From the second angle, it’s abundantly clear that no Rams player recovers the ball fully after Mason’s fumble, especially number 46, who was ruled down by contact with possession; victory formation; game over. Even though Richard Sherman comes out of the scrum with the football, the play stands as called, the Rams keep possession, kneel it out, and the Seahawks fall to 3-3.

Spoiler! Didn’t stop Seattle from finishing the season with home-field advantage throughout the playoffs. Didn’t stop St. Louis’s 10-year streak of missing the playoffs.

More tomorrow. Something good. I promise.