Patrick Mahomes’ Chiefs Slowly Replaced by Rams as NFL’s New Face

The Los Angeles Rams are the only team in 2026 that's going to play 7 prime time games.

Patrick Mahomes’ Chiefs Slowly Replaced by Rams as NFL’s New Face

Matthew Stafford and Patrick Mahomes (Image via IMAGO)

In Short
  • The Los Angeles Rams finished the 2025 season with a 12-5 record and advanced to the NFC title game.
  • Quarterback Matthew Stafford was named league MVP after leading the Rams' top-ranked offense.
  • The NFL is promoting the Rams as a new face of the league, adding seven prime-time games to their 2026 schedule.

For a large part of the 2025 season, the Los Angeles Rams looked like the team to beat in the NFL. After posting a 12-5 record, they defeated the Panthers and the Bears in the playoffs to qualify for the NFC title game against the Seahawks.

Vegas bettors favored the Rams to win against their divisional rivals. Quarterback Matthew Stafford threw for 300+ yards and three touchdowns. However, the Seahawks edged out the Rams by three points. Stafford won the league MVP as a consolation prize.

The Rams finished as the best offense in football, averaging 394.6 yards per game and 65 total touchdowns. They also had the best passing and scoring offenses.

LA may have failed to win a second Super Bowl in five years, but the club’s rise to fame did not go unnoticed. The NFL decided to reward the franchise by adding seven Prime Time games to its 2026 regular season schedule.

Popular NFL reporter and critic Chase Coburn believes that the NFL is finally moving on from the Chiefs and is betting more on the Rams. The league waited because, for years, the professional football scene in LA lacked a clear identity. That’s no longer the case, and the seven primetime games are just the beginning of the Rams’ rise.

NFL… Despite being the most popular sport in America, has never checked that LA box, just because there’s so many moving pieces… Who is the LA team?… It was the St. Louis Rams, it was the San Diego Chargers, so you don’t have that devoted, passionate fan base with that marketable, recognizable logo and brand in that individual city. But I think the Rams are starting to get there, starting to emerge as the team in LA.

Coburn hypothesized on X

The Rams alone have seven prime-time games this year, the same as the Chiefs in 2025 and the Buffalo Bills in 2023. Both Chiefs and Bills have six games in prime-time TV slots.

In 2020, when the Rams won the Super Bowl, they played three; in 2024, they played five, and last year had four prime-time games.

So, still marketable, still a brand, but a step behind everyone else. This year they are a step ahead of everybody else.

Coburn said

And it’s not just the prime-time games. The Rams also open the international games by facing NFC West rivals, the San Francisco 49ers, in Melbourne, Australia. On the eve of Thanksgiving, the Rams face off against the Green Bay Packers.

“Giving more football to NFL fans is only a good thing,” NFL executive vice president of media distribution Hans Schroeder told Stephen Holder of ESPN.

According to Holder, the NFL experienced a 10% jump in ratings last season, with more than 18.7 million viewers per game representing the second-highest average since the data began being tracked in 1988.

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The Rams get good news at the expense of their rivals

The Rams and 49ers play the first-ever NFL game in the Land Down Under. Taking that into account, the 49ers travel roughly 38,105 miles during the regular season.

Patrick Mahomes' Chiefs Slowly Replaced by Rams as NFL's New Face
Matthew Stafford (Image via IMAGO)

According to Mike Florio of Pro Football Talk, 49ers head coach Kyle Shanahan feels hard done by the tight schedule, as it doesn’t give his players enough time to recover and prepare for the next game.

Shanahan wanted his team’s Week 2 game to happen on Monday night. That isn’t happening for the 49ers. Instead, the Rams will get the extra day to adjust and recover after playing in Australia.

Florio wrote

It definitely provides the Rams and Sean McVay a massive upper hand in their quest to retain divisional supremacy.

How good was Matthew Stafford in 2025?

Over the years, Stafford stayed in the shadows of his peers: Tom Brady, Aaron Rodgers, the Manning brothers, Mahomes, and now Josh Allen. But the football fraternity has finally recognized the Georgia signal caller’s talent.

In 2025, Stafford led the league with 4707 yards, 46 touchdowns, and just 8 interceptions. In three postseason games, he threw for 936 yards, 6 touchdowns, and just one pick. AP voted Stafford as the best player in the NFL.

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