5 Reasons Why the New England Patriots Will Win Super Bowl LIII

Jared Goff Struggled Down the Stretch

Much has been made of Jared Goff's play post Cooper Kupp's season-ending knee injury sustained in Week 10. In the eight games since Kupp went down -- including the playoffs -- Goff has only had two multi-touchdown games, and he went from averaging 313 yards per game over his first 10 games to 254 yards per game down the stretch.

Overall, Goff had 22 touchdowns and 6 interceptions before losing Kupp, compared to just 11 touchdown passes and 8 interceptions since. Our Net Expected Points (NEP) metric further shows how Goff's play took a hit after losing Kupp. In those first 10 games, Goff's Passing NEP per dropback was 0.37, which was just off Patrick Mahomes' season-ending finish of 0.39. But his Passing NEP per dropback over the final eight games was 0.08, which would have ranked 23rd among all quarterbacks to throw at least 200 passes at season's end.

The Rams have taken a run-heavy approach in the postseason, racking up 65 rush attempts from their backs and receivers, compared to 68 pass attempts from Goff. Belichick and the Patriots are known to game plan specifically to take away an opposing team's strength. If the Patriots can limit Todd Gurley and C.J. Anderson, relying on Goff to win the game should be a tough proposition for Rams' fans.