THOUSAND OAKS Hakeem Butler Jersey , Calif. (AP) — The Los Angeles Rams seemed to come out of nowhere last season to win their first NFC West championship in 14 years.When the Rams clinched their second straight division title Sunday, everybody in the NFL had seen it coming all year long.The league-leading Rams (11-1) haven’t surprised anybody this season, not after their remarkable 2017 transformation under rookie head coach Sean McVay.They’re still the division champs again, this time with four games to spare and plenty of opportunities to climb even higher before the postseason.The Rams became the first team to clinch a postseason berth by beating the Lions 30-16 last weekend, guaranteeing themselves at least one home playoff game. This franchise hadn’t won back-to-back NFC West championships since 1979, when the Rams completed a run of seven straight.“It’s a blessing,” McVay said Monday after returning from Detroit with a raging winter cold. “You don’t take anything for granted. It’s nice to be able to still have an opportunity to accomplish some things as you continue to progress through this season, but it still feels great either way to be able to accomplish something special with people that you care about and that you love.”The Rams put on celebratory hats at Ford Field, but the muted party was mostly forgotten Monday when they got home.According to left tackle Andrew Whitworth, the Rams have greater expectations after they built on last season’s 11-5 record with an even more impressive campaign this fall.“With all of us coming together for the first time (last year), it felt like you responded and rose to the occasion and achieved something http://www.bengalscheapstore.com/jonah-williams-jersey-cheap ,” Whitworth said. “I think this year, it feels like we expected to be a good football team. We expected to have an opportunity to win this division again, and we went out and did it. So I think you more see it as a checklist item. … You’re happy you won it, but it’s not the end goal, and it’s not really something we didn’t think or expect that we could do.”Two straight division titles still are a notable achievement in the up-and-down history of the Rams, who have won only one NFL championship since 1951.Los Angeles’ string of solid playoff teams in the 1980s won just one division title. The Greatest Show on Turf and its descendants in St. Louis won three division titles in five years, but never two in a row.The Rams had missed the playoffs in 12 consecutive seasons before McVay and Wade Phillips led them back last year, only to lose an opening-round home game to Atlanta.The Rams are playoff-bound again, but they still have plenty to do in December — starting with the chance to clinch a first-round bye during their trip to Chicago on Sunday night.A win over the Bears (8-4), who have the NFC’s third-best record behind LA and New Orleans (10-2), would guarantee an extra week of rest for the Rams in January.The Rams also control their destiny for home-field advantage in a potential NFC championship game with the Saints Drew Sample Jersey , but that race could go deep into December.“It’s a big deal,” McVay said. “To be able to earn the opportunity in your 13th game of the season to be able to, at the worst, clinch a No. 2 seed, it would mean that you’ll be able to watch that first week of the wild card round (at home). It’s a huge deal to us, so that’s certainly going to be a great challenge. That’s the next step.”NOTES: Backup running back Malcolm Brown injured his collarbone in Detroit, and he was expected to have “a procedure that’s not necessarily a surgery” on Monday, McVay said without elaborating. The Rams didn’t know the severity of the injury. … McVay confirmed he spoke with former Texas Tech coach Kliff Kingsbury about potentially being “an extra set of eyes” for the Rams down the stretch. The offense-minded coaches are good friends, and Kingsbury spent time with the Rams during the summer. “He’s got a lot of opportunities that he’s figuring out now, so there’s really no news on that front,” McVay said. … McVay hopes to kick his cold in time for the Rams’ trip to wintry Chicago. “Even if I’m not healthy http://www.bengalscheapstore.com/germaine-pratt-jersey-cheap , that’s not going to hold me back,” McVay said. “I’m not out there playing, so as long as my brain isn’t too slow, then I’m going to do the best I can to get as healthy as possible and ready to go for these guys.” With a straight face and a shoulder shrug, Jacksonville Jaguars coach Doug Marrone provided a subtle response to being criticized in Doug Pederson’s new book.In Pederson’s book released Tuesday, the Philadelphia Eagles coach ripped Marrone’s decision to take a knee at the end of the first half of the AFC championship game. Jacksonville led New England 14-10 with 55 seconds remaining and two timeouts, but Marrone called for Blake Bortles to run out the clock and head to the locker room. According to ESPN Stats and Info, Jacksonville was the first team last season to take a knee with that much time remaining in the first half.Marrone received several texts about Pederson’s book — “Fearless: How an Underdog Becomes a Champion” — excerpts of which were released earlier this week.“I got a couple text messages, saying like, ‘Blah, blah blah Ryan Finley Jersey , blah, blah,'” Marrone said. “And I’m just like, ‘Hey, Doug won a Super Bowl. Doug did a great job of coaching. I’m sure there’s a long line of people that have the same questions or feelings. It’s just what you’re going to do.”More Jacksonville Jaguars newsJaguars expect DE Yannick Ngakoue’s holdout to be short-livedJaguars rookie safety Zedrick Woods submits retirement paperworkJalen Ramsey says Jaguars don’t plan to give him contract extension this seasonJaguars sign former UCF running back Taj McGowan for added depthJaguars QB Nick Foles to miss OTAs for undisclosed ‘personal reason’Then Marrone dropped this nugget: He said he read a book written by Mark Manson during the offseason that ended up on The New York Times Best Seller list. The title? “The Subtle Art of Not Giving a (expletive): A Counterintuitive Approach to Living a Good Life.”Marrone never mentioned the title of Manson’s book in his response to a question about Pederson’s book. But his message seemed clear.Here’s one to bookmark now: The Eagles and Jaguars play Oct. 28 in London, an opportunity for the coaches to discuss their philosophies face to face.“So those things happen and that’s it,” Marrone said. “But I respect the hell out of him and his team and he won a Super Bowl, so. We lost, and when you lose, you question everything so I don’t have a problem with it.”In his book, Pederson said he watched the watched the game and was “screaming at the TV in my office” and thinking “you’ve got to be kidding me right now. It made me mad because Jacksonville had New England right where they wanted them.”The Patriots overcame a 10-point deficit in the fourth quarter to beat Jacksonville 24-20 and reach the Super Bowl. Pederson said Jacksonville’s cautious approach “fueled me.”“They could have at least tried for a field goal http://www.bengalscheapstore.com/renell-wren-jersey-cheap ,” Pederson wrote. “They took it out of their quarterback’s hands, and they didn’t give to their big back Leonard Fournette. I thought, ‘If they lose this game, this is why.’ Sure enough they would go on to lose the game.”Facing a similar situation in the NFC title game against Minnesota, Pederson and the Eagles managed a field goal late in the first half after getting the ball with 29 seconds remaining. Two weeks later in the Super Bowl, Pederson’s aggression helped the Eagles claim their first Lombardi Trophy.