Todd Gurley sees only one team capable of stopping Rams from winning Super Bowl

Todd Gurley took a moment to ponder the question. 

His former team, the Rams, was already the favorite to win the Super Bowl well before his friend and teammate Aaron Donald decided to come out of retirement. The three-time NFL Defensive Player of the Year winner is joining a defense featuring the top-ranked player in the NFL, All-Pro cornerback Trent McDuffie, while reigning MVP Matthew Stafford commands last season’s top-ranked offense. 

So, who exactly is going to beat the Rams?

Philadelphia? Buffalo? Baltimore? Seattle? San Francisco?

“Themselves,” Gurley answered in an exclusive interview with the California Post. “The only way they lose is if they shoot themselves in the foot.”

There’s your answer. 

For all the star power assembled in Los Angeles this spring, Gurley believes the greatest threat to another championship resides inside their own building. Maybe even in their own minds.

McDuffie heard Gurley’s assessment and agreed.

“I think that goes for really any team in the league,” McDuffie told The Post in a separate exclusive interview. “Everybody in the league is gifted. They’re talented.”

McDuffie learned during four seasons in Kansas City that talent alone doesn’t carry the Lombardi Trophy through the confetti.

The Chiefs had Patrick Mahomes and stars across the roster, but McDuffie believes their championship identity was forged by players refusing to become intoxicated by their own expectations.

“It was us internally that really just developed this mindset that we were going to go out there and not only do our job but play for each other,” McDuffie said.

For the first time since the 2021 season, the Rams enter the year with the burden of being the team everybody expects to win. And Donald’s return only cranked that pressure up even higher. 

McDuffie knows championship teams aren’t built on paper. His Chiefs were heavy favorites over the Eagles in the 2024 Super Bowl, and they got blown out. When you start believing the roster on paper guarantees anything, somebody will happily rip up that paper right from under you. 

“Teams aren’t going to go out there and just let you win,” McDuffie said. “When we really went out there and made it a point to show why we’re the better team, show how we’re going to dominate and win for four quarters, good things usually come to you.”

So, how do the Rams avoid becoming their own biggest obstacle?

McDuffie’s answer isn’t glamorous.

Meetings. Practice. Today. Then tomorrow.

“I think Sean [McVay] does a great job at keeping us focused on today and really just focusing on week to week,” McDuffie said. “Waking up every day and just trying to get better with today and winning today. And I think you just keep compiling that over time. Usually good things happen.”

Gurley, a part of McVay’s Rams who went to the Super Bowl in 2019, knows what it takes to get to the big game. 

“I think they definitely have a great chance of winning the Super Bowl,” the former Rams running back and NFL Offensive Player of the Year said.

But Gurley has seen enough football to know championships can disappear through the cracks. In the NFC Championship game last season, a muffed punt and an incomplete pass on fourth-and-4 turned a Super Bowl dream into a nightmare. 

“Obviously, last year you saw the problems early at the beginning with special teams, and it ended the season with special teams as well,” Gurley said. “I think being able to not take that for granted is very underappreciated.”

Special teams players rarely get put on posters when you have the likes of Stafford, Donald, Myles Garrett and Puka Nacua. Nobody buys a ticket to watch punt protection.

Until it fails.

“It’s routine until a kicker misses a field goal or you have a bad punt,” Gurley said. “Then you want to put the blame on them.”

But Gurley’s larger point is that an entire season can be uprooted by self-inflicted wounds, and it can happen not just on offense or defense, but in special teams as well. Injuries are inevitable but don’t automatically destroy a season. But beating yourself does.

“You see a lot of teams that still go on and win sometimes without their best player or second-best player,” Gurley said. “I think special teams definitely has to pick it up.”

When asked for a potential weakness outside of the special teams unit, Gurley identified a problem only a player who played in McVay’s offense would recognize. 

“Probably scoring too fast,” he said, laughing. “Probably scoring too fast, honestly.”

If scoring too quickly is the Rams’ biggest weakness this season, then McVay will gladly take that. 

The Rams and 49ers kick off from Melbourne, Australia, on Thursday at 5:35 p.m.

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