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No team knows how important
home-field advantage can be more than the St. Louis Rams.
The last two times they had it, they went all the way to the Super Bowl.
The Rams, winners of seven straight, look to secure the top seed in the NFC and home-field advantage through the conference playoffs when they visit the Detroit Lions.
A victory over Detroit -- one of the league's worst teams -- will assure the Rams of needing just two home wins in the playoffs to reach their third Super Bowl in five years. St. Louis could have home-field advantage locked up before taking the field if Philadelphia loses at Washington on Saturday.
Last Sunday's 27-10
victory over Cincinnati gave the Rams a first-round bye, and Philadelphia's
loss to San Francisco later in the day gave St. Louis the best record in the
NFC.
Needing just two home wins in the playoffs to reach the Super Bowl would be
a clear advantage for any team, but particularly for St. Louis, which has won
all eight home games this season as part of a franchise-record 14-game win streak
at the Edward Jones Dome. In 1999 and again in 2001, the Rams used home-field
advantage to reach the Super Bowl.
Marshall Faulk scored two touchdowns and Torry Holt had his 10th 100-yard receiving game of the season last week as St. Louis completed a perfect season at home.
``I know people understand how difficult that is to do in this league, but we have an advantage here,'' Rams coach Mike Martz said. ``And we are very proud of that advantage, the 12th man, and the St. Louis fans.''
The Rams appear to be peaking at the perfect time. The defense threw a second-half shutout against the high-scoring Bengals, and quarterback Marc Bulger was at his best when the team needed it most, going 10-for-16 in third-down conversions.
The midseason controversy with benched two-time MVP Kurt Warner is long forgotten. Bulger, who is 18-3 as the starter, has developed a knack for getting the job done.
``That's why he's our quarterback,'' Martz said. ``He's the guy that makes plays when they have to be made. When it's all on the line, he's the guy you want in there. That's what he's meant to our team.''
Martz knows facing the Lions, who are 4-3 at home, is not a sure win and he wants to instill that in his players.
``We've talked about all those teams we walked into and we should dominate and we're fighting for our lives,'' Martz said. ``We understand the parity in the league and how hard it is to win on any Sunday. These players understand that more than anybody.''
Sunday will close Detroit's third straight losing season. Unless the Lions somehow upset the NFC-leading Rams, their three-season record of 9-39 will match the league's fourth-worst record over a three-year span since 1978.
Detroit surpassed the Houston Oilers' NFL record for futility away from home with its 24th straight road loss Sunday, 20-14 at Carolina.
``It stinks,'' Lions tackle Jeff Backus said. ``It's absolutely horrible. The streak is going to be there until we break it and that's just the way it is. As much as the coaches and the players say `Don't worry about it, let's just play our game,' it's going to be there until we break it.''
Figuring out why Detroit is again one of the league's worst teams isn't difficult.
The Lions are averaging
a league-worst 81.7 yards per game on the ground and just 183.3 through the
air. Their defense hasn't been much better, yielding 344.4 yards per game to
rank 26th in the NFL.