{"id":129341,"date":"2026-01-11T17:43:14","date_gmt":"2026-01-11T17:43:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/129341\/"},"modified":"2026-01-11T17:43:14","modified_gmt":"2026-01-11T17:43:14","slug":"should-la-pull-for-49ers-or-eagles-in-playoffs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/129341\/","title":{"rendered":"Should LA pull for 49ers or Eagles in playoffs?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Jan. 11, 2026, 7:42 a.m. PT<\/p>\n

The Los Angeles Rams<\/a>\u2019 opponent in the divisional round will be decided<\/a> by today\u2019s game between the San Francisco 49ers and Philadelphia Eagles<\/a>. It\u2019s almost against the rules to ever root for the 49ers if you\u2019re a Rams fan, but San Francisco winning on Sunday might actually help Los Angeles.<\/p>\n

Hear me out. There are two primary reasons a 49ers win would benefit the Rams.<\/p>\n

If the 49ers upset the Eagles on the road, the Rams\u2019 next game will be on the road against the Bears<\/a>. An Eagles win will send the Rams to Seattle for a rubber match with the top-seeded Seahawks<\/a>.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s no reason for the Rams to be afraid of playing the Seahawks again, but getting Seattle after its bye week wouldn\u2019t be the ideal scenario. The Rams should much prefer to play the Bears, who keep winning by the skin of their teeth with miraculous fourth-quarter comebacks.<\/p>\n

According to FanDuel\u2019s odds, the Rams would be 4.5-point road favorites against the Bears and 1.5-point underdogs against the Seahawks. Which sounds like the more favorable matchup?<\/p>\n

Expert NFL picks: Exclusive betting insights only at USA TODAY.<\/a><\/p>\n

The second benefit of the 49ers beating the Eagles relates to the NFC title game, should the Rams get there. If the 49ers win today and then beat the Seahawks next weekend, the Rams would then have a path to hosting the 49ers in the NFC Championship Game.<\/p>\n

The 49ers are the only opponent that would yield a home game for the Rams the rest of this postseason, so them winning would leave the door cracked open for L.A. to host the NFC title game. If the 49ers lose, the Rams are guaranteed to be on the road the rest of the way.<\/p>\n

The Rams are capable of beating anyone anywhere, but if they can make their path to the Super Bowl a bit easier, and potentially host a playoff game, they should root for their rivals today.<\/p>\n

\"\"\/<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jan. 11, 2026, 7:42 a.m. PT The Los Angeles Rams\u2019 opponent in the divisional round will be decided…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":129342,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[243,1184,101,103,102,104,106,105,12179,12180,378,507,11990,1347,11767,374,508,11376,6321,6330,9203,377,246],"class_list":["post-129341","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-francisco","tag-accessfree","tag-ca","tag-san-francisco","tag-san-francisco-headlines","tag-san-francisco-news","tag-sf","tag-sf-headlines","tag-sf-news","tag-sstssportsnflrams","tag-sstsnrams","tag-tagamerican-football","tag-tagcalifornia-gold-rush","tag-tagchicago-bears","tag-taglos-angeles-rams","tag-tagnational-football-conference","tag-tagnfl-hub","tag-tagoverall-neutral","tag-tagphiladelphia-eagles","tag-tagsan-francisco","tag-tagseattle-seahawks","tag-tagsmg-timely","tag-tagsports-news","tag-typestory"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/129341","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=129341"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/129341\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/129342"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=129341"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=129341"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=129341"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}