MATT STAFFORD outplayed fellow veteran QB Joe Flacco of the Browns on Sunday (Rams photo).

Our big headline at the top of the front page of our sports section on Saturday really made for some nervous moments. “Who Will Stop The Rams Now,” seemed a little premature at the beginning of the game Sunday against the Cleveland Browns.

Joe Flacco, stepping in as quarterback for the Brownies, looked sharp in the early going, recalling the prowess he showed when leading the Baltimore Ravens to a Super Bowl win at the end of the 2012 season.

But the Rams have their own veteran quarterback with a Super Bowl ring – our own Matthew Stafford – and, combined with the strong defense, turned back the invaders from Ohio, 36-19.

The win not only was the team’s third consecutive victory, but it also placed the boys from SoFi into a NFC wild card spot at 6-6. I was starting to light up the Halo – whoops! Wrong team, wrong stadium – when the news came that Green  Bay had upset the Kansas City Chiefs.

That made the overachieving cheese guys from Wisconsin 6-6, and since they had beaten the Rams earlier in the season, they – temporarily – bumped them out of the wild card spot.

Now, even with Stafford healthy, Kyren Williams, Cooper Kupp and the record-shattering Puka Nacua playing well and the defense looking stout, we’re not saying no one can stop the Rams.

But it does look like the 2023 season will resemble 2021 a lot more than 2022.

  The Shohei Show:  Are you – a little like me – tiring of the seemingly endless speculation  (a lot of it spurious)  about the landing zone of free agent Shohei Ohtani?

  “Inside sources” have placed him signing with every team from the Chicago Cubs to the Columbus Blue Jackets. It’s like dating a girl who you discovered just joined a dating site. You know the ax is about to fall (on you) but the wait is excruciating.

  It’s taken on the feeling of a soap opera with a cliff-hanger every Friday. We love you, Shohei, but just put on your new blue-and-white Dodgers cap for the press conference and let us get on with our lives.