Instate NFL Rivalries: Los Angeles Raiders vs. Los Angeles Rams

There are some instate rivalries that instantly come to mind like; Los Angeles Dodgers vs. San Francisco Giants. Or UCLA-USC which pits the University of California, Los Angeles against the University of Southern California. Then there is talk of the rivalry between the Los Angeles Raiders and the Rams which was once thought to be building. If you want to make a bet on the NFL picks of either team then head to FanDuel for the best odds but you may struggle to place a bet on a game featuring both franchises.

Little Rivalry To Speak Of

If you were to ask fans of the Los Angeles Rams who they would count as their biggest rivals, few would say the Raiders. The Los Angeles Rams have proven successful several times since their involvement in professional football dating back to 1936. Such success breeds healthy competition and with it comes rivalries. That the Raiders have moved from Los Angeles to Oakland and currently find themselves in Las Vegas does not help to build up a rivalry either. 

As division opponents, the Los Angeles Rams regularly come up against the San Francisco 49ers and such familiarity breeds contempt. Then there are the Seattle Seahawks who are typical rivals in the NFC West and that animosity increased during the 2010s as both teams excelled when they came up against each other. A relatively new rivalry has come up between the Rams and the Minnesota Vikings which has simmered in recent decades. The rivalry largely stems between the two sides when they face up in the playoffs. 

Then again, if you were to speak to fans of the Las Vegas Raiders, a lot of their rivalries have died down in recent years. The Raiders can claim rivalries with the New England Patriots and the Pittsburgh Steelers based on their play-off match-ups. There was a rivalry with the Seattle Seahawks between the three instances of the franchise as Oakland, Los Angeles and Las Vegas yet that died down once the Seahawks moved across to the NFC West. If you did want to find some divisional rivals down the years then the Raiders can count on the Kansas City Chiefs, the Denver Broncos, and the Los Angeles Chargers.

The Relocation Of The Raiders And The Rams

Proximity is key in a lot of interstate rivalries as fans of opposing teams are typically friends during the week and turn into hostile enemies come game day. That would have been the case for fans of the Los Angeles Raiders and Rams, up to a certain point. Since their establishment in 1936, the Los Angeles Rams have stayed put in the LA metropolitan area. Alas, the same cannot be said for the Raiders who cannot even be called a Los Angeles-based franchise anymore. 

While there was an interstate rivalry between the two teams, even an intercity one between 1982 and 1994, those days are long gone. The Los Angeles Raiders became the Oakland Raiders when they relocated to their original home. That’s right, you can only truly count on the intercity rivalry between the Rams and the Raiders for 12 years. Before that period, they were the Oakland Raiders from 1960 to 1981, then again from 1995 to 2019 yet their rivalry would have stretched across the state of California for only the years between 2016 and 2019. 

Even the Los Angeles Rams have relocated which does little to help build up a rivalry. The Rams franchise was originally known as the Cleveland Rams from 1936 up to 1945 in the second American Football League. They then joined the NFL in 1946 and moved to Los Angeles where they remained until 1994. The Rams and the Raiders effectively crossed paths with the Raiders moving to Oakland and the Rams moving to St Louis. In 2016, the  Rams returned to Los Angeles yet in 2020, the Raiders had already moved to Las Vegas.

A New Rivalry

It may take some time for a rivalry to develop between the Los Angeles Rams and the Las Vegas Raiders. At least both teams remain on the same side of the country though the Las Vegas Raiders play in the AFC West division of the NFL while the Los Angeles Rams remain in the NFC West division of the NFL. There have already been some tight games between the two, most notably a 17:16 win for the Rams over the Raiders in December 2022. What may change the rivalry between the two teams are the NFL picks as team rosters are always highly sought after.

Summary

There is little rivalry to speak of between the Los Angeles Raiders and the Rams, largely because the teams have relocated. When the Los Angeles Rams did move back to LA in 2016, they had the Los Angeles Chargers as intercity rivals as the other AFC team in the city. In 2017, there was a joint scrimmage at the Rams’ training camp when Nickell Robey-Coleman for the Rams had an altercation with Keenan Allen of the Chargers. As soon as the Raiders moved to Las Vegas, that looks to be the end of what could have been a feisty rivalry.