Los Angeles Rams pass rusher Jared Verse didn't hide or soften his feelings regarding the Super Bowl champion Seattle Seahawks.
"They're a division rival, all that good stuff. But like I genuinely don't like them," Verse said on “The Pivot” podcast last week. "l got like a disdain in my heart for them. Like, I hate them. I don't like the Seahawks at all. There's nothing I like about them. I don't like their players. There's nobody I like about their staff. I don't like them.
"But when we play them, the whole team's kind of like that. Where, like, you have your best friend on the sideline. You don't like them. Like my mom could be wearing Seahawks colors, and like that's my OPP that day."
It's not the first time Verse has shared his disdain for his division rival, saying similar ahead of their Week 16 showdown.
Verse was asked if he's worried about giving his division rival bulletin board material heading into next season.
"They got to see me for a lot more. So it don't matter. They got to see me for a lot more," he said.
The Seahawks got the last laugh in 2025.
First came the massive overtime comeback in Week 16 that ultimately led to Seattle getting the NFC's No. 1 seed. Then the Seahawks won a 31-27 offensive tussle in the NFC Championship Game.
Verse blamed the playoff loss on the Rams young defense.
"I think this is just me being completely blatantly honest. I think it was a young mindset. I think it was my fault on the defense," he said.
"We all hyped up all week," Verse added. "We're like, 'Yeah, we're going to beat them again. We know what we learned from last time.' And then when we start having trouble -- early on, they throw a big play, everybody's kind of like, s----ing the bed. Like, 'Oh, what do we do now? This isn't going the way we thought this was going to go. They're not laying down.'"
Verse said that the young defense started "freaking out" after things didn't go well early. The second-year player added that the Rams D had the mindset that it would be a "cake walk."
"And when we started having trouble, we didn't know what to do, said Verse. "Like some of us on the defense, some, you know, I'm going to take full blame, too. Like, there were a couple of times I'm like, but they're running the other way. Like, I don't know what to do. I can't chase. Like I'm not that fast. I can't chase him on the backside. What do I do? So when we had some troubles, we just kind of like mentally shut down."
