LOS ANGELES — The gap between the Rams and the New Orleans Saints is as thin as a penalty flag.

That doesn’t mean Sunday’s meeting at the Coliseum is all about the Saints seeking a measure of revenge for the missed pass-interference call that tilted last season’s NFC championship game the Rams’ way.

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That means this is an extraordinary matchup of teams that are facing each other for the fourth time in 22 months, always with a lot on the line, and have yet to determine who’s better.

“Every time we play them, it’s been a big game,” Rams defensive coordinator Wade Phillips said. “This is another one.”

The teams are 1-0, each having come back from disappointing endings to last season with satisfying Week 1 wins. The Rams held off the Carolina Panthers 30-27 and the Saints beat the Houston Texans with a last-second field goal by a nearly identical score of 30-28.

It’s uncanny how evenly matched they are.

Their quarterbacks, the Rams’ Jared Goff and the Saints’ Drew Brees, each completed exactly 364 passes and 32 touchdown passes last season. Their running backs, L.A.’s Todd Gurley and New Orleans’ Alvin Kamara, were first and second in the conference in rushing touchdowns.

Their coaches, the Rams’ Sean McVay and the Saints’ Sean Payton, have more than a name in common: Their career winning percentages rank them first and second among active NFC head coaches with more than one year in the league.

The Rams and Saints both won 11 games in 2017 and both won 13 games in 2018. They were the NFC’s top two teams last year in points scored (separated by about a point a game) and point difference (a half-point apart).

In their three games against each other in McVay’s two seasons, the Saints totaled 88 points, the Rams 87. The Rams beat the Saints here in 2017, the Saints beat the Rams in New Orleans in 2018, and their NFC title game at the Superdome in January went overtime – and that playoff game isn’t over yet in the hearts of many Louisianans.

And each time they meet, it has implications. In 2017, the Rams got the third seed in the NFC playoffs and the Saints the fourth because the Rams won the tiebreaker with the head-to-head result in Week 12. In 2018, the Saints got the first seed and home field for the conference title game because of the head-to-head result in Week 9.

Since any of that could happen again, the goal Sunday shouldn’t be to settle scores from the last year’s playoffs, it should be to secure advantages for the next.

The winner in the home opener for the Rams’ final season in the Coliseum will gain the upper hand in the NFC, where Las Vegas makes the Rams, Saints and Philadelphia Eagles co-favorites to get to the Super Bowl.

For some rivals, familiarity breeds contempt. For the Rams and Saints, it has bred admiration.

“This is a great football team,” McVay said of the Saints. “They were the one-seed in the NFC for a reason, had a great win against a really good football team (Houston) on Monday night where you can see they’re a resilient football team. They’re very well coached, they’ve got great players.

“It’s going to be a great challenge and we’re excited about it.”

Said Payton of the Rams: “Their skill(-position players) for the most part return, and Sean (McVay) and his staff do a great job with giving you a lot to defend. They come off similar looks that are different plays. You really have to have good eyes in a game like this.”

Gurley will be trying to ease home fans’ anxiety about the condition of his left knee. Not since the Green Bay Packers game in October, five home games ago, has the Coliseum seen Gurley carry the ball as many his career-average 18 times a game.

Gurley’s scheduled days off from practice, and his light workload in the first half of the Carolina game before an 89-yard outburst in the second, suggest the Rams aim to save his health and energy for when he’s needed most. McVay says the days off aren’t solely about the knee. Related Articles Rams’ Cam Akers will miss Bills game, testing running-back rotation

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Goff plays his first home game since he signed a four-year contract extension (through 2024) worth $134 million, of which a league-high $110 million is guaranteed. The contract’s total value is second among Rams to defensive tackle Aaron Donald’s $135 million over six years.

Goff hopes he was able to “knock some rust off” in the Carolina game, in which his successes were limited to short completions, in time to match passes with Brees, the all-time NFL passing leader.

“The first time we played them, you’re kind of in awe of playing Drew Brees and everything that goes along with it,” Goff said of 2016, when the rookie played well but the veteran played better and the Saints won 49-21. “I think at this point now, I feel like we’re more peers.”

That goes for their whole teams.