The arrival of Matthew Stafford has been a breath of fresh air for the Los Angeles Rams this season. Sean McVay is showing more confidence in allowing Stafford to call the shots on offense, which has turned the Rams into one of the highest-octane offenses in the NFL.
With a quarterback he can trust at the helm, McVay and the Rams are passing the ball well above expected, via Establish the Run’s Michael Leone.
Click the tweet below to see the full charts showing where the Rams rank compared to the rest of the NFL in pass rate above expected and red zone pass rate above expected.
Here's your updated PROE through Week 7, both overall and in the Red Zone. pic.twitter.com/DYxCjRRb0i
— Michael Leone (@2Hats1Mike) October 26, 2021
Overall, the Rams are airing it out at the fourth-highest rate above expected. The only teams ahead of Los Angeles in that metric are the Kansas City Chiefs, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, and the Los Angeles Chargers.
And when it comes to the red zone, the Rams are throwing it at the third-highest rate in the league. Only the Cincinnati Bengals and the Chiefs are passing it in the red zone more often than Los Angeles.
These numbers shouldn’t be a major surprise given the talent of Stafford, but it is a positive sign that McVay can be assertive in letting Stafford sling the football. Sometimes teams tend to get complacent or play safer in the red zone, which typically occurs when a team doesn’t feel 100% confident in their quarterback making the right play.
Seeing that the Rams are producing 29.6 points per game (fifth-most in the NFL) and have scored a touchdown on 71.4% of their red-zone trips in the past three weeks, I don’t expect McVay to ease on the gas anytime soon when it comes to putting the ball in Stafford’s hands.