Before this season began, Sean McVay was well known for running play-action often and developing other tendencies during his time with Jared Goff under center. With Matthew Stafford at the quarterback spot, McVay has shifted to more of a dropback passing offense as the play-action usage has almost subsided entirely this season, becoming a common talking point in the media.
When asked why the Los Angeles Rams haven’t been calling play-action plays or deploying certain personnel, McVay discussed why the team has operated differently on offense so far.
“I think when you look at a lot of those things, it’s not an excuse, but we’ve gotten really thinned out with some of the depth of our roster at different positions as well, not exclusive to receivers, but losing a Johnny Mundt was a really big loss,” he said Monday. “Now, you’ve got confidence in Kendall Blanton and Brycen Hopkins if need be, but those are all very merited points and definitely things that we’ve talked about as a coaching staff. I think it’s really figuring out our identity that we came into this year with, is not going to be able to be that same identity just based on some of the changes that we’ve had. What does that look like in terms of balancing and still being able to do some of the things that Matthew and our offensive players have done at a really high level while not leaving us susceptible to some of the bad things that have resulted over the last couple of weeks, whether it be timing, some of the turnovers. There’s a lot of different things, all of which you’ve kind of alluded to. And so, the challenge for us – and a good challenge – is figuring out a way to maximize our players’ skillsets and be able to try to establish an identity of what exactly we want to look like. I don’t think it has to be one thing, or this or that, or only that, but maybe a little bit of a mixture is something that we’re talking about.”
For the most part, McVay avoided speaking about why the Rams haven’t utilized play action much this season. It’s a fair question to ask as the dropback, spread-it-out passing game is seemingly putting too much pressure on Stafford and the offensive line.
Through the first 12 weeks, only 73 of Stafford’s 400 total attempts have come on a play-action play. That ranks 16th among quarterbacks this season and it is vastly different from the league-leading 172 play-action attempts we saw from Goff in 2020.
While play-action passes were used as more of a crutch to aid Goff, they can still be a useful way for the Rams to create offense with Stafford.
As for the personnel that Los Angeles is deploying, they’ve become primarily an 11 personnel offense due to the injury to Mundt. The Rams are running 11 personnel at a league-high rate of 88% of their offensive plays this season.
From Weeks 1-5 (before Mundt went down with an injury), Los Angeles was in 12 personnel on a modest 18% of their offensive snaps. However, since he’s been sidelined, the Rams are now running it only 10% of the time.
Seeing that the Rams are amid a three-game skid, adjustments need to be made on offense. Given McVay’s recent comments, it remains to be seen if we see some of the previous successful tendencies make an appearance moving forward.