Heading into Week 4 against the Giants, Darrell Henderson was the highest-graded running back in the NFL by Pro Football Focus. He was coming off back-to-back games in which he had 100-plus scrimmage yards and a touchdown, looking like the clear-cut starter for the Rams at running back.
It was the first time all season that it looked like the Rams had a true No. 1 tailback emerge from their committee of players. But in Sunday’s game, that sentiment completely disappeared. Henderson got eight carries and was targeted once as a receiver, totaling 38 yards on nine touches in 22 snaps played. Malcolm Brown, on the other hand, carried it nine times with five catches (six targets) on 35 snaps, getting the bulk of the work in the second half.
It was a puzzling decision by Sean McVay to go away from the hot hand in Henderson, leaving both fans and fantasy owners confused about the current status of the Rams’ backfield. Being such a hot topic, McVay was asked Monday about his reasoning for going away from Henderson and using Brown more.
The first thing he wanted to point out was that Henderson took a big shot in the game and the Rams wanted to make sure he was OK – which he was. But with the game being more of a downhill, grind-it-out battle, McVay felt it was better to use Brown.
“He’s good. He got a got a good shot where we were just making sure he’s feeling good. He came back in, but really it was kind of a physical downhill kind of a dirty-type running game,” McVay said. “We weren’t really able to run. We didn’t get as many opportunities. Really because we weren’t as efficient on third down that led to a lot of the lack of success, if you will just all offensively overall. I think you look at what a small margin for error it was. To answer your original question, and then I’ll go on a little tangent myself, we wanted to rotate those guys, but the way that the game kind of ended up playing out, Malcolm ended up getting more touches. It was hard to get into any sort of rhythm.”
There’s no question Henderson is a better runner outside the tackles, thriving when he can get to the edge and turn the corner. Brown is more accustomed to running between the tackles and getting those hard-earned yards, while rarely ripping off big runs like Henderson does.
Based on McVay’s comments, it sounds like the Giants took away the Rams’ outside zone runs, which the film would back up. There were some cutback lanes to be found, but nothing like the ones Henderson found last week against the Bills.
After his initial explanation, McVay went on to summarize the Rams’ lack of opportunities on offense, which also played a big part in the reduced carries by Henderson. After the first drive, Henderson had just four touches, partly because the Rams’ possessions were brief and lacked progress.
“I think when you just look at what a fine line it is between playing well and then it not really feeling like you’re getting nearly the production that’s expected of this unit and that what we’ve been accustomed to is, you have your first series go 12 plays go right down the field and ended up scoring a touchdown. Second series, you end up fumbling on the first play that then gives them a little bit of momentum that they end up getting a field goal out of. You go three-and-out on a situation on the third series, where we got a play-action, that we would typically hit on a second down that’s there and they’re place that we’ve made. We end up taking a sack on third down where uncharacteristic plays by our guys that we just really haven’t missed. Then, we ended up getting a 14-play drive that because of a red-zone mistake, probably ends up resulting in a field goal instead of a touchdown when you take a sack there. So, that’s all of our drives in the first half.”
McVay liked the way his players battled for the duration of the game despite the offense struggling to get anything going. He likened it to “a jump shooter that’s having a tough day.”
“They found a way when it was the most important to be able to hit their shot,” McVay said, referring to Cooper Kupp’s 55-yard touchdown to give the Rams a 17-9 lead.
He closed out his long-winded answer by saying it was essentially an even split between Brown and Henderson – which the snap counts suggest it wasn’t – but the offense simply didn’t have many opportunities to move the ball.
“Just wasn’t a lot of opportunities as a result of some good things they did,” he said. “But I think in a large part, a lot of things that we’ve got to just execute better and I expect us to be able to do that moving forward. Ultimately, Malcolm got the majority of the work, but it was really just split. We just didn’t have a lot of chances.”
Moving forward, the backfield workshare is going to be even more difficult to predict. Cam Akers is expected to return against Washington in Week 5, and he’ll certainly command touches after showing promise before getting hurt.
McVay has no lack of options in the backfield, which is a good thing, but it causes headaches for fantasy owners and fans hoping one running back emerges as the true workhorse.