Tag: rams dolphins

Watch: Michael Brockers was mic’d up vs. Dolphins

Hear what Michael Brockers had to say during the Rams’ loss to the Dolphins.

Sunday’s game against the Miami Dolphins did not go the way the Rams hoped it would, losing in ugly fashion, 28-17. The offense committed four turnovers and wasted arguably the best performance of the season by the defense, which held Miami to only 145 total yards.

Michael Brockers was part of that defensive dominance, and as he always does, he helped keep the energy high on the sideline and on the field. Brockers was mic’d up for the Rams’ loss to Miami and as poorly as they played, he never showed any signs of frustration or disappointment.

Check out the video from the Rams below.

Kurt Warner ‘dumbfounded’ by Rams having no answer for Dolphins’ repeated blitzes

The Dolphins kept bringing pressure and the Rams had no answer.

The Dolphins had an extra week to prepare for the Rams ahead of Sunday’s Week 8 showdown, and looking at the way they beat Los Angeles, it’s safe to say they took advantage of the additional prep time. They saw Jared Goff as a weakness when under pressure and attacked him – relentlessly.

The result was a 28-17 win, largely thanks to four turnovers by Goff, all of which came when he was blitzed. Fans and even the commentators in the booth wondered why the Rams had no answer for Miami’s endless pressure, continually going with empty backfields and no extra blockers to help protect Goff.

Kurt Warner asked the same question on Twitter Monday night, blasting the Rams for having no counter on Sunday afternoon.

Brian Flores was the Patriots’ defensive play caller in Super Bowl LIII when the Rams were stymied on offense. However, McVay was adamant Sunday that it was a completely different game plan than the one Los Angeles faced in the Super Bowl two seasons ago.

“No. No, this was not even close to the same game plan,” he said plainly. “They did activate some 6-1 fronts and had some different things where, you know, they’ve always been a part of their identity has been to zero-pressure. But they did a great job today and it didn’t have anything to do with the Super Bowl.”

Michael Brockers said he’s never seen a team attack a quarterback with zero-coverage blitzes as much as the Dolphins did. Goff didn’t seem surprised by the Dolphins’ approach, but he did admit the Rams weren’t quick enough to respond.

“They did a good job of applying some pressure. That’s kind of how they’re built and we did not respond quickly enough or well enough and that starts with me and I’ve got to be better,” he said Sunday.

NFL power rankings: Rams fall out of top 10 after loss to Dolphins

Sunday’s loss to the Dolphins has dropped the Rams out of the top 10 of this week’s power rankings.

When you lose to a 3-3 team the way the Los Angeles Rams did on Sunday, you’re bound to come under some heat. You’re also almost certain to fall not only in the standings, but also in weekly power rankings across the internet.

At Touchdown Wire, Mark Schofield dinged the Rams for their sloppy 28-17 loss to the Miami Dolphins in Week 8, dropping them outside the top 10 of this week’s rankings. However, they didn’t experience a precipitous fall.

The Rams only slid from No. 9 to 11, just behind the 10th-ranked Cardinals and one spot ahead of the 5-2 Saints.

If there ever was a “let down” game in the NFL, this one fit the bill from the Los Angeles Rams. Fresh off a big win on Monday Night Football over the Chicago Bears, the Rams had to travel cross-country – on the weekend we turned our clocks back nonetheless – to take on the Miami Dolphins. A team making a change at quarterback and coming off a bye week.

It did not end well for them.

Schofield points out that Brian Flores may have given everyone “the recipe for stopping Sean McVay and Jared Goff,” criticizing Goff’s performance that included two interceptions and two lost fumbles.

Like many have suggested, Schofield ponders that maybe the Dolphins are better than everyone expected, given their 4-3 record. This might look like an ugly loss now for the Rams, but if the season progresses and Miami makes a run at the AFC East, perhaps it’ll be viewed in a different light.

Not that that should be an excuse for losing a game in which you outgained your opponent by 326 yards, of course.

‘I’ve never seen that before’: Brockers surprised by Dolphins’ unique defense vs. Rams

Michael Brockers had never seen a defense like the one the Dolphins deployed on Sunday.

Sean McVay has been a head coach in the NFL for three and a half seasons, and he’s been an assistant in some capacity for a decade. He’s seen a lot of defenses in that time, some of which he’s conquered and others that have gotten the best of him.

On Sunday against the Miami Dolphins, McVay appeared as though he had never seen a defensive game plan like the one Brian Flores put together. Michael Brockers, for one, had never witnessed a defense attack a quarterback as relentlessly as Miami did.

The Rams had no answer for the Dolphins’ zero-coverage blitzes, which helped force four turnovers by Jared Goff. Brockers could only watch from the sideline, but after the game, his reaction to Flores’ game plan was candid and enlightening.

“They just brought as many as they could. They brought more than we can block,” he said. “That’s how I felt. I felt like they had 11 guys on the line of scrimmage and had all our WRs one-on-one and once you snapped the ball, everybody was coming. To be honest with you, I’ve never seen that before, that many times. That was zero-pressure, man-on-man, he has to get the ball out fast because there’s an unblocked player. It was a lot. It was a little crazy to look at, because I was like, ‘Man, they’re going to keep zeroing us like that?’ I have a lot of confidence in Jared and in Coach to get those things fixed and if they see it again, I best believe they’ll go ahead and chop it up, for sure.”

Brockers doesn’t play offense and he has no say in what the Rams do on that side of the ball. He can only try to stop the opposing offense, which Los Angeles did; Miami only had 145 total yards of offense and picked up eight first downs.

From a defensive perspective, he was asked what the Rams could’ve done to neutralize and counter the Dolphins’ relentless attack.

“I truly don’t know,” he said. “Maybe you run some draw plays to catch them off-guard. Maybe you run some screens, some running back screens, something. To be honest with you, I’ve never seen that before where a team just zero-pressures you every play and it was tough.”

McVay and Goff didn’t know how to counter it, either, which was the biggest problem for the Rams. The ground game was working, but Los Angeles was playing from behind and so McVay more or less abandoned the run.

There weren’t many screens or draws like Brockers suggested could have worked, which was surprising in its own right. McVay and the entire offensive staff will try to learn from this loss and bounce back after the bye, but this felt like a gut punch for a team that has seemingly lost its identity.

Rams Week 8 PFF grades: Donald, Havenstein were bright spots

PFF graded Aaron Donald and Rob Havenstein highly against the Dolphins.

There wasn’t much to be excited about coming out of the Rams’ 28-17 loss to the Miami Dolphins on Sunday afternoon, but not everyone on the team played poorly. The defense, in particular, had a strong afternoon, limiting the Dolphins to only 145 total yards and eight first downs.

The offense is what struggled most, committing four turnovers, three of which led directly to Dolphins touchdowns. The discrepancy between the offense and defense were reflected in Pro Football Focus’ Week 8 grades for the Rams, with most of the top performers coming on Brandon Staley’s unit.

Here are some of the notable performances by Rams players, led by Aaron Donald, Rob Havenstein and Taylor Rapp.

It may seem unusual for Havenstein to have a career-best grade in a game where Jared Goff was under constant pressure, but he wasn’t directly at fault for the offense’s shortcomings. Those fall more on Goff and Sean McVay, who failed to adjust to the Dolphins’ zero-blitz packages and stacked fronts.

Rapp forced a fumble and broke up another pass, while Donald forced a fumble and had four tackles. Kenny Young had a much better game than what we’ve seen lately from him, making smart reads and form tackles on ball carriers.

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There’s no reason the Rams should’ve thrown it 61 times vs. Miami

The Rams were running the ball well, but Sean McVay refused to stick with the ground game in Miami.

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For the most part this season, the Los Angeles Rams offense has remained fairly well-balanced. Through the first seven games of the season, Jared Goff never attempted more than 38 passes in a game. The Rams were running the ball more than just about every team in the NFL, and were doing so successfully with Darrell Henderson leading the charge.

Then Week 8 hit and that balance went out the window. Sean McVay went back to his old ways of leaning heavily on the arm of his quarterback, which got the Rams in trouble often last season.

Goff threw the ball 61 times against the Dolphins, with the Rams running it 29 times. Now, 29 rush attempts still seems like a lot, but considering they got off 92 plays, the balance simply wasn’t there.

And when looking at the team they were facing, there’s no reason the Rams should’ve thrown the ball 61 times.

Coming into Sunday’s matchup, the Dolphins ranked 30th in yards per carry allowed. They were giving up 5.0 yards per rush attempt, getting gashed regularly on the ground. The strength of Miami’s defense is in the secondary where Byron Jones and Xavien Howard comprise arguably the best cornerback tandem in the NFL, both ranking in the top 11 in completion percentage allowed.

Add in the fact that the Dolphins blitz the fifth-most in the NFL, and all signs pointed to this game being a ground-and-pound effort by the Rams. But again, McVay had other plans.

It’s easy to say, “But the Rams were down by 21 points in the first half.” Well, it was the passing game that dug them that hole, with Goff committing four turnovers on plays where he was under pressure almost immediately.

And it’s not as if the Rams weren’t having success on the ground. Henderson was averaging 5.9 yards per carry before getting injured. Malcolm Brown had 40 yards on 10 attempts, and Cam Akers looked good on his nine carries for 35 yards.

What made matters worse was how quickly McVay abandoned the run after it seemed to get going. Henderson opened the game with back-to-back carries of 4 yards. After that, McVay called three straight passes, all of which fell incomplete.

On the third drive, Henderson gained 18 yards on the first play. He didn’t touch the ball again on that possession. Brown took over and had a 6-yard run on first down, but McVay once again called two straight passing plays that both fell incomplete and ended the drive.

There were only four instances where the Rams ran the ball on back-to-back plays. And each of those times, Henderson or Akers kept the offense ahead of the sticks with runs of at least 4 yards every time.

Henderson had back-to-back runs of 4 yards to open the game. Later on in the first, he had runs of 4 yards and 7 yards on consecutive plays. In the second quarter, Akers had consecutive runs of 10 yards and 5 yards, then in the fourth quarter, he went for 4 yards and 5 yards on back-to-back plays, which was followed by a 2-yard run on third-and-1.

Again, you could say the Rams were playing from behind for most of the game, but had they stuck with the run early on instead of trusting Goff to beat zero-coverage blitzes every time, they probably wouldn’t have dug such a deep hole.

McVay’s refusal to trust the running game has become a gripe of Rams fans everywhere, especially given how well the team has run the ball this season. Early in the season, it looked like the ground game would be their identity. But recently, he’s abandoned the rushing attack and once again gotten off-balance.

Hopefully he recognizes this trend during the Week 9 bye.

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Breaking down 4 game-changing plays that cost the Rams against Miami

Without these four plays, the Rams probably end up beating the Dolphins.

There are times in the NFL when a game comes down to a handful of plays. That’s not the case every week, but for the Rams, it was true on Sunday against the Dolphins.

Four plays more or less cost them a win over Miami, and none of them fell on the shoulders of the defense. These were mistakes by the offense and special teams unit, leading to the Dolphins’ four touchdowns in their 28-17 win over the Rams.

We broke down each play with clips via NFL GamePass, as well as tracking data from Next Gen Stats.

9 crazy stats from Rams’ shocking loss to Dolphins

This game was full of hard-to-believe stats for the Rams.

The Rams were upset by the Miami Dolphins on Sunday afternoon in a game that’s hard for anyone in L.A. to wrap their heads around. Despite controlling the game throughout the afternoon with more than triple the yardage and almost 13 more minutes of possession, the Rams still lost 28-17.

It was a game that was filled with hard-to-believe statistics, some of which came close to making NFL history.

Here are nine of the craziest stats to come out of this loss by the Rams.

Rams Week 8 snap counts: Brown leads RBs, OLB rotation remains fluid

Here’s how the playing time broke down for the Rams in Sunday’s loss to the Dolphins.

The Los Angeles Rams were tripped up by the Miami Dolphins on Sunday afternoon, losing what was a classic trap game in Week 8. Despite outgaining the Dolphins by 326 yards, they still lost 28-17.

That’s what happens when you turn the ball over four times and allow a punt return for a touchdown.

On the field, the Rams didn’t play anywhere close to their standard, though it wasn’t for a lack of talent. They had almost their full cast of playmakers, except for Jalen Ramsey and Darrell Henderson, who missed the second half with an injury.

Coming out of the loss, let’s take a look at the snap counts to see how the playing time broke down at cornerback and running back, as well as every other position group.

Sean McVay says Rams’ loss to Miami ‘falls on my plate’

McVay was not at all pleased with the job he and his players did on Sunday.

Not every win is to the credit of the players, just as not every loss falls on them, either. Coaching matters on a weekly basis in the NFL, and there may not be a coach in football who shoulders the blame more than Sean McVay does.

After the Rams were embarrassed by the Dolphins in Week 8, McVay once again held himself accountable for his own shortcomings and mistakes on the sideline. In his postgame press conference, he blamed himself for the loss, saying he didn’t have enough of an answer for Brian Flores’ defense, which shut down Jared Goff and L.A.’s offense.

“Offensively, 100% didn’t do a good enough job on my part,” he began. “The turnovers were absolutely killer where they ended up getting a touchdown and basically getting another touchdown after we had ended up getting a short field. Didn’t handle some of the pressure earlier and that’s on me. I have to do a much better job for our team, we have to do a better job in our coverage units. Can’t give up a return for a touchdown, but ultimately, we didn’t get it done. That falls on my plate. I have to do a much better job for this team and that’s what I’ll focus on for these coaches, for these players and making sure you’re not sitting here with this pit in your stomach but we can do something about it when we return from the bye.

“For us, not nearly good enough and mainly myself.”

McVay isn’t the one who threw two interceptions, or allowed an 88-yard punt return, or lost two fumbles. He’s not the one who dropped a couple of passes on third down and he didn’t miss a 48-yard field goal in the fourth quarter.

But what McVay also didn’t do is adapt. He didn’t have an answer for the Dolphins’ game plan on defense, which involved constant pressure, man coverage and blitzes on seemingly every play.

“They were bringing zero pressures,” McVay said. “We had some answers and ultimately we didn’t execute them and ultimately, the answers were not good enough on my part. That falls on me and had some things that we gave ourselves a chance later on but it was too late and couldn’t capitalize on the opportunities that we had and made too many mistakes in the first half to give ourselves a chance.”

The Dolphins came into Week 8 with the fifth-highest blitz rate in the NFL. It was well known that Flores liked to send extra rushers on the blitz regularly, and it’s something the Rams should’ve been aware of.

But based on the way the offense looked, you’d think they had no idea Miami liked to blitz as much as Flores does. The offensive line has to be better and Goff must improve against the blitz, but McVay says it starts with him.

“Our execution has to be better. I have to coach better and I have to put our players in better positions and that’s the bottom line,” he said. “This is a sick taste in your mouth and mainly, I’m looking inward. I’ve got to do a better job. I can’t wait to look at this and work to get it fixed and that’s all I know how to do and we’ve got a lot of football left.”

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