Tag: Rams offense

Rams are bucking the trend with heavy dose of ground game on early downs

No team runs the ball more on first and second down than the Rams.

Last season, no quarterback in the NFL threw more passes than Jared Goff’s 626. The Rams turned into a pass-heavy offense that lacked efficiency and balance. This year, it’s the ground game that’s pacing the league.

Through three weeks, the Rams have an NFL-high 111 rush attempts, the third-most rushing yards (511) and the second-most rushing touchdowns (6). By just about every measure, the rushing attack led by Darrell Henderson, Malcolm Brown and Cam Akers is humming and doing an excellent job.

And it’s why Sean McVay feels so comfortable running the ball as often as the Rams have on first and second down. In fact, no team in the NFL runs the ball on early downs more frequently than Los Angeles.

Check out the following chart, which shows early-down pass frequency for each team. The Rams rank last, throwing the ball about 42% of the time. By comparison, the Seahawks are No. 1 with a pass rate on first and second down of more than 60%.

One thing you’ll notice about the graph is that many of the NFL’s best offenses are at the top with heavy pass frequency on first and second downs. The Cowboys, Packers, Bills and Chiefs all rank in the top five in total yards this season, while the Seahawks rank fourth in yards per play.

The Rams are second in yards per play and third in total yards, but they’re at the bottom of Ben Baldwin’s chart showing early-down pass frequency. That’s a rarity and also a testament to the effectiveness of the Rams’ ground game.

The running backs’ ability to pick up 4 or 5 yards on first down has been huge, keeping the Rams ahead of the sticks and making third down easier to handle. That’s certainly not lost on McVay.

“I mean, it’s big. I think the ability to be efficient on those early downs keeps us in third-and-manageables. I think that’s been a result of why we’ve been a little bit better on third downs,” McVay said last week. “So, a long way to go, but I think the first two weeks have been reflective of some things that we’ve wanted to focus on and being able to get a bunch of carries off is good because it means you’re able to control some of the possession as well, which I think has been good for our team.”

Keeping up this pace of running the ball so often on first and second down is going to be difficult, especially if the efficiency falls off as the season wears on. Right now, the Rams are averaging 6.5 yards per play on first and second down, which is tops in the NFL. But if they continue to run the ball as often as they have, that average could slip a bit, just based on the fact that teams average more yards per attempt throwing the ball than they do running it.

For now, there’s little reason to change their approach on offense because things are working to near-perfection.

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Sean McVay is back on his bull

Defenses seemed to figure Sean McVay out over the past season. He is determined to make them rethink everything in 2020.

A few years ago Los Angeles Rams head coach was the talk of the football world. The parlor tricks of remembering sequences of plays from yesteryear or reciting the entire starting defensive lineup of the Chicago Bears captured the attention of the national media. But it was what he was doing schematically with Jared Goff and the Rams offense that deserved attention. With his creative use of motion, heavy usage of outside zone running plays with 11 personnel against light boxes – and play-action off of those designs – and some schemed throws the Rams were dangerous on offense and Goff was looking like a true number one overall pick.

But as that 2018 season wound down, some of the defenses that faced the Rams started to figure him out. First it was the Detroit Lions, then those same Bears, then the Philadelphia Eagles, and ultimately the New England Patriots in the Super Bowl. Their recipe? Ignore all the eye candy that McVay showed the defense presnap – usually in the form of jet motion from a wide receiver – and play quarters coverage in the secondary.

That prompted the question: How would McVay respond? Would he change his ways?

Last year was a struggle for the Rams, as they missed out on the playoffs. But they got 2020 off to a solid start with a win Sunday night over the Dallas Cowboys, and if McVay’s gameplan is any indication, he’s gotten right back on the presnap motion bull.

And he’s going to force you to pay attention to that motion.

Take this example, the Rams’ first play from scrimmage on Sunday night:

This play encapsulates basically that entire buildup. The Rams use jet motion prior to the snap, and fake an outside zone running play before rolling Goff back to the left. This is vintage McVay. But also look at the defense. The Cowboys run Cover 4 on this play, just like those teams that seemed to have McVay figured out. Only here, the vertical route from the tight end creates some confusion between the cornerback and the safety, and the crossing route that eases into the boundary is wide open for Goff. But Goff does note even need to throw that, because the flat route is also open from the backside receiver slicing underneath.

Late on this drive, McVay returns to jet motion. As I said, he is going to make you pay attention to the motion man any way he can, because it will set up everything else the Rams are going to do in Week 2 and beyond. How does he do it on this 2nd and 6 play? By throwing a screen to the motion man:

Robert Woods comes in motion from right to left, and the Rams again run a play-action design off of an outside zone running look. Goff rolls to the right, and Woods is alone in the left flat, where Goff finds him with the throw. By the time the ball gets there, some of the offensive linemen have flowed to the outside, setting up a convoy for the receiver.

Look at how this sets up for Woods:

A simple screen throw, but because you did not pay attention to the motion like McVay wants you to, Woods picks up over 30 yards.

Again, if you are not going to pay attention to the motion man, McVay is going to make you pay for it:

Once more, presnap motion is key here, as Goff simply hands the football off to Woods on the end around. Having ignored the motion on the two previous plays, the Cowboys get burned for it on this running play. They are in zone coverage, so no one is trailing the receiver, and Woods picks up 14 yards again with a convoy in front of him.

What McVay is trying to force teams to do is play more man coverage and be wary of that movement presnap. Because back in 2018, that motion was often just that: Eye candy. Something to distract and confuse the defense before the play began. As defenses caught on and started to ignore it, they began to have success against McVay’s offense. If he is going to turn the tables, he needs teams to start worrying about those presnap movements.

Which is what to watch for Sunday when the Rams take on the Philadelphia Eagles.

2016 Rams ranked as one of the worst offenses of the decade

The 2016 Rams had one of the worst offenses in recent memory based on advanced metrics.

By now, everyone understands just how quickly Sean McVay helped turn around the Rams when he arrived in 2017. He took a team that was a complete mess under Jeff Fisher and turned it into a conference champion in two seasons, also developing Jared Goff into a Pro Bowler at quarterback.

But metrics from Football Outsiders’ Aaron Schatz puts into perspective just how bad the Rams offense was in 2016, one year before McVay took over. In a piece for ESPN, Schatz ranked the 10 best teams of the last decade based on Football Outsiders’ DVOA (Defense-adjusted Value Over Average) – which measures a team’s success on each play compared to league average.

The Rams weren’t on that list, but instead in the bottom five of the worst offenses of the decade. They were the second-worst of the last 10 years with a DVOA of -37.8, only better than the 2018 Cardinals (-41.1%).

To put into context just how bad that offense was, it ranked last in points, total yards, touchdown passes and first downs. The 2016 Rams had the second-fewest passing yards, third-most interceptions, second-fewest rushing yards and averaged 3.3 yards per carry – 31st in the NFL. Their 224 points were 40 fewer than every other team and they had 727 fewer yards than the next-worst team.

There were some exceptionally bad individual performances on that team, too. Goff’s 2016 season was ranked as the third-worst by a quarterback in the last decade, ahead of Blaine Gabbert in 2011 and Josh Rosen in 2018 based on DYAR (Defense-adjusted Yards above replacement). Goff’s DYAR was -884 in 2016.

Granted, he was in a horrible situation with a weak supporting cast and a head coach who couldn’t game plan on offense. Speaking of a weak supporting cast, Tavon Austin’s 2016 season was ranked as the second-worst by a wide receiver in the last 10 years with a DYAR of -173.

That season, Austin was targeted 106 times but only caught 58 passes for 509 yards and three touchdowns, a putrid average of 8.8 yards per catch. He also fumbled it five times that year.

There was some good that came out of Schatz’s list, though. Todd Gurley appeared on it twice, and not for his terrible 2016 campaign. His 2018 season was ranked as the eighth-best by a running back this decade, posting 464 DYAR that year when he was an All-Pro. Gurley’s 2017 season was even better (504 DYAR), which is when he won Offensive Player of the Year.

Gurley’s 2018 season has more rushing value but his 2017 season has more than twice as much receiving value. Gurley had 788 receiving yards on 64 catches for a 12.3 yards per reception average (second among running backs behind Chris Thompson) plus six touchdowns. He added 13 touchdowns on the ground to go with 1,305 rushing yards.

Gurley is no longer with the Rams, of course, but his mark on the franchise was certainly left in those two seasons – as well as his rookie year in 2015. It’s hard to fathom Cam Akers dominating the way Gurley did in 2017 and 2018, but the Rams can only hope he’s a Pro Bowler at some point down the line.

6 offensive players who must step up for Rams in 2020

Jared Goff and Rob Havenstein are two important players when it comes to the Rams offense in 2020.

The Rams’ offense wasn’t the team’s biggest issue last season, though it certainly took a step back from the 2018 campaign. Jared Goff struggled behind a porous offensive line and Todd Gurley looked nothing like the player he was the previous two seasons.

The Rams still finished top 11 in scoring and yards, but the offense wasn’t as consistently explosive as it was in Sean McVay’s first two years.

There are a lot of important pieces on that side of the ball, including some newcomers by way of the draft, but these six players must step up in 2020.

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QB Jared Goff

Goff is arguably the most important player on the Rams’ roster heading into 2020. If he struggles like he did last year, Los Angeles will miss the playoffs again. He doesn’t have to go out and throw for 5,000 yards with 35 touchdowns, but he can’t make the same mistakes and show the same inaccuracy that he did in 2019.

He was an MVP candidate in the first half of 2018 and looked like one of the top quarterbacks in the NFL behind an elite offensive line. The Rams probably won’t get that sort of play out of their O-line again in 2020, which means Goff really has to step up and succeed despite being pressured often.

If not, the defense will be working with short fields and the entire offense will have trouble sustaining drives. A lot of the season rides on Goff’s shoulders, as do most teams’ hopes with their quarterback.

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Rams could add fullback wrinkle to offense

Sean McVay would “absolutely” consider adding a fullback to the Rams offense.

If there’s one thing the Los Angeles Rams aren’t lacking heading into the 2020 season, it’s playmakers on offense. With Todd Gurley, Robert Woods, Cooper Kupp, Brandin Cooks, Tyler Higbee, Gerald Everett and even Darrell Henderson, the Rams are rich with talent at the skill positions.

Getting all of those players the touches they deserve is difficult, as is giving each enough playing time – especially considering the Rams’ reliance on 11 personnel with three receivers on the field at almost all times. Yet, as many offensive skill players as the Rams have, Sean McVay would be open to adding a new position to the mix.

When asked at the combine Tuesday if he’d ever incorporate a fullback on offense, McVay made his feelings clear.

“Oh yeah, absolutely,” McVay said, via Rich Hammond of The Athletic.

This doesn’t mean the Rams are going to go out and find their own Kyle Juszczyk or Andy Janovich. It doesn’t even mean they’re going to have a fullback on the roster at all. But the fact that McVay would be open to the idea is encouraging.

In 2018, he was reluctant to leave his comfort zone of 11 personnel. Last season, the Rams used more two-tight end sets and different personnel packages. As defenses continue to adapt to the Rams offense, McVay will also come up with new ideas to keep teams on their toes. Adding a fullback seems like one possibility.

“We’re excited about diving in and making sure we’ve got some better things we can do,” McVay said, “so you feel like you’re able to dictate the terms and not feel like defenses are doing that to you.”

Let’s not forget, in McVay’s first year as a head coach, the Rams selected fullback Sam Rogers in the sixth round of the draft. He spent his rookie year on the practice squad and was cut in May of 2018, but McVay clearly had an idea of how to use a fullback in L.A.

Perhaps we’ll see that vision come to fruition next season if the Rams add one again.

Jared Goff: Rams offense found ‘new identity’ in final 5 games

In Week 13, the Rams flipped a switch and utilized more two-tight end sets.

When you look back on the Rams’ 2019 season, it’s difficult to say what their identity was on offense. The past two years, they were a team that ran the ball successfully and utilized play-action passes better than just about any other team in the NFL.

This season, neither was the case. Todd Gurley averaged 3.8 yards per carry and wasn’t a factor as a receiver, while Jared Goff had two touchdowns and five interceptions on play action.

The lack of consistency on that side of the ball was startling. The Rams would go weeks with 35-plus pass attempts and abandon the running game in the fourth quarter, while other times, they’d try to run the ball down the opponent’s throat with Gurley and Malcolm Brown.

In Week 13, they seemed to find a groove. Sean McVay turned to more two-tight end sets with Tyler Higbee and Johnny Mundt, taking some pressure off of the receivers. Cooper Kupp and Brandin Cooks played fewer snaps as a result, but the offense was more consistent.

Goff says the Rams found a “new identity” in that 34-7 win over the Cardinals, changing things for the final five weeks of the season. He says that’s how the offense was supposed to look all along, with an abundance of play action, rollouts and heavy packages.

“It’s supposed to look like how it looked today. How it looked today, how it a handful of the last weeks, if you take out Dallas. I think since we played Arizona, we kind of did find a new identity. I think ultimately, we found different ways to win games,” he said after Sunday’s season finale.

Defenses adapted to what the Rams did best, which was outside zone runs and play action. They figured out ways to counter McVay’s scheme, just as the Patriots did in the Super Bowl and the Bears did last season.

Goff acknowledged that fact, admitting teams figured out parts of the Rams’ offense.

“I think that’s the biggest thing we can take away, is that we were so specific the last two seasons and then this year, we had to find different ways to win. Teams figured some stuff out where we had to adjust,” he continued. “We did adjust and we adjusted well, just unfortunately, we were one game short, two games short, whatever you want to call it. That’s the way it goes. I think it’s a good learning experience for all of us, coaches included. I know myself, personally, like I mentioned, we’ll use this as motivation and come back next year stronger. It’s something that eats at you and you never want to – especially if you think about the fans.”

The Rams will have to adjust and adapt again in 2020 as teams gather film on McVay’s offense. It’s part of being a coach in the NFL, needing to find different ways to win each week. Los Angeles just took too long to figure it out, coming up a little bit short of the playoffs.

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Rams showed a different side of their offense in win over Bears

The Rams went run-heavy on Sunday night, which is different than what we’ve seen all year.

From their very first play on offense, the Rams set out to prove they could win a game on the back of their rushing attack. Granted, Todd Gurley lost a fumble on Los Angeles’ first play from scrimmage, but Sean McVay didn’t abandon the run or put Gurley in the proverbial doghouse.

Instead, he called another 24 running plays for Gurley and five more for Malcolm Brown, too. In total, the Rams finished with 34 rushing attempts, 30 of which were by running backs. It was the second-most times they’ve handed the ball off to running backs all season, doing a great job to ride Gurley to victory.

Sean McVay said afterwards that it was all part of the game plan, giving the ball to Gurley as much as they did. And it truly showed a new side of the offense that we hadn’t yet seen this season. This was the second time all year the Rams had more rushes (34) than pass attempts (18), with the other game being almost an even split (30 rushes, 28 passes vs. New Orleans).

But the changes offensively go deeper than just running the ball more often. It all started with their personnel adjustment. The Rams utilized 12 personnel (one running back, two receivers, two tight ends) on 34 plays Sunday night, which is their most in a game all year. On those plays, Gurley rushed for 92 yards on 22 carries.

It was by far the Rams’ most effective personnel grouping when it came to running the ball.

What was really good to see was Sean McVay’s ability to adapt. Just hours before the game, the Rams found out that Robert Woods wouldn’t play as he tended to a family matter. For a team that’s so reliant on having three receivers on the field at a time, this was a big problem for the Rams.

Rather than simply replacing Woods with Mike Thomas or JoJo Natson in the starting lineup and continuing to roll with three receivers on the field at almost all times, McVay adapted. He had tight ends Tyler Higbee and Johnny Mundt out there together often, with a mix of Gerald Everett, too.

The Rams even used an I-formation with Mundt as a fullback, which isn’t something often seen in McVay’s offense. Higbee and Mundt were non-factors in the passing game as receivers – neither was targeted even once – but they were great as blockers and opened holes for Gurley.

Instead of relying on Jared Goff to sling the ball around the field as he often does, the Rams only had him throw the ball 18 times behind their new-look offensive line – his fewest in a game all year. The result was a low pressure rate and a safe game by Goff.

The question now is whether the Rams will continue to utilize this new run-first approach in the future. When Woods and Brandin Cooks return, expect to see them assume their usual roles on offense. Cooper Kupp should play the majority of the snaps, too.

But if the Rams truly want to run the ball more often, 12 personnel might be the answers – which will cost a wide receiver playing time.