Tag: Sean McVay

Burn This Play! That moment when Sean McVay lost his mind

In 2018, Sean McVay was considered the NFL’s greatest offensive play-caller. Doug Farrar explains how far things have fallen this season.

Each week, Touchdown Wire editor Doug Farrar will review one play that, due to an embarrassing use of scheme or personnel or situational awareness or a lethal combination of all three, should be removed from the playbook, set ablaze and never seen again. This week, let’s take a look at how one desperate coach — Sean McVay of the Rams — went rogue as his team seemed unable to remember how to score offensive touchdowns.

It’s safe to say that, one season after he took his Los Angeles Rams to the Super Bowl and was officially declared the greatest offensive play-designer in the NFL, head coach Sean McVay is searching desperately for answers. His offense has dropped from second in Football Outsiders’ opponent-adjusted efficiency metrics in 2018 to 21st in 2019. Behind a patchwork offensive line and let down by a suddenly unspectacular rushing attack, quarterback Jared Goff has — depending on your opinion of him — either regressed severely or simply found his true level as a mediocre quarterback who needs everything going right around him to succeed.

Goff’s touchdown percentage has dropped from 5.7% to 3.1%. His adjusted net yards per pass attempt (ANY/A) has gone from 7.69 to 6.22. And like his entire offense, Goff’s DVOA rating has plummeted — from fifth in 2018 to 24th in 2019. Per Pro Football Focus, Goff led the NFL with 16 touchdown passes off play-action in 2018; this year, through nine games in 2018, he has just one.

Perhaps the most embarrassing distillation of McVay’s offense this season came last Sunday when the Rams lost to the Steelers, 17-12. The Rams scored their points on a Dante Fowler fumble return for a touchdown, a sack of Pittsburgh quarterback Mason Rudolph for a safety, and a Greg Zuerlein field goal. Goff, who completed 22 of 41 passes for 243 yards and two interceptions, didn’t get near the end zone. On the day, the Rams’ offensive drives ended thusly: punt, punt, punt, punt, punt, fumble, punt, missed field goal, interception, interception, field goal, punt, punt, downs, interception.

Los Angeles Rams quarterback Jared Goff absorbs a hit from Pittsburgh Steelers defensive end Cameron Heyward in Sunday’s game. (AP Photo/Keith Srakocic)

Wait — that’s three interceptions, you may be asking? I thought Goff only threw two? Well, we’re about to get to that. The weirdest part of this total offensive failure came with 8:33 left in the third quarter. The Steelers were up 14-7, and Goff had thrown his first interception of the day to end the Rams’ previous drive. Now, McVay had third-and-2 to deal with after Todd Gurley’s 9-yard run on first down, and Goff’s second-down pass to tight end Tyler Higbee that lost a yard. At this point, the Rams had gone 13 consecutive possessions without an offensive touchdown.

So, McVay thought outside the box. WAY outside the box. Goff was hit hard by cornerback Mike Hilton on a blitz, causing him to throw quickly on the second-down play, and he left the field with what appeared to be a minor injury. In Goff’s stead entered backup Blake Bortles, who had taken only three snaps all season.

Then this happened.

Bortles botched the snap — he looked surprised by it, in fact — and ran to his right after what appeared to be a completely busted play for a 1-yard gain. One could assume this was the result of a bad quarterback coming in cold and trying to execute an offense he doesn’t yet understand. But Bortles was signed to a one-year contract in March after five up-and-down seasons with the Jaguars; you’d think he’d get the zone-read packages enough to avoid junk like this.

(Photo by Justin K. Aller/Getty Images)

After the game, McVay revealed that this was all part of the plan.

“Unfortunately, for us, that was one of the first times in the game, and it didn’t happen until the third quarter, that we really had a third-and-short situation come up,” McVay said. “There was a couple of things that we had potentially discussed as far as using Blake Bortles, his skill set — he’s a quarterback, but he also has some running threat. That was a play and kind of a package, if you will, that we had worked.”

In other words, they had practiced a play in which Jared Goff came off the field and Blake Bortles came into the game as a misbegotten option quarterback.

While you’re still marinating in that particular genius, it behooves us to explain what happened next. On fourth-and-1, McVay called something that had worked in the past — a fake-punt pass from Johnny Hekker. Before this play, Hekker had completed 11 of 20 passes for 179 yards and a touchdown in his seven-year career. He had never thrown an interception.

Until Sunday. This wasn’t even a fake punt per se — McVay basically threw Hekker out there as his third quarterback on fourth down. The Rams started off in a punt formation, but then motioned to a 3-by-2 empty set. Perhaps in a show of solidarity with Goff, Hekker looked a lot like Goff has all season when under pressure.

Not that this was all Hekker’s fault — since the Rams had special teams personnel on the field, there were no actual offensive linemen in his offensive line, and no top-tier receivers among his targets. Hekker may have been McVay’s most effective quarterback at that point in the game, so why not give him half a chance with offensive personnel?

“There was a certain look that we had, and it wasn’t quite exactly what we were looking for on the fake punt,” McVay explained after the game. “Johnny Hekker does a great job of recognizing those. Some of those things that you end up being able to activate in a game, if it doesn’t always work out the way we want, when you’ve got the right kind of guys like you do in Johnny Hekker and [special teams coach] John Fassel, we learn from it the right way. We use it as a chance to move forward in a positive manner when those situations present themselves in the future.”

Let’s hope so, for McVay’s sake. The Rams are now 5-4, losing ground to the 49ers and Seahawks in the NFL’s most top-heavy division, and if McVay is not able to wrangle some of last season’s brilliance, it will very quickly be a lost season for the Rams.

Touchdown Wire editor Doug Farrar has also covered football for Yahoo! Sports, Sports Illustrated, Bleacher Report, the Washington Post, and Football Outsiders. His first book, “The Genius of Desperation,” a schematic history of professional football, was published by Triumph Books in 2018 and won the Professional Football Researchers Association’s Nelson Ross Award for “Outstanding recent achievement in pro football research and historiography.”

Rams’ postseason push made much tougher by brutal schedule

The Rams have the fifth-toughest remaining schedule in the NFL.

If the Los Angeles Rams are going to make the playoffs, they’ll have to earn it. With only seven games remaining and 1.5 games separating them from the sixth wild-card spot, the Rams have a lot of work to do.

It doesn’t help that their schedule is one of the toughest the rest of the way. They still have to face the Ravens (7-2), Seahawks (8-2), Cowboys (5-4) and 49ers (8-1), as well as the Cardinals (3-6-1) twice. The Bears (4-5) this weekend will be no cakewalk, either, with the defense that Chicago boasts.

According to NFL Research, the Rams have the fifth-toughest remaining schedule in the NFL with their opponents boasting a 38-26-2 record the rest of the way.

You might have noticed something about the five teams with the hardest remaining schedules. Four of them are in the NFC West, which is undoubtedly the best division in football this season.

The Rams got their favorable matchups out of the way earlier in the season when they faced the Falcons and Bengals, as well as the Buccaneers (and even the Browns). They went 3-1 in those games, but the Buccaneers were a team they should’ve beaten.

Now, it’ll be tough sledding the rest of the way – and America will get a good look at the Rams, too, with four of their last seven games coming in prime time.

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The Rams are in serious trouble and ditching Jared Goff may be the only way out

After some ill-advised moves by the Rams front office, Goff is simply too expensive.

It was all good a year ago.

The Rams were rolling. Their young head coach was being hailed as a genius and rightfully so. Their 24-year-old franchise quarterback was squarely in the MVP discussion and months away from signing an extension that would keep him in Los Angeles for years to come. The do-it-all running back, Todd Gurley, was on pace to break the league’s touchdown record and had just signed a massive deal in the offseason. The offensive line was being discussed as one of the best of all-time. The defense hadn’t quite gelled but it was loaded with star power at every level.

After a thrilling 54-51 win over the Chiefs on Monday Night Football, the Rams were sitting on top of the NFL world. Fast-forward to November 2019, and things have taken a turn. A dark turn.

Sean McVay’s offense has been figured out. Jared Goff hasn’t played well for a calendar year and his newly-signed contract already looks like one of the worst in the NFL. Todd Gurley’s knee will never be the same again and he’s losing snaps at an alarming rate. The offensive line is among the worst in the league and just lost two more starters to injury. The three big defensive acquisitions of 2018 — Marcus Peters, Aqib Talib and Nadmukong Suh — are gone. The Rams limped out of Week 10 with a 5-4 record, but the odds of this team making a run at a wildcard spot are long.

Things change quickly in the NFL. A roster situation that was the envy of the league 12 months ago now looks bleak. Los Angeles is projected for just $25 million in cap space this offseason, doesn’t have a first-round pick for the next two years and has three key contributors — LB Cory Littleton, LT Andrew Whitworth, and OLB Dante Fowler Jr. — headed for free agency (or, in the case of Whitworth, retirement).

It gets worse. Gurley’s 2020 salary is already guaranteed and his cap number jumps to $17.25 million. Goff is looking more and more like a system QB and all of a sudden finds himself in a system that doesn’t make his job easier. And his unwieldy extension hasn’t even kicked in yet! Even if the Rams wanted to move on from him, they can’t really do so until 2023 unless they can find some mark to offload his contract onto.

This is not a very good football team as currently constructed, but things might get worse before they get better. With very little in the way of roster-building assets, GM Les Snead will have to get creative this offseason if the Rams are going to get back to where they were last November. Snead getting creative isn’t necessarily a good thing…

It’s easy to look back at those trades and ridicule the Rams for their short-sightedness, but they were lauded at the time for aggressively building up their roster during Goff’s rookie contract. Why that was viewed as a smart strategy is unclear, as there’s no evidence that the strategy actually works — especially when that rookie quarterback isn’t special.

The Rams got a Super Bowl appearance out of it, but it was the less-costly moves — hiring McVay and Wade Phillips; signing Robert Woods and Andrew Whitworth; drafting Cooper Kupp, etc. — that really fueled the team’s run. Cooks was good for the 2018 Rams but has struggled to stay healthy. Watkins was a disappointment in 2017. The same goes for Peters, Talib and Suh in 2018. Snead compared the 2018 acquisitions to the Warriors adding Kevin Durant to a 73-9 team, but for that metaphor to really work, Goff would have to be Steph Curry and that’s just not the case. A more apt comparison would have been the Warriors adding DeMarcus Cousins.

It turns out these Rams won’t provide a blueprint for teams looking to build around a quarterback on a rookie deal. They are more of a cautionary tale and not the only one you’ll find around the NFL. The Browns took a similar approach this offseason. GM John Dorsey has already burned through all of the assets collected by the previous front office and has a 3-6 record to show for it. The Jets were given credit for spending big this offseason with Sam Darnold on his rookie deal, and, well, we’ve seen how that’s turned out.

Snead will ultimately get the blame for the overly-aggressive approach, but this approach was backed by the entire organization. Rams executive VP of football operations Kevin Demoff said as much to The Ringer’s Kevin Clark before Super Bowl 53:

“I think in the sports world right now, there’s been, whether it’s the tanking phenomenon or the draft-pick phenomenon, everyone wants this really long window, and you can’t be afraid to raise your hand and say, ‘You know what, this happened a little faster than we thought.’”

Tony Pastoor, the Rams VP of football and business administration, compared it to what the Seahawks did to build up the roster around a young Russell Wilson during the Legion of Boom era.

“The key to building around a quarterback on a rookie contract is having the players to actually build it. Obviously, you look at Seattle, building around Russell [Wilson], they had players—Richard Sherman, Earl Thomas, Avril, Bennett, Wagner. They hit on those guys and knew what they had,” Pastoors said. “We were fortunate to hit on Jared and have Aaron, a superstar. Todd was a budding superstar. We were able to supplement those guys with guys like Robert Woods, Brandin Cooks, Andrew Whitworth. It all starts in the draft so that you aren’t trying to piece-meal it all together.”

But there’s an obvious difference between how those two rosters were constructed: Like Wilson, Sherman, Thomas and Wagner were also on cheap rookie deals. Bennett and Avril were undervalued vets who signed modest deals in free agency. The Seahawks did make an aggressive move trading a first for Percy Harvin before the Super Bowl season, but, as we’d later see when Seattle dominated the league with Harvin out injured, that was more of a luxury move.

The Seahawks have made more aggressive moves since then, but they’ve never reached the heights that young, cheap roster did and Wilson being one of the league’s best quarterbacks has helped cover up major holes on the roster. Goff is not providing the same value.

So that’s how the Rams got here. Now how do they get out of this hole?

Now that Snead has exhausted all of the team’s assets, it’s going to be hard for him to make any more aggressive moves. Instead, he’ll have to take a more subtle approach to build the roster back up.

He can start by dealing some of the team’s more redundant players. TE Tyler Higbee has lost snaps after signing an extension and trading him away could save the team $6 million. Trading safety John Johnson won’t save the team money, but he’s a good, young player with a team-friendly contract. He could bring back a Day 2 pick and second-round rookie Taylor Rapp has played well in his absence. The team could also restructure reliable vets like Robert Woods and Aaron Donald to save about $15 million total. And extending Ramsey should allow the team to bring his 2020 cap hit down a few million dollars.

Those moves would be a good start, but if the Rams really want to open up avenues to improve the roster, putting Goff on the trade block would be the best way to go about it. His contract will be hard to move, and the Rams would have to eat $20 million in dead money but they’d also save $16 million against the cap in the process. If they can get a first-round pick or multiple Day 2 picks, that would be hard to turn down. That would recoup some of the draft capital they gave back in their naive trade for Jalen Ramsey and give them about $65 million in cap space this offseason.

Getting a first-rounder for Goff (and his contract) may sound like a pipe dream at this point, but don’t forget: John Elway still runs a QB-needy franchise and Goff is tall. But seriously, Goff is a former first-overall pick and only a year removed from a productive season. This is a league that was willing to trade a first-round pick for Sam Bradford … in 2016. Some team will take the bait.

(Any team that did trade for Goff would be getting him at $130.5 million over five years, but it would essentially be the same deal that Kirk Cousins got in Minnesota. The first three years, which would cost $84 million, would be fully guaranteed. The last two years would be relatively cheap, especially with the cap to take several big jumps between now and 2023.)

With a number of veteran quarterbacks slated to hit free agency this offseason (could McVay get the most out of Marcus Mariota or Jameis Winston?) parting ways with your starter isn’t nearly as risky as it typically is. The front office would have the means to build the offensive line back up AND find a decent starting quarterback. That should be more than enough for McVay to get his offense back up and running.

McVay’s genius has been questioned this season, but the Rams’ offensive problems aren’t really scheme related. The woeful offensive line has prevented him from doing what he had done in the past, and Goff’s limitations have prevented him from adequately adjusting. Fix the line and you’ll fix the offense. Goff would, of course, look like his old self if that happens, but it’ll be difficult (if not impossible) to fix the line with no cap space or draft capital, and if he NEEDS everything to be right in order to play well, the team is better off moving on.

Will all of this allow the Rams to get to where they were at this time a year ago? Probably not, but it sure beats willingly falling off the cliff they’re headed for.

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Sean McVay admits he should’ve used Todd Gurley more vs. Steelers

Sean McVay tried to explain why Todd Gurley didn’t get in the game in the fourth quarter, saying Malcolm Brown was making plays.

The Los Angeles Rams could do very little offensively against the Pittsburgh Steelers on Sunday, picking up only 16 first downs, 306 total yards and scoring zero touchdowns. What they did do well was run the ball with Todd Gurley.

He had 12 carries for 73 yards in what was his most productive game since Week 1 when he had 97 yards on just 14 rushes. Yet, Gurley didn’t touch the ball in the fourth quarter and wasn’t even on the field for the first two drives.

It’s hard to imagine why the Rams abandoned their most effective player on Sunday, and Sean McVay didn’t have a good explanation. On Monday, he did admit that he should’ve done a better job getting him involved more throughout the game, which hardly grants him a pass for that decision.

“Getting a guy like Todd Gurley more involved and more a part of it is definitely something that yesterday benefitted,” he said. “That’s where you say in hindsight, I should have done a better of doing that consistently throughout the game.”

The real reason Gurley was on the bench for most of the fourth quarter has to do with two things: Malcolm Brown and the Rams defense’s inability to get off the field. The former is something McVay can control. The latter is not.

When asked Monday why Gurley wasn’t part of the fourth-quarter game plan, McVay pointed toward Brown’s ability to “make some plays.”

“I think it really just had to do with that we had kind of gone into it and just feeling it out, we feel like he is doing really well, he’s playing at a high level. Malcolm made some tough hard-earned runs too. He’s been a guy that’s demonstrated he can make some plays,” he said. “It’s nothing really other than that. I think like anything else, when you want to be reflective as a coach, you say, ‘Could there have been some things that you wish you had done to maybe keep him in that rhythm?’ I wouldn’t argue with that. I would say, ‘You probably should have done that.’ Those are things that I’ll never claim to make all the right decisions. I think yesterday was something where you probably could have given him an opportunity to continue with that rhythm that he did have going there.”

The second part of the equation was that the Rams didn’t have the ball very much in the fourth quarter. They had it for less than two minutes in each of their first two drives to open the fourth quarter. They gave it up with 10:46 left to play and didn’t get it back until 2:46 – a span of 10 minutes without the ball.

McVay said that obviously played a role in Gurley’s lack of involvement, but there’s little reason to pull him from the game in favor of Brown, who only had 6 yards on two carries entering the fourth quarter.

“(Gurley) did a good job,” McVay said. “You really look at it, the two drives that he did miss, that second drive that Malcolm was in was at 12 and a half minutes left in the game. Then, the next drive starts at two and a half minutes. I think there was a little bit longer time in between drives that typically you usually see. It wasn’t necessarily like that was the true crunch time. Todd had been running really well, but that was the beginning of the fourth quarter in those drives that Malcolm was in there. Then, when you do get the ball back offensively, you’re in two-minute mode, playing down where you’re playing for a touchdown with 2:39 – I want to say – left in the game.”

He continued, admitting he would’ve gotten Gurley the ball if he knew the Rams would go 10 minutes without being back on offense.

“I think there’s always things that you look at as a coach and say, ‘Would you do it differently?’ I think – not to take anything away from Malcolm – but if you knew that that was going to be the last possession you get until two and a half (minutes) left, you probably would say, ‘I would’ve preferred to have Todd get into more of a rhythm and maybe get some touches there.’ There’s nobody to blame there but me,” he said.

Gurley said after the game that he’s “used to” not getting the ball in the fourth quarter. He also said “not really” when asked if he wants it more in crunch time.

McVay said didn’t seem too concerned about Gurley’s answers, saying “anytime that you’re a playmaker like him, you’re going to want that ball and you’re going to want more.”

This situation doesn’t seem to be sorting itself out, but McVay has to find a way to get Gurley more involved – even if it means abandoning the plan to conserve him for the end of the season. The Rams are reaching desperation time and they can’t afford to lose many more games.

POLL: Who wins Week 11 contest between Bears and Rams?

The Bears and Rams will meet in a rematch of last year’s defensive battle on Sunday Night Football. Will the Bears emerge victorious again?

The Chicago Bears (4-5) will hit the road to take on the Los Angeles Rams (5-4) on the primetime stage.

The Bears are coming off a 20-13 win over the Detroit Lions, which snapped a four-game losing streak. Quarterback Mitchell Trubisky had his best game of the season against Detroit, and he and the Bears offense will be looking to build on that success.

The Rams are coming off a 17-12 loss to the Pittsburgh Steelers, where Los Angeles’ offense struggled mightily and their defense wasn’t able to come up with a critical stop on fourth-and-1. But the Rams defense certainly impressed, and they’ll be looking to do the same against Chicago.

Chicago and Los Angeles met last year on Sunday Night Football in what was a defensive battle. The Bears emerged victorious with a 15-6 victory over the Rams, after making quarterback Jared Goff’s night a long one.

Will the Bears repeat their defensive dominance against the Rams on Sunday? Will Chicago extend their winning streak to two games? Or will the Bears fall victim to the issues that affected them during their four-game losing streak?

Who wins on Sunday?

VOTE!

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Ex-Redskins coaches, players have found massive success since leaving

A number of the top minds in the NFL were at once a part of the Redskins organization, but they’ve found success elsewhere.

“I wish there was actually a way to know you’re in the good old days before you actually left them.”

Andy Bernard — played by Ed Helms — said that on the Season 9 finale of “The Office” years ago, but it fits pretty well with how the Washington Redskins might feel just about now. While they are currently sitting with the second-worst record in the NFL, a look around the rest of the league shows numerous staffers, coaches, and players finding great success in new locations. Whether it’s a coach who used to be a coordinator in Washington or a GM who found a new team to manage, it seems that the Redskins franchise was exactly the jumping-off point that these guys needed to get their careers going.

In case you need help remembering who all of those future stars were they go as the following: Kyle Shanahan, Redskins OC; John Schneider, Redskins VP of Player Personnel; Matt LaFleur, Redskins QB coach; Kirk Cousins, Redskins QB; Sean McVay, Redskins OC.

All of them were at one point in the building, working to bring success to Washington. Now, they’ve been able to find success elsewhere, and the Redskins are still sitting at the bottom of the league, looking for the right answers. Here’s to hoping that the good old days are right around the corner.

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Who has bigger quarterback issues, Bears or Rams?

Bears QB Mitchell Trubisky’s struggles are no secret to Chicago. But what about his friend Rams QB Jared Goff, who’s also struggling?

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The Chicago Bears’ quarterback struggles are no secret this season in the NFL. Mitchell Trubisky has been scrutinized on a weekly basis — everything from his play to his weekly press conferences. That’s what happens when you’re struggling on a bad team that was supposed to be a Super Bowl contender.

Some Bears fans are already clamoring for the offseason, where they hope Trubisky’s replacement awaits. But Chicago still has another seven games left to evaluate the former No. 2 overall pick to see if he’s worth sticking with.

Trubisky’s off to a good start to the second half of the season after a three-touchdown effort and a 131.0 passer rating in a 20-13 win over the Detroit Lions last Sunday.

Another team that knows something about a struggling young quarterback is the Bears’ Week 11 opponent, the Los Angeles Rams.

Jared Goff, who struggled in his first season under defensive-minded Jeff Fisher, thrived in the next two seasons with offensive guru Sean McVay. He quarterbacked a Rams team that went to the Super Bowl last season — and he was paid handsomely for it, nabbing a four-year deal worth $134 million with $110 million guaranteed.

But lately, Goff has been struggling worse than his friend Trubisky. Goff, the former No. 1 overall pick of the 2016 NFL Draft, has had five straight games with a completion rate below 60 percent, according to NBC Sports Chicago. Trubisky has managed a passer rating above 60 percent in four of his last five games.

While Trubisky has an 85.2 passer rating this season, Goff’s is lower at 82.7. Trubisky has thrown eight touchdowns and three interceptions this season to Goff’s 11 touchdowns versus nine interceptions.

Goff has a slightly higher QBR of 39.4 (which ranks 28th) while Trubisky has a QBR of 35.9 (which ranks 31st).

You could say that the Bears are better off than the Rams, who have already paid Goff a massive extension. At least the Bears haven’t paid Trubisky yet.

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Coaching staff, front office to blame for Rams’ offensive line regression

The Rams have had the worst offensive line in football this year. You can blame the players, but blame falls on the guys that trusted them.

Things continue to get worse for the Rams’ struggling offensive line. After another horrifying performance against Pittsburgh on Sunday, the team has announced it’ll be without two starters up front for Week 11. Rob Havenstein has been ruled out for Sunday and could be out for a few weeks, while, starting center Brian Allen has is out for the remainder of the season.

For the first two years of Sean McVay’s tenure as head coach, the Rams rolled out a healthy and reliable offensive line. Not a single starter missed significant time as the offense rolled to back-to-back NFC West titles. The offensive line was the engine that kept the offense rolling.

In Year 3, the Rams have fielded the NFL’s worst offensive line, and the offense has struggled mightily as a result. They’ve gone from one of the most feared offensive units in the NFL to one of the league’s most exploitable and turnover-prone. The difference between McVay’s 2018 and 2019 offenses is night and day.

Injuries have devastated this offensive line. Still, they were bad before the injuries, and they’ll likely continue to be bad in the weeks ahead. The players deserve blame for their poor play. But the front office and the coaching staff deserve more of the blame for actually thinking this would work.

Stability and consistency were staples of the Rams offensive line in 2017 and 2018. Six players started meaningful games for the Rams in that stretch: Andrew Whitworth, Roger Saffold, John Sullivan, Rob Havenstein, and Jamon Brown, who was replaced by Austin Blythe in 2018. They weren’t a perfect unit, but it was rare that they’d be the reason the Rams lost a game, even with Sullivan’s slump in 2018. Jared Goff and Todd Gurley were comfortable playing behind that unit, which allowed Mcvay to unleash the offense he wanted to run.

The Rams chose to break up this unit. It wasn’t forced upon them, it was a choice. The decisions to move on from Sullivan and Saffold were financial ones. Sullivan wasn’t worth the money he was owed, but as far as we’re aware, the Rams made no attempt to bring him back on a cheaper deal. They simply declined his option for this season.

As for Saffold, it’s obvious that the Rams didn’t want to pay him the money he had coming to him. Saffold signed a four-year, $44 million deal with the Titans after eight seasons with the Rams. But Saffold’s contract has a cap number of just $6.375 million with an out after the 2020 season that wouldn’t result in a devastating cap hit. The Rams could have made this contract work if they thought he was worth it. They’re paying Clay Matthews similar money this season and had the cap space to give Tyler Higbee a four-year, $29 million contract extension. The Rams could have afforded to pay Roger Saffold, they just didn’t want to.

(Photo by John McCoy/Getty Images)

Still, walking away from Saffold wasn’t the worst decision. The bigger problem was how the team chose to replace Saffold and Sullivan. When the Rams didn’t add a single offensive lineman in free agency, many figured they’d choose to address the need with their first-round pick in the 2019 NFL Draft.

They didn’t. The Rams chose to trade out of the first round and move back 14 picks. Six of those 14 picks ended up being offensive lineman. The Rams still had a chance to take center Eric McCoy at 45. They decided to move back again and chose safety Taylor Rapp at 61. While Rapp has turned out to be a solid pick, McCoy is currently the starting center in New Orleans and has the second-highest PFF grade in the league at the position. The Rams did select two offensive linemen during the draft: Bobby Evans in the late-third round, and David Edwards in the late-fifth round.

The decision to move on from Saffold and Sullivan and not replace them in the offseason was due to the team’s trust in 2018 mid-round picks Joseph Noteboom and Brian Allen. Both the front office and the coaching staff must have agreed that Allen and Noteboom were good enough to replace Saffold and Sullivan despite no in-game evidence proving as much. Neither guy played any real meaningful snaps in 2018. Still, it sounded like McVay trusted them. That was enough to keep most fans optimistic about the pairing heading into 2019. Clearly, it wasn’t the right decision.

The team’s decision to add essentially no depth behind their new offensive line may have been an even worse decision. Drafting Evans and Edwards was the extent of the Rams adding offensive linemen this offseason. Since McVay doesn’t play his starters in the preseason, which included Allen and Noteboom this year, the backups got a chance to shine on the offensive line. They shined about as bright as a dull rock that had been buried under thousands of pounds of dirt for centuries. Jamil Demby, the team’s first lineman off the bench at every position, looked like he didn’t even belong in the NFL. It became clear quickly that the Rams would be in big trouble should a starter get injured.

It became just as clear that the Rams were already in big trouble early on in the season. Not only were Allen and Noteboom completely in over their heads, the right side of the line seemingly forgot how to play football, and father time continued to catch up with Whitworth. The Rams couldn’t have predicted that their three vets would regress like they did, but they should have known that their new additions would have failed to pick up the slack. They put all their eggs in the Allen and Noteboom basket. That basket was filled with holes, and now all we have to show for it is broken eggs.

In addition to Noteboom and Allen being exposed this year, the team’s lack of line depth came back to haunt them. Demby graded out as one of the worst offensive linemen in the NFL while filling in for Noteboom and went from starting to being a healthy scratch. Edwards has looked better than expected filling in at guard, but he’s not exactly setting the world on fire. With both Allen and Havenstein set to miss next week’s game against Chicago, the team will turn to Blythe at center and likely in-season acquisition Austin Corbett at left guard. Bobby Evans could take over at right tackle with Edwards remaining at right guard.

Goff and Gurley have been noticeably worse in 2019. McVay’s play-calling has been questionable at times. But the source of the offense’s regression starts and ends with the offensive line. They replaced veterans with un-proven youth, and the youth failed to prove anything. They’ve been bad, but maybe they weren’t that good to begin with? You can’t blame bad players for being bad. You have to blame the people who trusted them to be good.

The Rams dug themselves into this hole in the offseason. They’re going to need a pretty big shovel to dig themselves out of it. They’re not getting that shovel this season, and it might be tough to find a shovel big enough to dig themselves out of the hole this offseason. Snead and McVay have quite the task ahead of them when it comes to salvaging this offensive line.

Todd Gurley on not getting the ball in 4th quarter: ‘I’m used to it’

Todd Gurley on not getting the ball in the fourth quarter: “I’m used to it.”

Todd Gurley has been a catalyst for the Rams’ offense the last two years. He was a first-team All-Pro in 2017 and 2018, and was named Offensive Player of the Year in Sean McVay’s first season as head coach.

This season has been alarmingly different for Gurley. He’s not getting the ball as much, he’s finding very few running lanes and the Rams are leaning heavily on Jared Goff’s arm. That recipe cooked up by McVay has backfired terribly with the Rams limping to a 5-4 record through nine games.

Gurley seems to have grown frustrated with the offense, specifically with his usage. In Sunday’s loss to the Steelers, Gurley didn’t touch the ball once in the fourth quarter and didn’t even play the first two series to open the final frame.

After the game, he was asked whether he wanted the ball more with the game on the line in the fourth quarter.

“Um, not really. I’m used to it,” he told reporters, via Vincent Bonsignore of The Athletic.

So, you mean to tell me the guy who led the NFL in touches, yards and touchdowns the last two years doesn’t want the ball more in the fourth quarter? That’s hard to imagine, but it says a lot about the current state of the Rams.

In two short sentences, Gurley said more than he has all season. It’s troubling enough that he apparently doesn’t want the ball more with the game on the line, but it might be even worse that he’s “used to it.”

This isn’t to say there’s a rift developing between Gurley and McVay, but it’s clear the running back isn’t happy with his role on offense. As for why Gurley didn’t get the ball in the fourth quarter of a one-score game, McVay said it was “kind of just the rotation.”

“I thought Todd really had some tough, hard-earned runs,” McVay said in his press conference. “We got some drives going, but then at the end of the day, we ended up being in some two-minute situations at the end of the game and it was kind of hard to get back into any sort of flow running the football.”

The part about the Rams getting into two-minute situations late in the game isn’t entirely true. They shouldn’t have felt rushed at any point in the fourth quarter besides their final two drives of the game. Entering the last 15 minutes, the Steelers held just a four-point lead.

And after the Rams’ sack with 12:46 left to play, Pittsburgh was only up two points. What about that situation caused the Rams to panic and completely abandon the run after Gurley racked up 73 yards on 12 carries?

McVay and the coaches have a lot of questions to answer, but none are bigger than their usage of Gurley – and the running back has clearly taken notice of his role on offense.

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