Prior to Sunday’s win over the Bears, Todd Gurley hadn’t gotten more than 20 touches in a single game this season. His workload was greatly reduced in the first 10 weeks of the year, limiting his production out of the backfield.
Bu Sean McVay finally let him loose against Chicago, giving him 28 total touches, including 25 carries. He turned those opportunities into 133 yards and one touchdown, helping lift the Rams to a 17-7 win at home.
Getting Gurley the ball was a concerted effort on McVay’s part, and he was repaid by the All-Pro back putting together arguably his best performance of the year.
“That was part of the game plan tonight and I thought he did a great job,” McVay said. “What I loved the most about what Todd did, is after we put the first carry on the ground, he didn’t flinch, he came back and had some good, tough, physical runs and made some good catches out of the backfield and he was a big-time contributor tonight.”
Gurley was running the ball well last week against the Steelers, picking up 73 yards on 12 carries, but he didn’t get a single touch in the fourth quarter and was barely on the field. McVay didn’t want to make that mistake again, so he fed the running back from start to finish.
“Like we talked about, I didn’t think I did a good enough job against the Steelers of kind of recognizing the way that he was running and you don’t want to make the same mistake twice,” he said.
So where does that leave the Rams offense heading into Week 12? There are still questions to be answered, specifically with the passing game. However, the balance they displayed offensively was encouraging, to say the least.
As a result of Sunday’s performance, Gurley could be in for a larger workload moving forward.
“I think so. That’s an ideal situation, but we’ll continue to look at this film and we’ll see how we want to put together our next game plan. Anytime you get Todd involved like that, it’s usually always a good thing for our offense.”
Keeping the Ravens offense off the field next week should be a priority, and one way to do that is by running the ball and controlling the clock. Don’t be surprised if Gurley gets another 20-plus carries against Baltimore on Monday.
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