The Rams sucked out loud on Thursday evening. Positive, you’ll be able to hand wave away their 31-10 loss towards the Payments by declaring that Buffalo is a Tremendous Bowl favourite, the opener is without doubt one of the largest assessments of the season for Los Angeles, and say that it’s nonetheless early — all of these items are true. What you’ll be able to’t do although is faux that the Rams did something convincing that confirmed they will nonetheless grasp with the NFL’s elite. This can be a workforce with deep systemic issues, and so they need to be mounted, quick.
It’s not all offense’s fault, however actually that’s the place nearly all of issues had been for the Rams. It’s unbelievable that Los Angeles had eight months figuring out their offensive line was poor, and didn’t do sufficient about it. The lack of left sort out Andrew Whitworth to retirement was much more impactful than individuals believed, and when paired with rookie Logan Bruss, who tore his ACL in coaching camp, it created a multitude. As an alternative of discovering solutions, Los Angeles turned up wanting utterly unprepared.
Matthew Stafford was below stress for a lot of the evening, and he was by no means in a position to get settled within the pocket. Offensively the Rams tried to mitigate this by having him throw out of the gun, however the o-line wasn’t ok to guard one-on-one. Nonetheless, that shouldn’t hand wave away simply how poor Stafford was. It’s too early to attract conclusions on Stafford based mostly on his reported elbow harm which has plagued him for a lot of the spring and summer time, however this wasn’t simply an arm drawback on Thursday evening — the problems went far deeper.
The offensive line issues led to Stafford getting tunnel imaginative and prescient on account of the stress. Stafford functionally ignored everybody on offense apart from Cooper Kupp and Tyler Higbee, concentrating on the pair a complete of 26 occasions, 63 % of his passing makes an attempt. Kupp was producing, so we will justify that — however Higbee struggled to make an influence all evening, and didn’t warrant getting as many alternatives as Stafford tried to present him. The tight finish completed the evening with 5 catches for 39 yards on a stunning 11 targets.
In the meantime the Rams’ 4 different receivers mixed for 10 targets. Stafford would possibly as effectively have forgotten Allen Robinson existed, as a result of he solely focused him twice within the sport. For comparability, Josh Allen focused his favourite receiver, Stefon Diggs, 9 occasions — and unfold the ball to the remainder of his receivers a complete of 14 occasions. Briefly: Allen unfold the ball round extra, focused his depth gamers extra usually, regardless of having 10 fewer passing makes an attempt than Stafford. That may be a balanced offense, and an absence of steadiness doomed the Rams.
That problem of steadiness is paramount, and leads us into the opposite essential problem: Working again. Los Angeles determined to let their high operating again from 2021, Sony Michel, stroll in free company to signal a paltry one yr, $2.1M take care of the Dolphins. A deal Los Angeles simply may have exceeded or no less than matched, however as an alternative the workforce determined to depend on operating again by committee — and the committee is trash. Darrell Henderson, promoted to the starter within the offseason, appears ill-equipped to hold the load as an every-down again, and the workforce is woefully missing a No. 2. This actually reared its head when the Rams had been pressured to vary their offensive focus and attempt to purchase Stafford time within the pocket through the use of play motion, however the issue was that Buffalo had no purpose to imagine they’d really run — so the faux didn’t idiot anybody.
Which means when you’re following alongside at residence, listed below are the important thing variations on offense between the 2021 Rams and the 2022 Rams:
- Their offensive line is way worse
- Their operating backs are a lot worse
- The workforce spent a majority of their free company cash on a receiver (Allen Robinson) who Matthew Stafford refused to focus on
The main target is on the offense proper now as a result of it’s tougher to actually consider how the protection was on Thursday evening. For probably the most half it felt just like the Rams D was … nice. Nothing unbelievable, however removed from terrible both. The receiving duo of Stefon Diggs and Gabriel Davis goes to be troublesome for many groups within the league to cowl, not to mention on a brief area when your quarterback throws three interceptions.
There are some very actual considerations in regards to the breadth of the Rams’ move rush. Dropping Von Miller in free company is critical, as a result of because it stands the lions’ share of the stress has to come back from Aaron Donald alone, and the workforce is but to search out one other dependable counterpoint to assault the pocket and take the stress off Donald to do every little thing by himself.
I don’t blame Rams followers from eager to see a silver lining right here and attempt to discover causes this may all be circled, and clearly there’s time — however a few of these points are deep-seated systemic issues that may’t be corrected briefly order. Los Angeles doesn’t have to hit the panic button, however it does have to carry the quilt and have their hand hovering over.
We anticipated to see a Rams workforce poised to run it again and contend for a Tremendous Bowl. After Thursday evening it doesn’t seem like they’re even able to contend within the NFC West.
