reporters & others on the GIANTS game

SeattleRams@seattlerams_nfl
While Golden Tate is busy getting his ass beat at the bottom of a pile in LA, let’s remember that while he is mad about his sister and Jalen, here in Seattle the talk has long been about Tate sleeping with Wilson’s ex wife and was also punched by Percy Harvin during SB week.

=

THIS LEAGUE https://t.co/9O2NVBRhzs

— Albert Breer (@AlbertBreer) October 4, 2020

McVay gave Austin Blythe an earful after he and Corbett let a defender come through free for a sack in the red zone pic.twitter.com/yNDDlrXmGU

— Cameron DaSilva (@camdasilva) October 5, 2020

5 takeaways from the Rams’ frustrating 17-9 victory over the Giants https://t.co/WSEAMXNgmG

— Rams Wire (@TheRamsWire) October 5, 2020

Lindsey Thiry@LindseyThiry
The Rams produced just enough offense to hold off the Giants today, but Cooper Kupp perhaps described the performance best: “Kind of a bad taste in our mouth just in terms of an offense in terms of how we executed today.”

==

Terry Nelson (1), Ernie Conwell (2), and Gerald Everett (1)
are the only Rams tight ends to rush for a touchdown#NYGvsLAR #RamsHouse @JourdanRodrigue@RamsNFL @Rich_Hammond#Rams @LATimesklein#GiantsatRams@LindseyThiry pic.twitter.com/HCXU0ePOWH

— 𝐏𝐫𝐨 𝐅𝐨𝐨𝐭𝐛𝐚𝐥𝐥 𝐉𝐨𝐮𝐫𝐧𝐚𝐥🏈 (@NFL_Journal) October 5, 2020

The Pile: Getting real about the Rams, postgame clash, and more from Week 4 win

Jourdan Rodrigue

https://theathletic.com/2114200/2020/10/04/the-pile-getting-real-about-the-rams-postgame-clash-and-more-from-week-4-win/?source=emp_shared_article

INGLEWOOD, Calif. — Hey, Rams, let’s have a chat.

I think you’re great, first of all. Let’s start there. You have some dudes. And then behind them, some more dudes. This is a talented football team, and potentially very, very talented. A bright, dynamic young coaching staff. A new stadium that is aging better every day. New uniforms that look so futuristic that, on the broadcast, it feels as if one is watching a video game.

So why waste it?

Sunday’s 17-9 win against the New York Giants — the on-their-way-to-0-16 New York Football Giants — was so full of missed chances and offensive woes that by the time it ended, it somehow felt worse than last week’s loss to Buffalo because you guys are just so … much … better than that!

It wasn’t just a lack of rhythm, or an inability to capitalize on momentum plays, or going 5-of-13 on third down, or a first-quarter turnover, or the flat-out cruelty that comes with failed offensive football as the defense is left stranded on the field, down after down, for 33 minutes and 17 seconds, with heaving breaths and aching legs.

“We just couldn’t get into a rhythm offensively,” head coach Sean McVay said after the game. “The defense did a great job. You win as a team, and I thought they made enough plays to be able to win. You could kind of feel the momentum — we were probably a little bit more conservative than I would like to have been offensively.”

There also were head-scratching issues: At a certain point, it didn’t even matter that the Rams were basically stashing a hot-streak Darrell Henderson on the sideline in favor of veteran running back Malcolm Brown (who, in fairness, is great at picking up pressure in pass protection, and the Giants were getting home more often in the second and third quarters). Literally nothing about the way the Rams were running the ball worked.

A team that averaged 170 rushing yards per game in the first three weeks ended Sunday’s game with 58. They only mustered 2.5 yards per carry. When that failed, the motions and sweeps that are so cleverly installed within McVay’s offense failed, too. The Rams often looked as if they were wading back and forth horizontally across the field, knee-deep in Jello. Quarterback Jared Goff’s passing chart, via Next Gen Stats, has only two attempted throws over 20 yards, and neither were completed.

Here are the Rams’ offensive drives, after a game-opening touchdown: Fumble, punt, field goal, punt, punt, punt, touchdown, punt, end of game.

The Giants, by the way, didn’t force a single punt last week against a badly beat-up San Francisco 49ers team.

Here is the time of possession: Giants 33:17, Rams 26:42. None of the Rams’ final six drives lasted over three minutes (though one was by design, as they needed to hurry downfield and score because they only led by four points through much of the game). That meant time and time again, the defense was shuttled back onto the field to make a stop.

“That’s why we’re out there,” cornerback Darious Williams said. “No matter how rough it gets, we are the backbone. We always got our offense’s back.”

Somehow that defense kept the motor running after each of the offense’s failed series, though not without a couple of issues of its own on third and fourth downs. The Rams didn’t allow a touchdown and gave up just 67 net yards in the first half.

The pressure was there — five sacks, eight quarterback hits — and though they ultimately gave up two “explosive” plays (likely from sheer fatigue), the Rams defense mostly contained and played a “bend, don’t break” scheme. Star cornerback Jalen Ramsey made a huge stop on third-and-3 in the fourth quarter that finally handed, wrapped in a freakin’ bow, the offense the momentum it needed to score just its second touchdown of the game — a 55-yard pass from Goff to Cooper Kupp for a 17-9 lead with 6:56 remaining.

And still, somehow, the Giants were too close. Too close, certainly, for the Rams to bafflingly decide to run the ball on third-and-11 on their next drive. Even if the goal was to try to run down the clock, they were averaging less than three yards per carry and were approaching the two-minute warning. That’s too close, and too much time on the field for a tired defense to allow Giants quarterback Daniel Jones to gash the Rams defense with his legs on what ultimately was his final drive.

The Rams can be thankful for stops, first on third-and-15, then on fourth-and-11 on the Giants’ second-to-last drive of the game. The Rams’ response was to give the ball away after about 15 seconds.

The Rams can be thankful for Williams, who floated through the air to snag an interception and ice the game with under a minute to play, with the why-were-they-even-this-close Giants inside the red zone.

Why does last week’s loss to the Bills feel better than this week’s win at home against the Giants? Probably because the Giants are not a good football team, and there is no reason on this planet (or the next eight) that the Rams shouldn’t have hung 40 points on them. And instead of a seriously tough effort on both sides of the ball like last week, this week the Rams offense gifted the defense a car with no wheels and said, “Drive!” — and somehow that defense kept it on the road all the way to Canada.

McVay said last week, after a real gut-out effort and near-comeback against Buffalo, that he learned a lot about his football team. This week, I can only imagine those lessons continued.

Don’t let the above tirade fool you, Rams. I still think you’re great. So great, in fact, that you’re light years better than an eight-point victory over one of the NFL’s worst teams. You’re not a wheel-less vehicle en route to Canada. You’re a Porsche on Pacific Coast Highway, top down.

I just think what you take away from a win matters equally to what you take away from a loss.

“I know I say this often, but it just comes down to us executing,” Goff said. “They weren’t doing anything that we didn’t expect, or that we can’t handle. We just have to execute better and (put) more points on the board. Our defense really picked us up today.”

Welcome to The Pile. The Rams are 3-1, and a win is a win. Let’s start poking around.

Jalen Ramsey’s roller-coaster day

Ramsey’s big stop in the fourth quarter and all-around solid play on Sunday unfortunately won’t be the talking point of most programming following the win. Instead, chatter will be drawn to a midfield skirmish that occurred between Ramsey and Giants receiver Golden Tate immediately after the game ended.

The two clashed, went down in a heap, were surrounded by teammates and eventually were pulled apart and went to their respective locker rooms. As postgame Zoom interviews commenced, Ramsey returned to the field in uniform with a Rams staffer and walked its length several times, the two talking the whole way. He stayed out there for about 20 minutes before returning to the locker room. ESPN’s Jordan Ranaan reported, via a source, that Ramsey waited outside the Giants’ locker room for Tate after the initial dust-up cleared.

Yes, I am aware of the familial connections between the two, and yes, they were going back and forth physically all game, and yes, Ramsey’s big in-game stop was on Tate — and it was more of a forklift-and-slam (though clean). That personal stuff is Google-able, and is none of my business.

Rams players seemed to follow the same cue postgame. When asked, none said they really saw what happened, and those who went into the fray in the middle of the field (and who also were made available postgame) said they were just trying to separate people. Ramsey was not made available to media after the game.

Meanwhile, we finally got to see Ramsey rolled into the slot a few times by defensive coordinator Brandon Staley, at times to defend Tate and also tight end Evan Engram. That’s something we were promised (and viewed a few times) in training camp this summer. When Ramsey shifted inside, the outside cornerbacks were Troy Hill (usually at nickel) and Williams. Ramsey was sent on at least one blitz and got home, but his assisted sack was later credited fully to outside linebacker Obo Okoronkwo.

Leap-day Darious Williams

I loved what Williams said after his interception, his second of the season, both of which were acrobatic in nature and happened in crucial situations.

“At the end of the day,” Williams said, “I try to basically be like a ‘red dot.’ Someone who is dangerous on the field. And I want every quarterback who ever targets me to notice a 50/50 chance of getting picked.”

Williams knew this season that having Ramsey on the other side meant he would be targeted much more, especially when Hill slid inside to man the nickel role nearly full time.

“All credit to Jalen,” Williams said with a laugh, “because he is just so good on his other side. But of course that plays a big role. Teams have only targeted him a few times, so I’m the only one they can go to.”

McVay said Williams has sticky hands, even if he gets just a piece of a pass.

“He’s been doing that ever since he got an opportunity to play, really, last year,” McVay said. “He’s a guy who, if he gets his hands on the ball, he’s going to be able to catch it and get it back to the offense. Right there, that was a game-clinching play and a situation that we had to have.”

Williams said he had a feeling Jones would come back at him on that last drive, because he had pulled back a little on a previous play.

“Basically, just seeing that play, seeing the release, the stem, everything — I knew that was his play,” Williams said. “At the end of the day, I just made a play on it.”

Oceans of Motions

When the Rams’ run game works, it sets up all sorts of pretty things. Motions before or at the snap open wider spaces between the tackles for a running back.

Last week, the Rams ran the ball 32 times for 167 yards. According to NFL film analyst Brett Kollman, who also shared this note on Twitter last week, on the 12 carries when they integrated motion into the snap, they had 77 yards (6.4 YPA). The 20 carries with no motion at snap went for 90 yards (4.5 YPA).

At the same time, when the run game is working, the motions the Rams utilize into the passing game work better, especially if the defense thinks a passing play is coming and tightens down in the middle. This gives pass-catchers more space to work around the edges, allows them to be effective on things like end-around and sweeps, and also helps keep a defense imbalanced.

For example, tight end Gerald Everett scored the Rams’ game-opening touchdown on a slick little jet sweep that actually was set up by how the team used Henderson on the opening drive. Everett was sent in motion a couple of times on that drive, but never got the handoff. Instead, it went to Henderson for a carry.

But on second-and-goal from the Giants’ 2, Goff motioned for Everett to come across and to the left, and the ball went to the tight end instead, for an easy, untouched score.

Everett also had a great callback during his postgame interview: The Rams actually ran that play against the Giants in 2017, again using then-rookie Everett on the jet sweep.

Bottom of The Pile

• With rookie starting safety Jordan Fuller out with a shoulder injury, Taylor Rapp and rookie Terrell Burgess split safety duties alongside John Johnson III. Fuller’s status was a game-day decision, I was told, and was less about the injury itself than about managing the pain throughout the game. The team didn’t want to risk it.

• Starting linebacker Micah Kiser left the game in the fourth quarter with a groin injury and did not return. Troy Reeder came in alongside Kenny Young to finish the game.

• I do think that Brown being in so much instead of Henderson may have had something to do with how good Brown is in pass protection. The Giants upped their pressure, especially through the middle and later parts of the game, and Brown is extremely adept at handling blitzes, etc. Still, it was strange to see the Rams move away from Henderson, who has been lights-out the last two weeks. Henderson is not injured, for what it’s worth. In our brief interview with McVay postgame, we didn’t get around to the details of this decision. He will next address the media Monday at 5:30 p.m.

• I’ll have to look at the snap counts on Monday morning, but it really at felt and appeared like Staley and defensive line coach Eric Henderson were rotating guys a lot more, and getting players like Morgan Fox and Greg Gaines more snaps. Outside linebacker Samson Ebukam had a great day both against the pass and in run support, finishing the game with a sack and four tackles, while nose tackle Sebastian Joseph-Day was really solid in run support and Fox had a sack that forced a fumble (recovered by New York).

“I think they did a good job,” McVay said. “I think that (Staley) called a good game, kind of mixed it up a little bit. … I thought there were a lot of different guys who created some disruption in the backfield today. It’s always a collaborative effort … but I thought it was a good mix of some pressure that we were applying with a four-man rush and then when we activated more than four.”

• To end on a positive, this was a good quote from McVay: “One game will never define you. It’s still a short sample size. But I love this team’s mental toughness and resilience and I’m glad to come away with the win today.”