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Rams’ upside-down season hits new lows; Matthew Stafford’s status unknown

By Jourdan Rodrigue

https://theathletic.com/3915934/2022/11/20/rams-loss-saints-stafford-injury/?source=emp_shared_article

NEW ORLEANS — This has to be a parallel universe.

What once was up is down. What was down is up. The Rams, without answers too often and too far into their post-Super Bowl season, are 3-7 and all but mathematically eliminated from postseason contention. Their four-game losing streak is the worst-ever under head coach Sean McVay, and their start ties the worst season-after 10-game stretch by a team that won a Super Bowl in NFL history.

Their quarterback, Matthew Stafford, left Sunday’s 27-20 loss to the Saints after a bad sack in the third quarter and was evaluated for a concussion, just a few days after being cleared from the same protocol that held him out of last week’s loss. McVay could not say postgame whether Stafford had suffered a concussion (similar to last week). Stafford will undergo further testing Monday in Los Angeles, according to the team, to determine whether he will once again enter the concussion protocol. While Stafford’s longer-term status is unknown, it’s hard to believe the Rams would be comfortable sticking their franchise quarterback (really, any quarterback) behind a line that has not remained the same over two consecutive weeks this season.

“We need to make a smart decision for Matthew, and see where we’re at with that,” McVay said. “There’s a lot of things that we’re working through that, I would say, are unprecedented. … As far as it relates to Matthew, we’re gonna be smart for him. He’s such a warrior, such a stud competitor. I know how bad he wants to be out there. I thought he played really well with the opportunities that he did have.”

Nothing makes sense about this sinking, spiraling year. The Rams have faced what feels like an unprecedented streak of injuries along their offensive line that hasn’t let up, not even after they aligned their 10th different combination in 10 weeks. The Rams lost another left tackle, Ty Nsekhe, for an undetermined length of time after he suffered an ankle injury. Nsekhe was their third left tackle this season, and the Rams started three offensive linemen Sunday who weren’t with the team in September. The third-down sack, after which Stafford left the game, was Stafford’s 63rd hit in nine games, according to TruMedia.

Top receiver Cooper Kupp is out for a minimum of four games after having ankle surgery last week, and it’s hard to see him getting on the field again this season. Even with Kupp on the field, the offense entered Week 11 averaging 16.44 points per game, third-worst in the league.

But this week, the Rams held an ever-rarer 14-10 lead at halftime. Stafford was 11 of 18 for 159 yards and two touchdowns before leaving the game midway through the third quarter, including a deep shot to second-year receiver Tutu Atwell that traveled about 55 yards through the air and a red zone strike to Allen Robinson, who was playing in the “Kupp” slot role on the snap.

Then the Saints scored 14 points in the third quarter on touchdown passes to Jarvis Landry and Chris Olave.

“There were some good times where we got some stops defensively, but just not enough,” McVay said. “That first drive of the second half ends up hurting you. Overcoming some of those things, just really the truth is it becomes a real challenge. It changes the way that you’re able to really operate. … Even on the one touchdown they have to Olave, Aaron (Donald) does a great job of winning quickly and Dalton gets it out and we’re just not right in the position on the back end.”

This is a defense that entered Week 10 allowing just 17.8 points per game (No. 6 in the NFL), though they had not been taking the ball away and operating from deficits or close games has had a sizable role in how aggressive they’ve been able to play and how teams have schemed against them. Still, they were ranked among the best in the league in limiting explosive plays (which triple the scoring rate on a drive) and they were in the top 10 in the NFL in forcing three-and-outs.

This is a defense that, historically, has started the year solid and only gotten better as the weeks pass. But in an upside-down year, this defense is regressing weekly. Their last two opponents have scored 27 points apiece and have featured either a backup or journeyman veteran at quarterback who has moved the ball all too well against them for too many yards and too many touchdowns.

In consecutive losses to Arizona and New Orleans, back-breaking explosive passing plays have killed the Rams, who are a team that says it is designed to stop those plays, on crucial downs: A missed tackle on a third-and-17 and then a shot play on a fourth-and-3 that set up a touchdown in Week 10. Olave’s 53-yard touchdown, right up the ribs of the defense, on third-and-10 and with Donald literally inches from getting a sack if only the coverage had been intact. What was up is down, and vice versa.

“I think it’s more so us as players,” veteran cornerback Troy Hill said, “we’re not really executing some of the calls that (are) being called, which really put us in good positions, but we’re just not really executing.”

Herein lies a symptom of the larger issue facing this team all season without solve: Nothing is connected or complementary. Nothing feels cohesive; it’s instead as if three separate units between offense, defense and special teams are all playing their own games uniquely, not together. When the defense has needed the offense to do its part this season, McVay’s operation has not lived up to its end of the bargain. A record-high 44 of 100 drives this season led to three-and-outs, and 40 percent of those were immediately following defensive stops according to TruMedia. But this week, things flipped in this upside-down year, and an offense that was finally moving the ball in the run and the pass needed the defense to do its part — and defensive coordinator Raheem Morris’ operation was the one not living up to its end of the bargain. Special teams looks great one snap, then hands over disastrous field position to either unit on another.

“I wish I could tell you,” McVay said, when I asked him where the lack of cohesion was coming from. Hill called it, “the million-dollar question.”

“But that’s been a challenging thing,” McVay added. “We’ve got to be able to figure it out and understand how to be able to play off one another in relation to just some of that energy that we can create on our own. While you are out there at separate times, you’ve got to be able to understand and have really great urgency when those opportunities present themselves.”

The Rams entered Week 11 No. 28 in the NFL in EPA per rush, but Sunday, they moved the ball really productively on the ground. All three of their running backs averaged over 4.4 yards per carry, and Cam Akers took over the lead role with 14 carries for 61 yards. They ran the ball 30 times and passed it 32 times in what felt like their most balanced plan to date. When backup quarterback Bryce Perkins entered the game in the third quarter, he kept the chains moving by ground or by air other than a few self-admitted errors in communication or execution (Perkins said postgame he got the offense in the wrong call on a third down and took a delay penalty that in part stalled a promising drive).

Still, there seemed to be a certain balance, certain advantages for this offense to exploit where it so often has not in 2022. And then everything else fell apart. Of course it did! That’s the only consistent theme of the year: What is down is up, and when one element of the Rams’ operation is up, like the run game was Sunday for the first time this season, something else somewhere else goes catastrophically wrong.

“You have ups and downs, both sides … We’ve got to get in our rhythm,” Perkins said after the game. He sits with a lot of the defensive players in the Rams’ facilities in Thousand Oaks, Calif., and however else Sunday went or what his role will be in future weeks, Perkins approached his postgame press conference like a player determined to keep everybody together.

“That’s part of the game of football. You’re up, you’re down. But that’s why it’s important as a team — great teams will come together, like, ‘all right, week by week by week.’ … The goal is always (that) defense, offense and special teams will play together. It won’t change just because it hasn’t been happening, we’re still gonna attack it like that. … We’re not gonna stop fighting.”

But the Rams are dealing with a broader situation that might not be solvable because there simply are too many problems without clear answers. If it’s not one issue, it’s another. Over and over again this twisted game of whack-a-mole repeats — whether injuries, execution, plan, coaching or cohesiveness, the Rams cannot win for losing.

It’s all piling up on top of them, pushing them under the surface because they cannot bear their own weight; cannot let themselves breathe for sinking deeper.