Rams working to add offense with Tavon

off the net from Saguaro

TA’s 10 TD’s and how they affected Ram games in 2015.

Game 1: With the Rams scoreless in the 1st Q, and trailing the Seahawks 7-0, Austin opens the 2nd Q with a 16 yard TD run for the Rams’ first score of the game and of the year. TA takes a run designed to go up the middle, sidesteps a defender in the backfield, cuts left and then just makes 3 Seahawk defenders look silly with his superior speed and maneuverability as he easily glides through them and into the endzone. Crowd goes wild and the Rams are back in it after a shaky start. Later in the game, 4:40 to go in the 3rd, Rams leading only by 4, Tavon receives a punt, follows two blockers left, then a fake to the middle that freezes the Seahawk defenders, cuts back left and following blocks, tightropes down the sideline for a 75 yard TD. In a game that went to OT, TA’s electrifying touchdowns were a winning factor.

Game 4: At the Cardinals, another big divisional rival game, and Austin again opens the scoring for the Rams with a nice cut and catch across the middle for a 12 yard TD. This puts the Rams up 7-0, and with the defense denying the Cardinals the endzone, it provided a nice cushion of confidence for the Rams, who never trailed in this pivotal road game. But with only 3:41 left in the 4th Q, the Rams were clinging to a 17-15 lead when Foles pump fakes and then hits a laid out flat Austin just as he sails across the goal line. A beautiful catch for 12 yards and the winning TD. The Cards scored again late, but it wasn’t enough thanks to Austin’s heroics.

Game 5: At GB, Tavon Austin scores the Rams’ only TD of the day, despite Gurley’s yards on the ground, in a frustrating loss.

Game 7: Rams win 27-6 over the 49ers. An easy laugher, right? Not when it was a defensive struggle at 13-6 late in the 2nd Q. Tavon takes an end around left to right and uses pure speed to race past two unblocked 49ers and stretches just enough for the pylon to get his first TD of the game. More offensive struggles ensue in the 2nd half until Tavon gathers in a short screen pass, squirts through 2 defenders and turns it into a 66 yard TD. Austin gets the Rams’ only score of the half, the last two of the game, and nails the 9er coffin shut.

Game 11: A bad day for the Rams, with TA’s 5 yard rushing TD the only score they could manage. It’s the same end around he ran against SF, and Cincinnati knew it was coming, but his speed to the corner was just too much for them on that play.

Game 14: Once again, TA opens the scoring for the Rams and for the game, taking a screen down the middle of the field through befuddled Buccaneers for a TD and a quick 7-0 start. The Bucs would never recover. In the 2nd half he added another 21 yard rushing TD, taking an end around to the right and cutting through multiple defenders to the end zone. This was another of those plays that few players besides Austin could have finished.

What do we see here? Austin gets the Rams going when the offense is stalled. They’re able to get TD’s out of him in close quarters or long, due to his speed and his elusiveness even when the redzone is crowded. TA had double TD’s in 4 games, and the Rams won all of those games. That’s 4 of their 7 wins, 3 of them against division rivals.

When the Rams get the ball into Austin’s hands, he can produce points that lead to wins.

Others have mentioned his decoy value, but I’d like to point out that on more than one occasion he made great downfield blocks for Gurley as well.

More touches, Jeff! More touches!

off the net from OntarioRam

Tavon Austin might not be anything more than a mediocre pure wide-out for a variety of reasons – small catch radius, average route running, average hands. But Austin only being a mediocre conventional WR is fine with me because he is an extremely valuable *football player*.

For starters, he is one of the best punt returners in the game. If not the best. Perhaps nobody in the NFL is kicked away from as much as Tavon Austin. That’s pretty telling. Seattle tried kicking to Austin in week 1 this past season. He promptly returned it for a highlight reel TD. That was the end of teams kicking to Austin in 2015-16. The rare times he does get the ball on punt returns, the defensive coverage is often strong due to the hang time punters put on it vs. Austin. But Tavon still routinely makes something out of nothing. Or, when he gets a strong block or two, takes it to the house or damn near it.

On offense, he’s a threat to score every time he touches the ball. He had 9 offensive touchdowns last year on how many snaps? His TD numberss were comparable to Gurley’s despite a fraction of the touches.

Even though Austin is small in stature, he’s also a good blocker, which is not a quality to be overlooked in an offensive skill player. Especially in a power offence like ours (there is a reason Brian Quick might yet make this team again!). Austin’s speed allows him to get to his man in the blink of an eye. And he is not at all shy about using every ounce of his undersized body. Just ask Pierre Desir, Tavon absolutely trucked him last year to spring Gurley vs Cleveland.

His mere presence keeps defenses honest. Plus, more unique to the Rams offense, he is the perfect compliment to Gurley. The misdirection the Rams run with Austin and Gurley is a mutually beneficial set up, but neither player will see that value they contribute reflected in their individual stats. At least not directly…

Despite his average receiving ability – again, small catch radius etc – he can still be a deadly weapon as a WR if used correctly and a QB is accurate enough to hit him in stride or fit the ball in tight windows (see: Foles to Austin against Arizona). Goff and his accuracy has the potential to see Austin’s game catapult.

Austin is also a huge threat as a RB.

And is there any player better in open space? There was a stat published about teams breaking tackles / making players miss recently where the Rams were near the very top of the league. Austin, unsurprisingly, was leading that charge (along with Benny Cunningham).

Some people will see Tavon listed as a WR, see that he isn’t overly impressive as a conventional WR, and then get frustrated. People have to stop thinking of Austin in pure wide-out terms. He’s listed as a WR only because you have to list him as *something*…. in reality he is a gadget player that defies being boxed in by any one positional label. Some people say that like it’s a bad thing. I think it’s a huge compliment. Austin is a true swiss army knife – he can do it all.

from off the net Merlin

The Rams offense needs another weapon to step it up. No matter how good or explosive Tavon is it won’t matter if teams have the ability to disregard everything else.

Gurley’s emergence was huge last year for that reason, and he is going to be an enormous mismatch in the passing game which is something they did not do enough of last year. But they need another to truly make things difficult on defenses.

That other weapon could be Higbee, or Cooper, or who knows any of the other young wideouts. It could be Quick; not ruling anything out right now. But they need at least one more guy to step up and if/when that happens defenses will not be able to focus on Tavon like they have and he will explode.