Have Defenses Caught Up With The Rams Offense | PFF

Evan Silva@evansilva

#Rams Slump:

* Pressure % allowed Wks 1-11: 29%. Wks 13-15: 39%
* @PFF grades Goff 30/35 QBs in pressure rating
* No Cooper Kupp safety net
* Ds playing Cover 4, taking away deep ball
* Goff 2/13 for 59 yds, 0 TD, 3 INT on 20+ yd passes
* Panicked & wild, throwing off back foot

Going back to where the Rams’ offensive struggles began

Vincent Bonsignore

https://theathletic.com/725371/2018/12/19/going-back-to-where-the-rams-offensive-struggles-began/

To​ get to the​ core of the​ Rams’​ offensive problems​ the​ last three​ weeks,​ it’s​ important​ to start right​ at the​​ beginning.
Their pursuit of success this year isn’t about how they finish but how they start.
And that means being productive on first down.
When the Rams were flying high during the first 11 games of the season, first down was their money play. It was when Jared Goff did his best work and Todd Gurley produced his most rushing yards and touchdowns.
The yards they churned out on first down continually moved the chains or put the Rams in favorable second- and third-down situations. That enabled Sean McVay to better tap into his offensive wizardry by digging deeper and deeper into one of the most creative playbooks in football. And it put opposing defenses in a mental vise trying to figure out where and how the Rams would attack them next.
During their 10-1 start, the Rams averaged 7.3 yards per play on first down, gashing defenses for 2,571 yards and 20 touchdowns. And they did it in a highly balanced manner. They ran the ball 192 times compared to 154 passes, forcing defenses to play a guessing game of whether to load up against Gurley or devote more assets to slowing down Goff and the passing game.
Gurley produced 636 yards and eight rushing touchdowns on first down over the first 11 games. Goff threw for 1,651 yards and 10 touchdowns while accumulating a 115.1 passer rating on first down over that same period.
“Their success then makes people feel like, ‘All right, you’ve got to defend one or the other,’ and then you try to capitalize on that,” McVay said earlier this season.
The second-year head coach continually stresses the importance of his offense staying ahead of the chains and remaining on schedule. And while it sounds like cliched coach speak, there is incredible importance to being productive on first downs in order to achieve that very objective. A whole world opens up offensively when you dictate terms by consistently putting yourself in advantageous down and distances.
“You always want to be efficient on those early downs. Then everything else kind of falls into place,” McVay said. “You’re avoiding some of the second-and-long, get-back-on-tracks and some of those third-down situations where defensive players can just kind of tee off on you because you’re regulated with the menu of things that you can kind of just give a defense based on trying to convert.”
By controlling the narrative on first down, the Rams were an unstoppable machine, averaging 35.3 points per game. But the last three weeks, they struggled to beat the lowly Detroit Lions and suffered back-to-back losses to the Chicago Bears and Philadelphia Eagles.
The common component? A noticeable drop-off in first-down production.
The 7.3 yards they were averaging on first downs over the first 11 games has slowed to 4.9 the last three weeks, the result of a steady decline from the 5.1 they averaged against the Lions to 4.9 against the Bears to 4.8 against the Eagles.
Goff’s 115.1 first-down passer rating over the first 11 games dropped all the way to 39.9 during the last three, including an inglorious 23.0 mark against the Bears. Of the six interceptions Goff has thrown in the last three games, three picks came on first downs.
The balance has completely flipped, too. The Rams have gone two straight games attempting more passes on first downs than runs – 42 passes to 17 runs. Remember, the previous 11 games it was 192 runs to 154 passes and a whole bunch of defensive coordinators trying to guess whether to commit to the run or the pass.
Meanwhile, the 35.3 points per game over the first 11 games is down to 19.6 the last three and 14.5 over the two losses.
It’s hard to argue the dramatic dip in first-down production hasn’t played a role in the points reduction as well. Or the 1-3 record.
But make no mistake: Figuring out why the drop-off is happening in the first place, and then coming up with a solution, will be paramount to the Rams getting back on track.
“I think it always comes back to us, just doing what we do — executing,” Goff said. “Defenses are going to present different looks every game and that’s no excuse. It happens every game. It’s happened every game we’ve played this year. So it just comes down to us executing and being our best and just really focusing on the details.”
Obviously, all eyes are focused on Goff, and rightfully so. The play of the quarterback typically dictates the success of the team. He has played his worst football of the season the last three games and has been particularly bad on first down — a play he’s consistently conquered this year.
On the other hand, the slippage in Goff’s performance has coincided with a profound decline by the offensive line. In the last three games, Goff has been pressured 24 times on drop backs — 10 on first downs — and of the 18 hits he’s absorbed, six came on first downs. It’s obvious he’s been playing under duress, and his numbers reflect that.
The blocking woes extend beyond just protecting Goff, though.
In the Eagles game, for instance, the Rams got pushed back for negative yards on four rushing attempts on first down to further complicate their ability to stay on schedule.
The big killer was the two-yard loss by Gurley inside the Rams’ 5-yard-line early in the third quarter to put them in a second-and-long situation. The Rams punted two plays later, putting the Eagles in great field position and resulting in a two-play, 51-yard touchdown drive to put Philadelphia up 20-13.
Almost the exact same sequence occurred in the Bears game a week earlier when Gurley was met in the backfield on the first play of the second half, resulting in a five-yard loss to the Rams’ 8-yard-line. Goff was sacked for a safety on the ensuing play, giving Chicago an 8-6 lead and possession of the ball after a Johnny Hekker punt. The Bears then drove 81 yards for a touchdown and a 15-6 lead. The Rams never recovered.

In both cases, the Rams taking a loss on first-down plays inside their 15-yard-line was the catalyst. The offensive line was to blame on both plays.
“I think a lot of it just comes back to us and all 11 players just executing a little bit better,” Rams passing coordinator Shane Waldron said. “We’ve had, obviously, a couple of tough weeks here where we wanted to come out on top and we haven’t. It’s a team game and that’s the greatest thing about it, so I think there’s just a little that everyone can do better.
“We can sustain blocks a little longer, we can run crisper routes, we can make better decisions. I think that goes for everybody, everybody in the building, and I think we’re in that together and it’s a great challenge against the Arizona Cardinals (on Sunday) to move forward doing that.”
If you are looking for a silver lining, keep in mind Goff and the Rams found a rhythm in the fourth quarter against the Eagles. Goff was 17-of-25 for 169 yards in that quarter with a passer rating of 88.6. And on first downs, he was 8-of-13 for 61 yards. The Rams outscored the Eagles 10-0 in the fourth quarter and drove to the Philadelphia 18-yard-line in the closing seconds. Their potential comeback stalled there, however, as Goff’s last-second pass fell incomplete.
“Towards the end of that game in the second half, I felt like we moved the ball really well and we were able to build off some things there and able to kind of take what the defense was giving us,” Goff said. “I felt like I learned a lot in the last game and was able to grow.”
It certainly got McVay’s attention. The good and the bad.
“If you just paused it right before that last play on the 18-yard line and you said, ‘How do you feel about this game not knowing what happened?’ Where, OK, if you end up converting there and then you go for two. If you end up winning that game, how much different is the narrative?” McVay said. “But there’s still 173 plays prior to that 174th that ultimately didn’t lead to us getting it done. So what we try to do is take each play, learn from it, make sure that we do a good job of coaching the players, having an understanding of what we want to get done, how they can execute at a higher level.
“If we do that collectively and we do some of those things that we were doing earlier on in the season that don’t inhibit our abilities to win football games and play complementary football, we feel like good things will happen for us moving forward.”
And it all starts on first down.

ZN,

If you’re the coach right now, what would you do, going forward? How would you, personally, counter the apparent success of defenses against the Rams (once dominant) offense?

Also, what would be your plan be for this coming offseason, personnel-wise, to try to avoid a repeat, late-season slump?

Same question to everyone else on the board . . .