media & twitter on the Buffalo game

Von Miller’s long-arm move should be registered with the FBI. https://t.co/ifXJfcoVoF

— Doug Farrar ✍ (@NFL_DougFarrar) September 9, 2022

Why the Rams collapsed in brutal, ‘humbling’ season opener to Bills: The Pile

By Jourdan Rodrigue

https://theathletic.com/3579415/2022/09/09/rams-season-opener-loss-bills/?source=emp_shared_article

INGLEWOOD, Calif. — There’s a first time for everything. For head coach Sean McVay and the Rams, there were a lot of “firsts” on Thursday night, in a brutal 31-10 loss to a bright-and-shiny Buffalo Bills team. Most of them weren’t good.

It was the first time McVay has lost a season opener, for example. The seven sacks quarterback Matthew Stafford took marked the first time a McVay-led team allowed that high a number in a single game — and the Bills had six of them by the start of the fourth quarter.

“When you look at the lot of the ways this game unfolded, I feel a huge sense of responsibility to this team,” said McVay. “We weren’t ready to go. I take a lot of pride in that, that’s on me. I gotta do better. … This was a humbling experience, but we’re gonna stay connected.”

Cornerback Jalen Ramsey put it succinctly: “We got our ass beat, straight-up.”

Stafford threw three interceptions to his one touchdown (to Cooper Kupp, who had a slick toe-tap-and-drag in the back corner of the end zone to score, back when the Rams were actually in the game). He and tight end Tyler Higbee miscommunicated on a route for one of the interceptions, Stafford threw a high ball to Kupp that he tipped and then was picked on another and he had a ball batted and intercepted by defensive lineman Boogie Basham.

The Rams took the ball away four times themselves — they intercepted Bills quarterback Josh Allen twice, both heads-up plays by outside linebacker Terrell Lewis and cornerback Troy Hill (Hill cranked down on a route he read from depth and jumped the pass). They also recovered two fumbles. But on the other side, their offensive drives were largely wasted.

“I thought our defense played great in the first half,” said Stafford, “they give us turnovers like that, we gotta do something better with the football, capitalize with it, get more points out of those.”

Further, the Bills’ effectiveness on third down and after explosive plays were daggers. Buffalo was a whopping 9 of 10 on third down attempts; two of their touchdowns came on third down, one third-down play featured a gnarly stiff-arm from a running Allen to convert the play and on another, the Rams were their own demise via a penalty (too many men on the field, something that should never happen with that many veteran players).

“That was tough,” said McVay of the substitution error. “Really, I thought (the Bills’) execution was pretty good (on third down). We were tight, they were tight-window throws and catches and Josh was able to create a little bit with his legs. You give credit to those guys, that’s gonna be a really, really good football team.”

McVay reiterated that the game was a dose of humility, and a lesson from which he’ll learn.

“I’m not gonna run away from the mistakes I made tonight,” he said. “We’re gonna fix this. That’s all we know how to do.”

But there was a lot more to the Rams’ loss than that, and some important context to note, too. The Rams, for the first time in the McVay era, are 0-1. Welcome (back) to The Pile, and back to the locker room — where players were composed and insightful despite the loss. Let’s start poking around.

Rushing four a killer

Stafford was statistically the best quarterback in the NFL in 2021 when blitzed. The problem is, the Bills successfully only rushed four players nearly the entire game.

They sacked Stafford seven times (former Ram Von Miller had two), hit him 15 times and each member of the Bills’ front averaged less than four yards of distance from him throughout the entire game, when the NFL average is 4.53 yards (per NextGen Stats). When Stafford has seen successful pressure with just four players, meaning more are dropped into coverage, his completion percentage drops from about 74 percent (averaging throws from under center and shotgun), to about 64 percent, per TruMedia, and his EPA/play similarly plummets.

“Oh, yeah, they didn’t rush five really at all tonight,” McVay said. “For them to be able to do that, it’s a real credit to them.”

Guard David Edwards told The Athletic’s Tim Graham that the Rams’ offensive line “killed themselves with mistakes”.

“I don’t feel like we ever got into a rhythm offensively, just mistakes up front that really cost us drives,” he said. “We’d start moving the ball and then have a false start or a sack, just not clean football. They did a great job of putting us in bad spots, but they also out-executed us, plain and simple.”

Right tackle Rob Havenstein agreed with Edwards’ assessment.

“No one’s happy right now. Every guy on the offensive line right now is pointing the finger at himself. This one hurts. There’s no silver lining in this. It’s about correcting the things that need to be corrected with urgency — never panic,” Havenstein said to Graham. “Panic never wins in the NFL. That’s not how our line’s going to handle it. We’re going to keep this thing moving.”

Stafford, who spent the offseason managing an ongoing elbow issue, stayed in the entire game. McVay cited his “toughness” after the game under heavy, and frequent duress.

“He’s a tough-minded guy, standing in there, no flinch, getting hit a lot and didn’t have a whole lot of time,” said McVay. “But I love Matthew Stafford. There were a couple of unfortunate balls that get tipped up … I know he’s going to continue to compete, love Matthew and we’re gonna keep riding.”

Silent night

First McVay, then Stafford, mentioned that the Rams had to go to their “silent count” (the cadence the quarterback and offense revert to when there is excessive crowd noise). The Rams were the home team Thursday.

“We had prepared for it, we prepared to be on the silent count at home again,” said Stafford, “but it wasn’t something that we haven’t done before.”

McVay said that the Bills’ front seven jumped the timing of their silent count well.

“No, that does not help us,” Kupp said. “Once you go to a silent count, you lose the advantage offensively to be able to get off the ball. So, ideally, you don’t want to be doing silent.”

Where were Allen Robinson and Cam Akers?

Allen Robinson, the Rams’ big-name receiver who seriously impressed in training camp after joining the team in March, didn’t see much action. Robinson’s first target of the game was on a long third down in the second quarter after Stafford took a sack. The play picked up 12 yards, but was short of the conversion. Kupp and a pile of Rams players (featuring guard Coleman Shelton) pushed forward on a catch-and-run for the first down that kept the drive alive. Allen finished the game with just two targets and the one catch.

It wasn’t completely clear, aside from the frequent duress Stafford faced and the coverages he saw, why Robinson wasn’t more involved.

“I think they played, (estimating), maybe two snaps of man? It’s a lot of zone,” Stafford said, “they clouded to the boundary quite a bit, Allen saw a lot of Cover 2 over there. I can still do a better job of getting him the ball in some instances.”

It was, however, interesting to see the Rams work the expected committee of receivers into the rotation in absence of No. 3 receiver Van Jefferson, who was inactive as he continues to rehab from knee surgery. Second-year receiver Ben Skowronek got the start and had four catches for 25 yards. The Rams also tested out second-year receiver Tutu Atwell on a couple of sweeps as a decoy player, but when Stafford hit him in the flat, Atwell dropped the pass after taking heavy contact from a defender. Return specialist Brandon Powell actually took a handoff and had a 10-yard catch, and even tight end Brycen Hopkins, who had a phenomenal training camp, seemed to struggle at times. Running back Darrell Henderson (five catches for 26 yards) could have gotten a first down on a catch-and-run but was stuffed by a player Hopkins likely should have blocked.

With Kupp, Higbee and Skowronek in the stack as blockers, the Rams in theory should have been able to run the ball better than they did. Henderson, who started and got the lead share of reps, had a couple of really nice runs (including a physical 18-yard long that set up Kupp’s touchdown). But he finished the game with just 47 yards on 13 carries. Meanwhile, running back Cam Akers had just three carries and didn’t come in until the second quarter.

McVay said that the team not rotating in Akers, who only had three carries and didn’t even get a snap until well into the second quarter, was because they “didn’t get in much of a rhythm tonight”, and added that he’d have liked to get Robinson more involved.

‘Third downs killed us’

The Bills’ 90 percent conversion rate on third down was a key issue for the Rams. Buffalo’s first third down, a third-and-1, was a touchdown that happened when multiple Rams defenders bit hard on a run-fake by Allen, who then had Gabe Davis wide open in the end zone. Allen ran in a second touchdown off a third down in the fourth quarter, but the Rams’ problem was further illustrated by the play that set it up: a 47-yard pass to Davis that came on third-and-7.

“We didn’t do a good enough job on third downs, felt like third downs killed us,” said inside linebacker Bobby Wagner (he finished the game with a sack and seven tackles).

“We just, our eyes have to be right. We have to play better. I think it’s a group thing, it’s not just one person … I think those plays (specifically the two third-down touchdowns and the conversion-after-penalty) are plays that we can easily watch film on and get better at. …

“Anytime you let a team be 90 percent on third down, no matter how many turnovers you get, you’re not gonna win the game.”

Something good out of something bad

It was striking to me how the Bills’ offensive game plan was the combination of the Rams’ most frustrating games throughout 2021: The Bills could go ball-control, meaning they were perfectly happy and patient taking little pieces out of the field against the Rams’ zone, and then chose their specific spots for their game-altering explosive plays via a quarterback who could make these happen not just with his storied arm, but also his legs.

Allen didn’t throw the ball past 20 yards (without the yards-after-catch from a receiver) until late in the second half of the game. The 47-yard throw (the aforementioned third-down play) set up a touchdown. Allen also threw a 53-yard touchdown and his first touchdown technically counts as an “explosive”, meaning a pass play of 20-plus yards, even though the last 10 yards or so were picked up by Davis after the catch.

The Rams mostly play zone, coming down from depth as a part of their two-high shell first installed in 2020. That “shell” is intended to put a roof on an offense they can’t crack with explosive air-yards plays, which are statistically far likelier to set up points than several shorter passes eventually equating the same amount of yards. Things get complicated with Allen, a player who can throw on the run and even while getting hit and reach his target.

“They were really attacking our little zones, like our soft spots in our zones,” Ramsey said. “Obviously we’ve gotta watch the film, but I’m sure we all would’ve liked to play man a little bit more. I feel like we kind of had a mentality like, ‘bend, don’t break’ a lot, because they were driving the ball but they weren’t scoring, like, we were getting turnovers, interceptions, whatever it was.”

Then, Ramsey said what I think was the most illuminating piece of this matchup: “We felt like they weren’t going to be patient enough to do that the whole game, just take those five yards, three yards, four yards, right? But they were, for the most part,” he said, “(and) then they had … two or three explosives that ended up turning into touchdowns, and that was like, the difference. They won by three touchdowns.”

As I’ve written about for years, patiently taking little pieces out of this defense’s soft places (willing to die a “death by 10,000 paper-cuts”, as Miami coach and former 49ers coordinator Mike McDaniel used to say), is the way to beat it. As Ramsey noted, the ethos of this defense is to out-patience the other, to bet the other side will make a mistake before they do. Thursday’s first half illustrated that before the Bills started creating explosives and picking effective spots for big plays. Speaking of the 49ers, whose concepts seemed to show up in the Bills’ game plan a few times Thursday night, what happens when a team such as Buffalo combines that paper-cut patience with a quarterback who has legs like Allen and can actually make any throw?

“Once he starts scrambling, you gotta try to find somebody and, like, latch on to ’em. It is even tougher, actually, when you’re in zone,” said Ramsey. “When you do play a lot of zone, when you do play a lot of zones. Once you’re in your zone, then he starts scrambling, you gotta go find somebody to attach to, like the nearest person in your zone. It’s extremely tough, and he did that a couple times.”

The combination is a reality check for the Rams, because others will try to play them this way. They may not be able to do it like this, because they don’t have Allen.

So, then, it has to be a positive in all of the muck to have seen Wagner’s own in-game adjustments on a specific 49ers-inspired play: The toss runs. The Bills ran some toss plays early in the game, and you could almost see Wagner’s mind whirring in real time. A run-stop in the second half (perhaps one of his best of the evening) happened because he perfectly diagnosed the toss concept, recalled it from his study of 49ers tape and reacted. The 49ers, a clear influence on how teams will try to beat Los Angeles, used that concept to attack the Rams’ inside linebackers with a lot of success in 2021. Wagner wasn’t fooled twice.

Bottom of The Pile

• Receiver Odell Beckham Jr. was present on the Rams’ sideline pregame. While I don’t normally comment on clothing (that’s uniform enthusiast and podcast co-host Rich Hammond’s job), Beckham is a very intentional person and wore the non-football version of Thursday night’s Rams uniform: Yellow pants, a simple white T-shirt and a blue hat.

Beckham helped present the Lombardi Trophy to the Watts Rams, a local group of youth football players, ahead of the Super Bowl banner ceremony … standing next to owner Stan Kroenke and general manager Les Snead as he did so.

• No. 3 running back Kyren Williams injured his ankle and was listed as “questionable” to return, and his updated status wasn’t announced in the press box (presumably the injury happened on special teams, because Williams didn’t get a shot at playing running back). McVay next speaks to media Friday afternoon, and will likely have a status update at that time.

• A small positive: Kicker Matt Gay hit a 57-yard field goal with enough room behind it to be a 68-yarder, according to NBC’s kick measurement analysis. On the other hand, it wasn’t totally clear why Powell took out kickoffs nearly every time, including one that was stuffed at about the 10-yard line and set up poor field position.

I put this in another thread but it goes here too.

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Thoughts on last nights @RamsNFL vs @BuffaloBills game pic.twitter.com/jh5cdSeNJ3

— Dan Orlovsky (@danorlovsky7) September 9, 2022