Rams pinpointed their weakness. Can they fix it?

Graziano: The Rams pinpointed their weakness. Can they fix it?

Dan Graziano

https://www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/id/27601205/graziano-rams-pinpointed-their-weakness-fix-it

After his usually dazzling Los Angeles Rams offense laid an egg against the New England Patriots in Super Bowl LIII, Sean McVay didn’t want his players to focus on one bad performance in an otherwise outstanding season.

He wanted them to focus on three bad performances.

As part of the Rams’ offseason review, the coaching staff made the offense review and study three of their four losses from last season — the loss to New England, and the early-December losses to the Bears and Eagles. The Rams’ offense averaged 30.8 points in 2018 — second only to the Chiefs — but only 10.7 in those three losses. (Their other loss was a 45-35 loss to the Saints that, presumably, the defense had to rewatch a few times.)

“Just wanted to find different things they did that challenged us that other teams didn’t do,” wide receiver Robert Woods told me. “Just try and find as many little details that we could improve on to make our offense adaptable to beat anyone we play.”

What did they find out? Glad you asked.

First and foremost, they couldn’t run the ball on any of those teams, especially between the tackles. The Rams’ 13 rushing attempts and 52 rushing yards against the Bears were both their lowest figures of the season. They had 18 rushing attempts in the Philly game and in the Super Bowl, tied for their second-lowest total of the season. Their 62 rushing yards against the Patriots were their second fewest of the season, and their 82 against the Eagles were their fifth fewest.

But where they really got bottled up was in the middle:

Rams’ 2018 rushing up the middle (per ESPN Stats & Information research):

vs. Eagles: 2 carries, 11 yards

vs. Patriots: 3 carries, 12 yards

vs. Bears: 3 carries, 21 yards

Average over the other 16 games: 10 carries, 53 yards per game

Rams’ 2018 rushing between the tackles:

vs. Eagles: 11 carries, 47 yards

vs. Patriots: 14 carries, 43 yards

vs. Bears: 10 carries, 52 yards

Average over the other 16 games: 21.5 carries, 106 yards per game

All of these games were late in the season, while star running back Todd Gurley was struggling through a knee injury. But the lesser-noticed issue was that backup running back Malcolm Brown had suffered a season-ending injury in the Rams’ Week 13 victory in Detroit. The losses to the Bears and Eagles came in Weeks 14 and 15. The team didn’t sign C.J. Anderson until right before its Week 16 game against Arizona.

Jared Goff and the Rams lost only four of their 19 games last season, and there were running-game struggles in three of those losses. Ben Liebenberg via AP
“Malcolm was a bigger loss than a lot of people on the outside realized,” Woods said.

In their first game of this season, the Rams went to Carolina and used plenty of Gurley and Brown. Gurley had 14 carries for 97 yards — including a whopping eight for 64 in the fourth quarter while the Rams were preserving a lead. Brown had 11 carries for 53 yards and two touchdowns. The Rams more or less alternated drives with those backs for the first three quarters, and after the game McVay said the plan probably would change depending on the game and circumstances, but he obviously liked the way it worked out Sunday.

Oh, and the Rams on Sunday had 10 carries for 52 yards up the middle and 18 carries for 120 yards between the tackles. Their 6.7 yards per carry between the tackles was second in Week 1 only to the New York Saquon Barkleys.

The converse of the running-game struggles is that the Rams had to drop back to pass a lot more in those games than they would like to. Their 57 dropbacks against the Eagles represented their highest total in any of their 19 games last season, and their 49 dropbacks against the Bears their third highest. And they were tied at halftime in both of those games, so it’s not as if they were way behind early and forced out of their game plans. They went away from the running game because it just wasn’t working.

In the Super Bowl, the Rams had 41 dropbacks, which was their eighth-highest total of the season. (Their 60 offensive snaps in that game were their third fewest of the season.)

They did not, unfortunately, find much of a pattern in their opponents’ pressure rates. The Bears pressured Jared Goff on 18 of 49 dropbacks — the highest number of pressures Goff endured in any game last season — in spite of sending four or fewer pass-rushers on 42 of the Rams’ 61 offensive snaps. Only the Eagles (45) used four or fewer pass-rushers more against the Rams in 2018, and the Rams had 74 snaps in the Eagles game compared with just 61 in the Bears game. The Bears sent an extra rusher only seven times. The Eagles blitzed 11 times. The Patriots in the Super Bowl sent five or more pass-rushers 17 times, tied for the most the Rams saw in any game.

“Balance,” Woods said when I asked what was the key takeaway. “Those teams took away the run and got us out of who we are.”

With Gurley looking healthier (at least so far), Brown back and rookie Darrell Henderson in the fold, the Rams think they can apply the lessons of those three rough losses and be even better in 2019.