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Rodrigue: How the Rams’ reset attitude in Sunday’s game matters for the long haul

Jourdan Rodrigue

https://theathletic.com/4965300/2023/10/15/la-rams-win-running-game-kyren-williams/?source=emp_shared_article

INGLEWOOD, Calif. — Halftime.

Location: The Los Angeles Rams locker room at SoFi Stadium.

Dialogue among coaches, and between coaches and players — down three points, held to two field goals and 123 net yards with only 5 of those yards off three called runs: “What would you guess (the conversation was like)?” Sean McVay said, adding later that he was “aware” of how few runs he had called to that point.

As colorful as possible?

“It was that,” he said, grinning. It was something, for sure.

Right out of the locker room, McVay called eight consecutive runs for 60 net yards to open the third quarter. Quarterback Matthew Stafford added a ninth, a 2-yard scramble. The 10th play of the drive was a pass, a third-and-long touchdown to receiver Cooper Kupp and the Rams’ first trip to the end zone in five quarters.

“It wasn’t much of an adjustment,” veteran right tackle Rob Havenstein said of the halftime message that led to the third-quarter drive, “it was just more of a statement. ‘This is what we’re gonna do.’ And then we went out and executed.”

The Rams were down 9-6 at the half. Tight end Tyler Higbee said the Rams had actually entered Sunday’s game with the intent to run the ball but saw a few “funky” defensive looks from the Arizona Cardinals defense that had not previously been on film. McVay also said following the Rams’ 26-9 win that the offense had been “talked out of” some runs “they didn’t need to (be),” meaning the defense on a few occasions informed the pass.

In most games this season, the Rams (3-3) had given no indication that they would adjust to a higher run frequency, versus a higher passing frequency, if in a deficit. In fact, they ranked fourth-lowest in the NFL in run frequency when down three points, opting to run on just 23.6 percent of plays when down by three points, according to TruMedia, as they were at halftime Sunday.

But something changed after halftime this week. A little snarl, a little growling physicality got back into the game plan as the third quarter opened. As that drive continued, the offensive linemen hunkered down into their pads. They heard the run calls from Stafford in the huddle, one after another after another.

“I love it, I was so fired up stepping back in the huddle each time with a run play,” Stafford said. “Those guys were loving it, I was loving it. It was fun. Wasn’t anything too tricky, just kind of line up and go play ball.”

The linemen felt lead rusher Kyren Williams moving behind them and saw him fighting for extra yards in front of them. As he ripped out runs of 17, 14 and 10 yards on that drive, there was a palpable shift in the emotion of the offense overall. Everybody could feel it.

“It was so fun, I just remember everybody coming back to the huddle smiling like, ‘good stuff,’” said Williams, who said he knew he was “on” in the second run of the second half (a 6-yard gain) and hoped the calls kept coming. “It’s so fun. You make a good run, and you’re hyped up. But when you see the O-linemen come running at you smiling, hyped up, it makes it so much better. You know what them boys are doing up front for you. They’re getting off the ball.”

They went from rudderless and reeling, grasping at air space as they tried to sequence more than a couple of good first-half passing plays together at a time, to a group with a clear identity.

“Guys on the sideline, getting all pumped up and juiced up and ready to go, it just starts compounding, compounding, compounding,” Havenstein said.

The Rams’ defense, shaky on third-and-long plays in the first half especially when Arizona quarterback Josh Dobbs started to create out of structure, clamped down as well. Former undrafted free-agent linebacker Christian Rozeboom grabbed his first career interception off a read of a delayed “leak” concept that was thrown behind tight end Zach Ertz at the start of the fourth quarter. Rozeboom had matched the route and so was in position to grab the ball after it tipped off Ertz’s hands.

On the corresponding drive, Stafford and the Rams’ offense faced a second-and 17, then a third-and-9 after Stafford hit Kupp for 8 yards. The 21-yard conversion on third-and-long was vintage Kupp-and-Stafford, a space- and time-bending sideline catch to Stafford’s blind side that is pure timing between the two. Kupp, by the way, had 101 first-half yards off of three catches — the Rams had just 22 yards without his production — and finished the game with seven catches for 148 yards and the third-quarter touchdown.

Yet the spike in adrenaline from the two-catch sequence that kept that fourth-quarter drive intact didn’t sway the play calling to lean too much on the pass, and this is important: Williams ran the ball on five of the next six plays, including a gritty 4-yard stretch for a touchdown (a review of the play, which was initially called a fumble, clearly showed Williams stretching the ball across the goal line).

“I knew the whole time it was a touchdown,” Williams said, smiling. The rest of the team was so convinced of the score that they sent the field goal unit out while the booth was still reviewing the play.

The Rams added another three points later in the fourth quarter after a fumble recovery by second-year safety Quentin Lake (rookie outside linebacker Byron Young, who had a sack and two quarterback hits, forced the fumble).

Throughout the second half, Williams ran mad, like his cleats had talked some smack to him as he was lacing them up before the game, like he was making up for the absent first-half call sheet.

“He was awesome,” McVay said, “I’m really proud of Kyren. … He was running like an absolute man on a mission today.”

Williams finished the game with 158 yards on 20 carries (18 of them in the second half) and a touchdown. He ran through people — noting with some delight that he debuted “the stiff-arm” — but he also excelled in finding workable space around the edges, and behind receiver Tutu Atwell in the Rams’ jogging-start motion, which Williams did twice Sunday. At one point, he fought through contact so hard that his helmet popped halfway off his head.

“Kyren is an energetic runner,” Havenstein said. “He’s fast, he’s quick, he sees the field well, but he can lower his shoulder … and cap off these runs. (If) he gets stood up at 3 (yards), he’s gonna fall forward maybe 4 or 5. That’s the difference between second-and-7 and second-and-5. The playbook opens up, and you can do it again. It doesn’t pigeonhole you because he’s falling forward.”

Let’s be clear: Anybody in that locker room would agree that running isn’t always the most efficient play, especially with a quarterback who can make any throw. It’s also not just about deciding to run the ball, it’s also about executing with precision in blocks, with tenacity and strain, with pure meanness and ill intent toward the guys on the other side of the line of scrimmage. Often, yes, it’s more productive to pass. But sometimes, it’s about forcing the issue at that line of scrimmage — asserting an identity even if the defense is daring you otherwise.

“All the credit to Sean, just coming out there and trusting us, and trusting our backs — because our backs were making the right cuts and getting after it,” Havenstein said. “A chance to get out there and set your pads, truly, and not really let what they were doing affect what we wanted to do. I think that was illustrated in that first drive.”

Deciding to do it is the first step. Going all in on it, to the pace of nine consecutive runs called on that first drive in the third quarter, down by three points and against their previous tendencies — that’s a dang air-yards-exorcism that injected this offense with some identity when they most needed it.

“We make it more interesting than sometimes it needs to be,” McVay said dryly.

Sunday, that was the drive that changed the course of the game for the Rams. It can be a longer-term lesson than that.

“That’s the team we want to be,” Higbee said. “We showed that we can do it. Now, we’ve just got to be more consistent about doing it all the time, more frequently.”