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Rams sinking into doom of their own creation as star WR Cooper Kupp injured

Jourdan Rodrigue

https://theathletic.com/3878863/2022/11/13/rams-lose-cooper-kupp-injured/

INGLEWOOD, Calif. — It’s all bad.

The Rams are 3-6. They again lost to a team they should have beat — a team they usually do beat, backup quarterback or not — and it was largely a doom of their own making. Again.

With starting quarterback Matthew Stafford in concussion protocol, with nine variations of their offensive line in nine weeks due to injuries, the Rams’ “bad” plummeted to “worse” in the second half when their best offensive player, Cooper Kupp, suffered what appeared to be a painful ankle injury. Coach Sean McVay had no initial updates on Kupp’s condition but said, “It didn’t look good. It didn’t sound good.”

Multiple people with knowledge of the situation said the initial belief is that Kupp avoided a worst-case scenario; however, Kupp will have more testing on his ankle (including an MRI) in the coming days to be sure.

At best, Kupp misses some time, maybe as much as a few weeks, if the injury doesn’t prove to be season-ending. The Rams would then have to decide whether it’s worth trotting him back onto the field after he recovers.

Because this is a mess.

Sunday, the Rams lost 27-17 to a Cardinals team that was also playing its backup quarterback. A defense that entered the day giving up just 17.8 points per game — and proudly (vocally so) held opponents to field goals — gave up touchdowns and 14 points in the first half. The game became unreachable early in the fourth quarter when a sack-for-loss by inside linebacker Bobby Wagner (his third of the season) set up Arizona on a third-and-17. Cornerback David Long Jr. then missed a tackle in space and was given the unenviable task of covering Rondale Moore one-on-one on the corresponding fourth-and-3 shot play. Moore came down with the catch, and it appeared that McVay wanted to challenge it (he even threw his red flag onto the field), but it was too late. Running back James Conner ran around Long and wide left for the touchdown that put the Cardinals ahead 24-10 with 7:48 to play.

“They got the lead; we’re trying to play aggressive. Missing tackles, effort plays — can’t really correct that other than being better the next snap. With that (Moore) catch, tough situation. We’re playing 0, got a guy (Long) on an island and telling him to be great,” safety Nick Scott said. “That’s the NFL. ‘D-Lo’ had a very nice play on that same concept earlier in the game. That’s two NFL players going at it. … D-Lo, I know he’s holding himself accountable for that. … There’s plenty of opportunities where defense has to step up and make a play.* And we didn’t do that. We gotta be better at that.”

(*Scott is referring to a late-down stop, or takeaway; the Rams forced no turnovers and Arizona was 2-of-2 on fourth down, including a sequence at the goal line that led to a touchdown.)

The sequence was the difference between a stumbling, bumbling (and fumbling) offense working to tie a seven-point game at that time instead.

Would that have even mattered?

In the first half, and after a field goal and two forced three-and-outs by the defense, the Rams offense went three-and-out each time. On the fourth series within this frame they turned the ball over, and Arizona scored a touchdown a few plays later to go up 17-3. At halftime, the home crowd booed its team as the Rams kneeled, ran out the clock and headed to the locker room.

“What I think it really boils down to is when you do get a little bit of momentum, when you’re just trying to scratch and claw to create any bit of it, we’ve got to be able to play more complementary football,” McVay said.

This is a truth, though answers clearly aren’t simple. There is no “complementary football” happening right now. When the Rams defense forces a three-and-out (it entered Week 10 doing this 10th-best in the NFL), the offense responds with a three-and-out of its own at a 39 percent rate, according to TruMedia. The offense has never gone three-and-out under McVay as much as it has this season, nor has any Stafford-led offense through the first nine games of a season.

Their first 15-odd plays were wondrous to behold in juxtaposition. John Wolford targeted several receivers, including Allen Robinson on a couple of tricky concepts (the two worked a lot together in training camp with Stafford on a pitch count). They didn’t just run the ball in a balanced manner; they did it in a lot of different ways — with Ben Skowronek in the I-formation (one of their most successful concepts in years), with a few different running backs, even with quarterback Bryce Perkins in change-of-pace packages.

The problem is those 15 plays are the “scripted” ones, the pre-determined designs and calls a team makes to feel out the other defense, to run its favorites on the call sheet, to make as big of an impact on early drives as possible. A great first drive/first two drives and an early lead mean a team can stick to its “A-plus” plan on offense and defense, whatever that means for that particular opponent. In the red zone at the end of their initial 14-play (i.e., scripted) drive, Wolford fumbled on first down, and the Rams ran a failed quarterback run play with Perkins on second down. You could almost predict what McVay would call on third-and-long: a run by Henderson, who bit off more than expected (7 yards with 10 needed), and a field goal.

Even making the conservative call there — which showed the Rams’ “A-plus” plan would be to take points, avoid risk and ask their defense to win the game — isn’t totally wild in the context of their woes on the offensive line and at quarterback.

But when they went off-script through the next 14 plays of the half, they were a disaster. They gained 15 net yards total and turned the ball over in their own territory. They ran the ball twice and threw it 15 times. I asked — or started to ask — McVay after the game what happened when their script was done.

“When you’re able to be efficient on early downs and then you’re not, then you can’t get into any sort of rhythm, and you’re off the field if you don’t convert on third down,” he said, noting that their first (scripted) drive was efficient. “Next two drives, not efficient on early downs and not converting the thirds. That’s tough sledding.”

The Rams are averaging 16.4 points per game, which is the third worst in the league. That’s around the same zone at which their passing and run games are ranked.

“We gotta figure out a way to score touchdowns,” center Brian Allen said. “Teams who kick field goals in this league have a hard time winning. (And we) gotta run the ball efficiently the whole game. (If we) can’t do that, they’re not gonna respect our play-action stuff that’s married with it.”

In following up, I asked: In moving away from the run frequency, even in a close game, do you feel like there are yards to be had?

“It’s hard to give the play caller confidence if we’re not doing it consistently,” Allen said. “That’s on us to give him that. Sean is someone we all believe in. He does an awesome job every week putting us in positions to win. There’s 11 guys out there. If we do the game plan and execute how we’re supposed to, we should win football games.”

Now the Rams are at the bottom of the NFC West standings, and they are running out of time — if not out of it already.

“It’s not a good movie, and I’m a part of (that) right now,” said McVay, who, as usual, largely wanted to deflect blame from his team and back to himself. McVay also said “changes” would be imminent in the middle of what is now a losing streak, though to this point and at least to the public view those have been more circumstantial than systemic. “Everything is on the table,” he has repeated over the past few weeks. Everything has already had to be on the table. Nine different offensive lines in nine games says that in itself. There can be a certain genius to desperation borne of circumstance, but there is nothing bright about what the Rams are making of theirs.

I’m not arrogant enough to believe I’m smarter, more mentally agile or more knowledgeable than an NFL coach, especially one fresh off a Super Bowl win (and I have written in great detail about the superhuman effort it took to get there).

But in 2022, as the Rams have slid down — down past even the Balrog and into something murkier — I have found myself wondering at times: How much of this current hell is of McVay’s own creation?