tweets … 8/24 & 8/25 … including Benoit on the Rams

Andy Benoit@Andy_Benoit
No player outperforms his body type more than Matt Longacre.

Lamarcus Joyner has outstanding range and coverage flexibility, is also a great hitter.

Love Aaron Donald, but how does a member of a run D that ranked 30th in yards allowed per attempt run away with Defensive Player of the Year?

CBs Talib and Peters need a potent pass rush in front of them. Their gambles work when defense forces the ball out early. When it doesn’t, gambles can backfire.

#Rams defense star-studded in places, but questions at wide DE, LB and safety, and almost no back 7 depth to speak of.

#Rams might miss Tavon Austin. His gadgetry brought a lot of deception to the scheme.

Andrew Whitworth is most commanding pass-blocker in NFL in terms of fundamentals, but only when he’s dictating the terms. When he’s in reaction mode, his age shows.

Kupp has a high-level understanding of how plays are designed to beat specific coverages.

#Rams will be great in 3×1 sets this year. Gurley as receiver here, Cooks drawing double-teams on weak side.

Gerald Everett an important piece for #Rams. McVay wants a receiving TE like he had in Washington (Jordan Reed).

#Rams OL under Aaron Kromer was the most improved unit in NFL last year.

It’s between Aaron Kromer and Bill Callahan for best zone-oriented OL coach in football.

Left side of #Rams OL, especially guard Saffold, is as good as any in the screen game.

Gurley has good wiggle but not GREAT change-of-direction. Those are 2 subtly different things.

Gurley a perfect fit in a zone scheme and backfield screen passing game like #Rams feature.

Goff must get better in messy pockets. He’s shown progress here.

Jared Goff a more talented Kirk Cousins. You can go far with that.

#Rams on the cusp of being the best play-action offense in football.

McVay masterful in the hurry-up game, imagine he’ll play 3-WR packages and go hurry-up a lot in 2018.

Andy Benoit@Andy_Benoit
Love Aaron Donald, but how does a member of a run D that ranked 30th in yards allowed per attempt run away with Defensive Player of the Year?

Bill Barnwell@billbarnwell
1) The Rams didn’t face many running plays last year because they were ahead a lot of the time. 418 rush attempts against them last year is 22nd in the league, so yards per attempt isn’t quite as damaging as it would be for other teams.

But that’s a minor thing. 2) The Rams were a lot better by DVOA than yards per attempt – 21st instead of 30th. The Jaguars were 27th in rush defense DVOA and we rightfully wouldn’t blink for a second about Calais Campbell being a Defensive Player of the Year candidate.
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3) The Rams gave up a bunch of yardage in meaningless situations. If we look at the runs opposing teams made that *decreased* their expected points — i.e. runs that don’t keep them on schedule or runs in hopeless situations – the Rams allowed 430 yards, third-most in the NFL.

4) The Rams were 31st in open-field yards per run, meaning that when opposing runners got to the third level, they were often able to turn big plays into much bigger runs. They gave up four 60+ yard runs last year and nobody else gave up more than two.

I don’t think you can really pin those long runs on Aaron Donald (although I’m sure he deserves some small portion of blame).

Anyway, I think “Can a player be great even if his team is bad at something?” is an interesting question. In this case, though, I think there are extenuating circumstances which point to other parts of the team being a problem. I also don’t want Aaron Donald to hit me. The end!

Ndamukong Suh postgame: “For sure it feels good [to hit a QB]. I mean, we can’t hit ’16’ or even get near him in practice, let alone all the other guys, so it feels good to hit a quarterback especially with the new rules and all that stuff.”

— Myles Simmons (@MylesASimmons) August 26, 2018