what was with the offense? players or coaching?

The problem with the spread attack is they couldn’t block it up, and the Rams couldn’t catch.

During that span the Rams led the NFL in drops and Bradford was getting sacked at an epic rate.

My own take on those 1st 4 games of 2013 was not only that the receivers couldn’t do it…they could not run the ball with Richardson and defenses figured that out quickly. With no running threat that offense was helpless.

One of the biggest criticisms I have of this regime is that they thought that they could run that spread with a play-action LOT, green receivers, and Richardson.

But fortunately they fixed it.

laram wrote:

That’s a good take and one I failed to mention. However we have seen offenses be successful in the spread with very little running.

GB, NE, Denver, Pitt have all done it.

Four games was not a large enough sample size IMO.

Have to disagree. First, every single one of those teams had more at receiver than the Rams did in 2013. What talent they did have was green to the max, and that includes Bailey not hitting the field yet.

And if you listed all the RBs in the discussion, from those 4 teams combined with the Rams, Richardson is by far the worst of them.

Remember, I didn’t say the Rams DIDN’T run with Richardson…I said they couldn’t. What’s more, defenses knew it. They knew they could defend the run against the Rams without spending any special effort at all. Advantage, defense.

Against ATL and SF, for example, DR had 51 yards on 22 carries.

laram wrote:

Being a predominately passing offense is a predominately passing offense, it doesn’t matter if you do it out of design or not.

I have seen all of the teams I named completely abandon the run for looong stretches of times and be one-dimensional.

Defenses don’t care IF you can’t run, or don’t wanna run.

They play what you do.

Talking about the quality of the receivers, is a different discussion.

Well the Rams in the 1st 4 games of 2013 did pass out of design…but they also intended to run. But they COULDN’T run with Richardson. Defenses can concentrate on stopping the pass if they know you cannot run even if you try. That was the case in early 2014. Therefore it’s not a matter of what defenses do, in this case it’s a matter of what you make them do…and the Rams are better on offense when they make them play the run too. Even if they can play the run, the threat of course helps (so for example that same year Carolina contained Stacy but in the process it made it easier to throw on them).

Given the nature of the receivers–a green Tavon, a regressing Givens, a pedestrian Pettis, a Bailey who wasn’t ready yet–it wasn’t that hard to contain. (I think it’s also true that that offense wasn’t going to work with a left OT whose strength was run blocking and was really a play-action player).

I kinda called that before the season. My take was, the receivers were too green to run a spread–that was too sophisticated for the group as a whole. They had done it the year before against Seattle in the final game, but at least then they had a couple of veteran receivers (Gibson and DA) plus a running threat in Jackson.

So anyway as to 2013, we agree they couldn’t block it, we agree (for different but not mutually exclusive reasons) that the receivers couldn’t make it work, I just think that not being able to run hurt too.