It’s scary how natural Aaron Donald (RE) makes lining up in a wide-9 and rushing off the edge looks. pic.twitter.com/hMhMhnbWw4

— Sosa Kremenjas (@QBsMVP) September 28, 2021

Blaine Grisak@bgrisakDTR
Matthew Stafford is one of the best quarterbacks on third down this year. His quarterback rating of 140.2 on third downs this year leads the league.

3rd down stats:

T-8th in comp. % – 70.4%
3rd in yards and YPA – 10.3
T-2nd in TDs – 3
3rd in TD% – 11.1%

from https://theramswire.usatoday.com/2021/09/28/rams-terrell-lewis-snaps-justin-hollins-injury/

McVay has confidence in Terrell Lewis, who will see his role grow substantially in Hollins’ place. Coming off a game in which he played a career-high 34 snaps, Lewis’ workload is only going to get bigger with Hollins sidelined – and McVay is excited to see what he can do.

“He played close to over 30 snaps, which was by far his biggest workload. Thought he handled it well. He came in, he was feeling good. And so, seeing his maturation and him continue to progress is a big deal because Justin Hollins had done such a great job really solidifying that spot opposite Leonard Floyd over these first few weeks. But to see Terrell be able to do what he did was really encouraging. You can’t have enough good players that can apply pressure to the quarterback and be able to set edges and make the plays that he did. So, he’s definitely going to be a big factor and you can look for him to play a lot more snaps moving forward.”

didn't realize Stafford went trick shot no-look on the TE screen to hold Lavonte David pic.twitter.com/vLv4yRDEgl

— Nate Tice (@Nate_Tice) September 28, 2021

trey wingo@wingoz
Does coaching matter? You’re damn right it does. Last season Dallas gave up the most points in franchise history. This year under new DC Dan Quinn they are FLYING all over the field and are tied for the most takeaways thru three games, with a full have to go

Niq@thecoolestuno
Cowherd said he heard from a “close source” Raheem Morris threw his name in the hat for the USC job

Cornell@gqscholar
I’m hoping Mcvay brings that play action and pre snap motions and misdirection back, for this week. Arizona has struggled defensively against them in the past and one of the reasons why Mcvay has had so much success against the cards.

RAMZILLA@elitster
PFF grades.

Corbs was absolutely moving bodies!! #ramshouse

•RG Austin Corbett: 83.8
•WR DeSean Jackson: 82.4
•RT Rob Havenstein: 75.2

Lindsey Thiry@LindseyThiry
Matthew Stafford will be a guest tonight with Peyton and Eli Manning on Monday Night Football.

Zooey wrote:

wv wrote:

I dont know that the media ever loved
the St Louis Rams.

Well, to be fair, they never played anybody.

Zooey wrote:

Meanwhile, the Rams miss Akers, a lot. I hope to see something more coming out of the rush attack in the next few games, or we have a problem.

I like Michel. He’s rarely going to break any the way Akers would. I expect more from him in future games–Tampa has stifled the Rams run game in both their 2020 and 2021 meetings. (This game, 24 rushes for 76 yards; last year, 18 for 42).

Michel doesn’t have a lot of wiggle but he does have the Rams big RB trait, which is contact balance. He also has some power too. But he maximizes who and what he is with smart play and good knowledge of the game (fine blocker, for example). With Michel at the center of it, I think the Rams run game will be solid and more than serviceable.

The catch? Both he and Henderson have had injury issues. They’ve both been banged up a lot and missed games cause of it.

….

For the first time since Week 12, 2000… ALL of these teams have a losing record at the same time. 👇🏻

Patriots
Chiefs
Seahawks
Steelers@NFLResearch

— Andrew Siciliano (@AndrewSiciliano) September 27, 2021

Will you just look at this pocket on the 2nd Kupp TD?

If this holds up through the year, Lord help the rest of the NFL, because this offense is going to take souls weekly. pic.twitter.com/83qkXb9Sku

— SeattleRams (@seattlerams_nfl) September 27, 2021

Everyone wanted ‘statement’ from Rams vs. Bucs — what we learned instead is more important

Jourdan Rodrigue

https://theathletic.com/2850966/2021/09/26/rodrigue-everyone-wanted-statement-from-rams-vs-tampa-bay-what-we-learned-instead-is-more-important/

INGLEWOOD, Calif. — What is that feeling called when a crowd swells up under a deep pass downfield and your chest kind of does, too? When the noise itself, the togetherness of that sound and watching the arc of the ball in the air seems to fill up the space between it and the ground and that spot behind your ribs and it all becomes one thing, all at once?

What is that feeling called, when a player snaps in a game, overflows, furious and vibrating with anger and unsure of where all of it is supposed to go, and then a teammate grabs him by the helmet and presses his own facemask against his and reminds him that he matters? What is the feeling called when people become one thing, all at once?

What about when the greatest football player on the planet bumps into his quarterback outside of the press room after a win, pulls him into a hug, and tells him he loves him?

Aaron Donald, who recorded his first sack on Tampa Bay quarterback Tom Brady in the Rams’ 34-24 win Sunday, said postgame that he just loves watching Matthew Stafford play. And the feeling just kind of came out of him.

“It’s a lot of fun, it’s a whooole lot of fun, man,” said Donald, grinning. “I saw him outside the door, I gave him a hug and I said, ‘I love you, man.’ He’s playing lights-out. … I’m just happy that guy is on my team.”

It was Donald (and then-teammate Jalen Ramsey) who first grabbed Kenny Young’s helmeted head with both hands and then pressed his facemask to Young’s last week, right before Young was ejected from a win against the Colts on the road. Young was angry because of an incident after the whistle that involved Colts offensive lineman Quenton Nelson. Young accidentally made contact with the official and was ejected from the game. He was fined, but was not suspended — and on Sunday night, he led the Rams in tackles, recorded a sack, forced a fumble, and had three tackles for loss. It wasn’t really about what he did — it was the way Young played, like he had something to say.

“Last week was not the greatest ending for me,” Young said after the game. “But it was more about reflecting, coming back to myself and really responding.”

Everybody wanted to see the Rams make a statement Sunday night against Tampa Bay. Everybody wanted to know: Was this a measuring-stick game? And now that they’ve won it: Is this a Super Bowl-caliber team?

Donald definitively thinks so. His reasoning, though, wasn’t really about the impressive stats the Rams put up on Sunday night (the offense on Sunday exceeded 30 points for the second time in three games; the unit crossed that mark only three times in 16 games in 2020; the defense is holding teams to an average of 18.3 points per game).

No, it was about a feeling.

“I think we’ve got a good group, man. Everybody gets along well — like, great,” he said. “Everybody likes being around each other. We enjoy being around each other. Everybody is always having fun together. And last time we had a team like that, we went to the Super Bowl. To have that here right now, it’s fun. It’s fun to come to work, it’s fun to be around these guys.”

The Rams are winning, and that helps, but they’re happy, too. They’re winning and they like each other. Hell, they’re winning and they love each other.

It’s not even about the overt, meme-able moments that McVay has provided — about how he’s in a “better mood”, or how he sprinted downfield to meet receiver DeSean Jackson after his 75-yard touchdown catch (the first for Jackson back in his hometown of Los Angeles), or how he completely lost his cool (in a positive way!) when Bucs kicker Ryan Succop missed his field goal attempt to end the first half.

It’s how left tackle Andrew Whitworth and guard Austin Corbett are blocking opponents 30 yards downfield from the line of scrimmage. It’s how Stafford found Jackson again on a deep shot, as low-probability as that play is, after missing him twice earlier in the game. It’s the Rams’ offense problem-solving in real time after a failed first drive and two punts to open the game, to score either a touchdown or a field goal on the next six consecutive drives. It’s the Rams’ defense giving them a chance to gather themselves after those first two drives, forcing Brady and his offense to go three-and-out with help from stars such as Donald, Leonard Floyd and Ramsey but also a couple of lesser-known players — like outside linebacker Justin Hollins. Hollins was a waiver pickup last summer who is now starting for the Rams. His four critical tackles on Sunday night all came on third down.

“(When) it’s all 11 (players) making plays, it’s hard for a team to beat a defense like that,” Donald said. “We have to continue to get better and continue to do those things (and) the sky is the limit.”

It wasn’t a perfect game. The defense allowed too many explosive passing plays (even though it is structured to prevent them), and too many catch-and-run plays that led to big yards. The offense’s opening drive featured dropped passes by receivers Cooper Kupp and Robert Woods. Woods later was the recipient of a crucial third-and-10 conversion, in which he caught a Stafford ball for 20 yards that helped set up a touchdown a few plays later to put the Rams ahead by 14 points.

“We truly embody the attitude of, ‘There’s not going to be perfection, but we’re going to push for that,” Kupp said, “and being OK with making mistakes, and being (able) to say ‘This is not good enough.’ That’s the beauty of it. We’ve got the right guys that when those mistakes happen, everyone is pushing for success. Everyone is doing what they can to be positive, to be a producer on this team.

“When you’ve got the right guys, it just makes it so much easier to see a mistake, correct it and then move forward knowing that everyone is moving forward together. And I’m really glad to be a part of this team … you know that all the other 10 guys on the field with you, they’re all moving toward that same goal.”

It’s the linemen and the practice squad cornerbacks joking about who has bigger calves as practice ends. It’s Sebastian Joseph-Day demonstrating a TikTok dance to defensive line coach Eric Henderson after hit-sled drills, and punter Johnny Hekker nicknaming the types of post-practice protein shakes the team gets. It’s how reserve running back Sony Michel greeted his teammates with a calming smile in an adverse, spiraling situation last week in Indianapolis. It’s Ramsey sitting with an undrafted free-agent cornerback a week before he was cut, trying to get him as immersed into the playbook as he could even though the writing was on the wall. It’s Donald pulling Stafford in for a hug; but it’s also Donald pulling Young’s anger and frustration into himself as he locked eyes with him, so someone else could hold it for him, take it away from him for a minute. Stafford is an elite quarterback; Young is a former fourth-round pick who barely hung on at times last year, but who overhauled his entire training and preparation process last spring in hopes he could break through, and then blossom.

“I came to the realization of, ‘Hey, I can’t negotiate with myself if I really want to be great,” Young said. “I bought into having a great camp. I think we all competed our butts off. And I think … the momentum from that is why we’re having some great team success. It’s not a gimmick, but I took every day in training camp and OTAs to just get better. I think it’s paying off. I love my coaches. They believe in me, and they let me do my thing. They let me go lead.”

“He’s an important part to this defense, and he knows that,” Donald added. “That’s one of the things we had to talk to him about last week, and we’ve been talking to him this week about it. … To see him come back out and play at a high level, flying around and making a lot of plays, that’s why he’s out there. That’s why he’s a playmaker for us.”

It’s how Kupp, who finished the game Sunday with nine catches for 96 yards and two touchdowns (his fourth and fifth of the season), has started talking about the Rams’ offense as a pliable thing, something that’s alive, something that grows and can be evolved as the season goes. It’s how his face changes when he talks about it.

“Our job as an offense is to not just be stuck doing the same thing over and over again, but to have answers off of it, to be able to make things look the same but be different,” Kupp said after the game. “That’s something that we continue to do, continue to grow, continue to adapt — let the offense be pliable, and movable … it’s a lot of fun building it, working together and collaborating on it.”

We see it happening in real time. Last week, the Rams’ offense scored a touchdown off a beautifully designed play in which Kupp came out of the backfield, beat his safety and caught Stafford’s pass in the end zone seam. This week, knowing the Bucs had seen that play on tape, the Rams again aligned Kupp in the backfield on third down at Tampa Bay’s 6-yard-line. Kupp ran a motion pre-snap, and a player traveled with him, and that opened the sliver of space tight end Tyler Higbee needed to catch and run in Stafford’s pass, which happened on the opposite side of Kupp. These types of setups can be expected all season, as the playbook between McVay and Stafford and a group of smart, versatile receivers expands. It’s hard to quantify what that ultimately produces. We have some stats to throw around, absolutely — such as, Stafford is completing passes at a 70.2 percent rate, he’s averaging a touchdown on 9.6 percent of his passes (second in the NFL), he’s throwing the ball 15 yards or farther on 15.4 percent of his pass attempts (top 10) and is averaging 10.2 yards per pass attempt with 470 of his 930 passing yards through three games coming after the catch, by his receivers. The Rams entered Sunday’s game ranked No. 5 in offensive DVOA and they’re not going to drop after this week’s win.

“I don’t know where we can necessarily get to,” Kupp said, “but that’s the beauty of just continuing to build, to not being stuck doing one thing, being able to add and build blocks and as long as we (can) execute … there is no telling where it can go.”

What is that feeling called? We don’t have words for just yet, and maybe that’s OK. We don’t have to label it. They all feel it. Right now, the Rams’ players and coaches radiate it.

When everybody wanted a definitive statement from the Rams, they showed us instead that it can mean more to not know just yet what is fully possible.

Update: After being persuaded to leave hospital by an anti-vaxxer, Joe McCarron died.pic.twitter.com/1ywbH1WMou

— John Scott-Railton (@jsrailton) September 26, 2021