from Rams Q&A: Vinny Bonsignore
https://theathletic.com/1219114/2019/09/18/live-qa-with-rams-writer-vinny-bonsignore-on-wednesday-from-noon-to-1-p-m-pt-2/?source=twittered

What’s with the red zone struggles ?

Lack of efficiency, mistakes, and I think a couple of bad play calls

Which contracts are the biggest/hardest decisions in the next off season?

You have to lock up Littleton. Blythe is a keeper. We will see on Marcus Peters. I could see Talib coming back on a reasonable deal

is Donald hurt?

Should find out more today. But I haven’t heard that it’s anything serious

Do you think that the call on Goff’s fumble was a bit blown out of proportion because it happened to the Saints? I’ve seen quick whistles before that kill plays.

Yes. To me it wasn’t a “quick” whistle. The referee called it exactly as he saw it, and did so with conviction and decisiveness. I’d much rather have that then indecisive. Upon further review, it was a throw. But in real time, he saw it differently and that isn’t all that unusual.

Is it taking Henderson a while to get on the field due to still learning the playbook?

No one has completely said that, but sense is there has been an adjustment for him in terms of how it works at this level in all phases. If I were him, I’m be following Todd and Malcolm around watching how it’s done at this level.

When if at all do you see Greg Gaines being a bigger part of the rotation?

I think as the year goes on it will get better, but I also believe they’ll give JSD every chance to settle in. I felt his second game was better than the opener, which was to be expected. Ideally they end up trading off in a rotation in which they’ll both benefit

Goff has had some uncharacteristic accuracy issues even without facing pressure which he seemed to clean up at the end of the Saints game.

I expected his overall game to take a step forward this year and I’d be surprised if it didn’t. That includes being better under pressure and against the zone. I think his accuracy issues on some of those throws are all fundamentally based. When he gets a little sloppy on the fundamentals, it shows.

How’s Allen doing?

The coaches have been raving about him

…

I’ve been really impressed with the overall operation of the Rams defense the first two weeks, and talking to players on other teams they are absolutely doing a clever job in scheming/packaging. I suspect that will remain the case against the Browns

Saints QB Drew Brees avoids landing on injured reserve. Brees to be evaluated week-to-weekhttps://t.co/IlJnUwNPH6 pic.twitter.com/KMsjDMXHAD

— Around The NFL (@AroundTheNFL) September 18, 2019

Football at its finest.

All-22 | Breaking down the Goff to Cooks dime + Clay's second sack with the #LARams! pic.twitter.com/1uA9YidcCE

— Los Angeles Rams (@RamsNFL) September 18, 2019

from Week 2: PFF’s Top Units of the Week
https://www.pff.com/news/pro-nfl-week-2-top-units-of-the-week

RECEIVING CORPS: LOS ANGELES RAMS
The Rams’ wideouts may not have racked up a ton of yardage, but the yardage they did accumulate came in impressive fashion. They combined for six broken tackles — the most of any receiving corps this past week — on only 15 catches. Cooper Kupp’s slant route against Marshon Lattimore midway through the fourth that almost went for a touchdown was arguably the play of the year so far.

LMU93

FootballOutsiders Week 2 Ratings
https://www.footballoutsiders.com/dvoa-ratings/2019/week-2-dvoa-ratings

Won’t post all the details here but they have the Rams rated 6th overall through two games (9th offense, 5th defense, and 29th special teams. They were 32nd on special teams after week one…)

They have Goff ranked 16th among QBs so far. Interestingly Gurley and Brown are 5th and 6th among RBs, respectively. They also have the Rams OL ranked 2nd in run blocking and 14th in pass blocking

There’s a whole lotta NFC West up in here https://t.co/4VGkIK8pWX

— SeattleRams (@seattlerams_nfl) September 17, 2019

The Rams wide zone play is their bread n' butter but defenses are finding ways to slow it down. The Saints played a 6-1 (4 d-line + the Sam and Will on the edge) like the Pats did. The Rams ran wide zone 3 times for 6 yards against this look. They don't like it. However.. pic.twitter.com/Tl2wvVpqoF

— Seth Galina (@SethGalina) September 17, 2019

All of a sudden those 6 line players are useless when the ball goes quickly outside. My pal @alltwentytwo tells me the Rams ran this play a total of 21 times in 2018. Now we see it 8 times in this game alone.

The video above is the 8 tosses and the video below is the 3 zones pic.twitter.com/Btq4wKvke7

— Seth Galina (@SethGalina) September 17, 2019

wv wrote:

Brockers looks a bit faster this year. Maybe he’s lost weight, or maybe he’s just healthy. Or maybe I’m just wrong and he’s the same as always.

w
v

No, not wrong. He’s slimmer and faster.

Merlin

DL played lights out vs one of the league’s best OL. Not only did the real AD show up but he also came back to the game after an injury to gut it out. SJD had a very strong game in the middle, I was really impressed with how he stuffed things up and was a big part of the reason why we played the run so well. And Brock might have had one of the best games I’ve seen from him since 2017. I mean damn. He moved around, got pressures, stuffed the run, and looked like the guy who is a team leader that leaves it all on the field we remember from a couple seasons ago.

Secondary had not only a great game plan, but executed it at a very high level. Receivers were blanketed on many of the plays. And the safeties just can’t say enough about them when they (and Littleton) hold a guy like Kamara down. Even with Brees out their performance was outstanding.

JamesJM

Playcalling… in the RZ…this is just general perception.

Seems to me most good RZ teams, the OC’s, run plays in the RZ that are smooth transitions from all the rest of the plays… with obvious adaptions due to the more limited amount of turf area in the
RZ… in other words… it’s basically the same game plan squeezed into a smaller area.

With McVay I get the feeling, well, more than just a feeling, it’s night and day once the RZ is reached… completely different plays unrelated to all the rest. A Jekyll and Hyde transformation.

==

Deadpool

On the Goff, fumble, the play design is everything that is wrong with the Rams redzone issues and my problem with McVays play calling in the Redzone. Its 3rd and 7 from the 11. So what do you do? Run every WR into the endzone and leak Brown out to the 5. What did the Saints do? Rush 4, man cover Brown (not hard as brown just ran to the 5, stopped, turned around and stood there…) leaving 6 lbers/dbs to cover 4 WRs. Thats 10 men in the endzone and no windows to throw into. Run some danged routes that get you the first down or at least lets a wr catch and try to run for a first down. That play had literally no chance. I know Im not a OC, but anyone that reviews that play can see it has too many players flooding into the endzone to create a good throwing window. I would have killed for a TG wheel route or even a WR screen there.

Vincent Bonsignore

https://theathletic.com/1217021/2019/09/16/assessing-goff-and-gurley-and-encouraging-injury-news-after-the-rams-grab-early-power-in-nfc/

Higbee OK after scare
The Rams lost two players on the same play Sunday. Tight end Tyler Higbee suffered a lung contusion at nearly the exact time Blythe went down with the ankle injury.

Although Higbee came back to play another down — he got hurt while going up for a Goff throw that was contested by Saints cornerback Eli Apple — he went to the hospital Sunday night after coughing up blood. Higbee got cleared after an evaluation and went home. He is listed as day to day.

“Everything’s checked out, he’s feeling good, he’s asymptomatic with that in terms of the nuances and those things,” a relieved McVay said. “But he’s feeling good.”

Higbee’s status for Sunday night’s game against the Cleveland Browns remains uncertain.

“What we always want to do is what’s best for the player,” McVay said. “I’ll get the medical report in terms of — we’re never going to put our players in harm’s way and whatever the doctor’s orders are, in the best interests of Tyler, that’s what we’ll follow. What that means as far as this week, the following week, we’ll have more updates as we go.”

The Rams dressed only two tight ends Sunday, and when Higbee went down, rookie offensive tackle David Edwards, who played tight end for one college season at Wisconsin, became the de facto second tight end. Although its doubtful Edwards would have been put in position to catch a ball, if the Rams had needed to go to a jumbo short-yardage set with two tight ends, Edwards would have been called upon.

“We were talking about the possibility on the sideline, so I was ready just in case,” Edwards said.

from Assessing Goff and Gurley, and encouraging injury news after the Rams grab early power in NFC

Vincent Bonsignore

https://theathletic.com/1217021/2019/09/16/assessing-goff-and-gurley-and-encouraging-injury-news-after-the-rams-grab-early-power-in-nfc/

Much more than a football game was won when the Rams beat the Saints 27-9 on Sunday at the Coliseum in a rematch of last season’s NFC Championship Game. The entire power balance of the conference shifted when Drew Brees completed his follow-through on a pass attempt and his right hand crashed into the arm of Aaron Donald, who came barreling in on the rush.

Brees left the game with what turned out to be a torn ligament in his throwing hand, and he will undergo surgery and be sidelined approximately six weeks. That means Teddy Bridgewater, who replaced Brees early in the first quarter Sunday, will be the Saints’ quarterback for a while, and that changes the top of the conference hierarchy.

Bridgewater is a capable quarterback and one of the most liked and appreciated players in the NFL. But to be perfectly frank, he is nowhere near the player Brees is. Few quarterbacks are, which is why Brees one day will be inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame. He has the ability to throw the ball as accurately as any quarterback in NFL history and decisively control and manage the Saints’ high-octane offense.

In a near-perfect world, Bridgewater helps the Saints to a .500 record in relief of Brees. If Brees missed the next six games that would give the Saints a 4-4 record upon his return. That leaves them plenty of time to make a playoff run, but it likely would leave them almost no margin for error when it comes to a division title and home-field advantage throughout the playoffs.

Play that out a little bit further, and it greatly reduces by one the number of teams the Rams figure to be battling at the end of the season, in terms of what city the NFC runs through on the way to the Super Bowl.

With 14 games remaining, it might seem a bit early to begin thinking along those lines. And maybe it is. But life moves fast in the NFL, and given the Rams’ lofty aspirations, the big picture is always in focus.

That’s another reason to underscore the importance of the Rams’ win Sunday. Remember, last year the Saints got the upper hand on the Rams in the race for home-field advantage in the playoffs by beating them in early November. The teams finished with identical 13-3 records but the tiebreaker went to the Saints based on that win.

The Rams gaining that advantage — for now, anyway — is just one of the many takeaways from Sunday’s game.

Here are my top five others.

Goff gets on track, but must be better

At first glance, Jared Goff played perfectly fine on Sunday while completing 19 of 28 attempts for 283 yards and one touchdown for a quarterback rating of 112.6. And while he might have been guilty of hanging onto the ball a little too long on what turned out to be a red-zone fumble in the second quarter, that’s probably splitting hairs a bit considering the protection in front of him certainly wasn’t pristine.

That said, given the expectations after his last two seasons and the record-breaking contract extension he recently signed, it certainly appears Goff is capable of much more.

The same can be said for the Rams’ offense as a whole. But Goff is the face of that operation and its success is tied directly into his play.

Goff and the offense have struggled to get on track in the first two games. That’s partially the result of unexpected defensive looks they’ve faced, and also a general lack of sharpness. The slow starts haven’t cost them (yet), and as they showed Sunday and last week against Carolina, they’ve been able to rebound enough to total 57 points in two games.

That is a bottom line they will gladly take. Who wouldn’t, right?

But again, we are talking about the two-time defending NFC West champions and the defending NFC champions. So while bottom-line results might be acceptable at times, by no means do they represent what is possible. The Rams’ offense, and Goff in particular, is capable of more.

“It sometimes takes time,” Goff said. And he is right, of course. It’s two games into the season. There is plenty of time to get things straightened out.

“Again, we scored six (points) in the first half and were able to come away with a 27-9 win, and you’re happy about it no matter what,” he continued. “I think every game is different and this game, (it) took us a little while to find it. Frankly, I don’t think it really matters. We win, we win. If we find it early, you’d obviously love that, but any way it happens, we are happy with it.”

Perhaps.

But on a different day against a different opponent, another slow start certainly might cost them. It’s imperative, then, that the Rams figure out a way to get on track earlier.

That eluded them again on Sunday, especially in relation to crossing the goal line after moving into the red zone. The Rams were turned away from the end zone three times in the first half after driving into scoring position, as they settled for two field goals and squandered another chance with the Goff fumble. For a team accustomed to precision and efficiency and maximizing red-zone opportunities, that was cause for some annoyance.

“We have to be better and more efficient down in the red zone,” said left tackle Andrew Whitworth. “We were getting a little frustrated because we were moving the ball. We just weren’t figuring out ways to get in the end zone.”

Said coach Sean McVay: “(We) had some good drives towards the end of the first half, but to only come away with three points on those two drives, we have to be better there.”

That changed in the second half when the Rams scored three touchdowns to blow the game open.

“Really we didn’t do anything different. We were just more efficient,” Whitworth said.

It was a positive step forward, and one the Rams hope to build on.

…

‘New normal’ for Gurley?

Per the Rams’ unofficial/official plan to help preserve Todd Gurley’s health, Gurley once again split series with backup Malcolm Brown on Sunday. Gurley finished with 63 yards on 16 carries and caught three passes for four yards. His longest run was for 20 yards and he scored a touchdown.

And while Gurley has not publicly stated any dissatisfaction with his new usage pattern, he hasn’t fully endorsed it either. Gurley has been a bit of an enigma this year when dealing with the media, especially as it relates to his health, as he typically responds with very short answers with little depth or perspective.

And after his short postgame media session Sunday, it seems warranted to wonder just how happy he is with the way he’s being used.

Asked about his understanding of the new way he’s being used and whether his role has changed much, Gurley said, “Ask Sean. I’m not the head coach. I’m good.”

When asked if it was difficult getting into a flow with the number of carries he’s getting, Gurley only said, “No. I’m good.”

McVay wasn’t all that clear either when asked if Gurley’s usage through two games is the blueprint for what is to come.

“It’s hard to say right now,” McVay said. “Through two games, I think (Gurley and Brown) both have done a nice job. As the season continues to progress, I think we’ll really find out. Like we’ve said, each game kind of represents a different approach, but I thought both those guys did a nice job making some timely runs in times we had to have it.”

Maybe Gurley is completely fine. Maybe he’s just sick and tired of talking about his knee, which is understandable.

But it’s worth keeping an eye on moving forward, in terms of how happy and content he really is.

Secondary doesn’t disappoint

It’s early, but the Rams’ defense ranks fifth in the NFL in yards allowed per game (293.5), and the average of 18 points per game allowed ranks 10th overall. They rank ninth against the run (92 yards per game) and sixth in pass defense (202 yards per game).

Those stats represents a positive trend for a defense that, during the offseason, believed fixing its issues against the run would help propel it into being an upper-echelon unit.

Aaron Donald and fellow linemen, and Cory Littleton and fellow linebackers, have been critical in suppressing opponents, and the Rams’ secondary, a perceived strength throughout the offseason and training camp, has lived up to its billing.

Marcus Peters and Aqib Talib have gone all but unnoticed at cornerback thus far — that’s usually a good sign for players operating on high-leverage islands — and reserves Nickell Robey-Coleman and Troy Hill have been solid.

Meanwhile, safeties Eric Weddle, John Johnson, Taylor Rapp and Marqui Christian have cleaned things up in pass coverage and run defense. Their play on the back end — and sometimes at the first and second levels — combined with their communication skills have helped lift the Rams’ defense.

“When you have versatile safeties that have the ability to play coverage,” McVay said, “to be able to play in the box and be able to activate them as blitzes, they’re really those joker type players for the defense. And really when you’re looking at our guys that are playing safety, with Eric, John Johnson and Taylor Rapp, all three of those guys have a very similar skill set, they’re all very smart, cerebral players, and those are things that enable us to be a little more multiple than what you would otherwise. So it’s a huge deal to have those guys,”

.@trapp07 appreciation tweet. pic.twitter.com/xSoNfbfY8Y

— Los Angeles Rams (@RamsNFL) September 16, 2019