The Los Angeles Rams did very few things well last season. They finished last in yards on offense, 19th in yards allowed defensively and finished 27th in both passing yards and rushing yards.
They’d probably prefer to just forget that disastrous 5-12 season ever happened, but there was at least one positive takeaway. The Rams remained one of the most disciplined teams in the NFL, as they have been throughout Sean McVay’s tenure.
Joe Gibbs of Sharp Football Analysis ran the numbers on penalties from last season and the Rams graded out as one of the top teams. He gave Los Angeles an A- grade, pointing to a handful of notable stats.
First and foremost, the Rams committed the second-fewest penalties per game last year (4.47). That number was so low in part because the Rams averaged only 1.35 pre-snap penalties per game, which was the third-fewest in football. That’s particularly impressive considering how many different offensive line groups the Rams started throughout the year, constantly cycling through players because of injury.
It wasn’t just the offense that played sound football, either. The defense committed the fourth-fewest passing penalties in the NFL, helped by their lack of roughing the passer penalties; according to Gibbs, the Rams were one of just three teams that didn’t commit a single roughing the passer penalty in 2022.
The 2022 season was a complete 180 from their Super Bowl winning season in 2021. Injuries and lack of depth decimated their team. Throughout it all, they still managed to be one of the least penalized teams in the NFL.
McVay teams are very detail-oriented, and even with a constant rotation of new personnel on this Rams team in 2022, that didn’t change.
The Rams may not have played well last season, but it wasn’t because of undisciplined play. They used a clean operation on both sides of the ball, despite all the changes in personnel they had to endure. Even the backups played a smart style of football and didn’t commit costly penalties very often.
