A big reason the Los Angeles Rams’ 2022 season was a complete disaster is the number of injuries they suffered. Matthew Stafford, Cooper Kupp and Aaron Donald all got hurt, as did many of their offensive linemen.
It was something out of the team’s control, but many expected the Rams to bounce back on the injury front in 2023 with some better luck. And boy, did they ever.
According to Aaron Schatz of FTN Fantasy, the Rams ranked first in the NFL in adjusted games lost last season. They had the fourth-fewest AGL on offense (15.5) and fewest on defense (10.9), giving them a total of AGL of only 26.4 games – the lowest total of any team in the league. Compare that to 2022 when the Rams had 146.6 adjusted games lost, which ranked 31st, and it’s easy to see the massive difference between the two seasons.
On the other side, the Rams plunged from 146.6 AGL to 26.4 AGL and Denver dropped from 148.6 AGL to 57.7 AGL. The Rams had been in the top 10 for AGL for six straight seasons before their mess in 2022, so this was just a return to form in Los Angeles. Yes, there is a surprising correlation from year to year in AGL. For the last decade, removing COVID games in both 2020 and 2021, the year-to-year correlation for AGL has been .29. However, the year to year correlation from 2022 to 2023 was small and negative at -.14, meaning that the fewer injuries a team had in 2022, the more (slightly) they were likely to have in 2023.
This isn’t to say the Rams weren’t missing players at various points last season. Cooper Kupp missed the first four games and Kyren Williams was sidelined for four games in the middle of the year. Joe Noteboom, Alaric Jackson, Rob Havenstein and Tyler Higbee all missed multiple games, as well.
The defense was much more fortunate when it comes to injuries, but the roster as a whole didn’t suffer many major losses – certainly not even close to the number the Rams had in 2022 when just about all of their top players missed time.
