There’s a lot of blame to go around in the Rams’ building. The team is 3-6, has lost three in a row and sits in the basement of the NFC West. It’s uncharted territory for the Sean McVay era. You can blame injuries to the offensive line, the loss of Von Miller and other veterans, the departure of Kevin O’Connell or a regression from Matthew Stafford. You can also point to injuries as a whole, not just along the offensive line.
But one person who deserves a good portion of the criticism is McVay. He said after Sunday’s terrible 27-17 loss to the Cardinals that he feels “very responsible” for the team’s struggles, and he should.
“We just gotta be able to have a better product out there, start to see some improvement, and that’s the challenging thing is there really hasn’t been examples of that occurring,” he said. “Gotta be able to look at some of the things we’re doing process-wise, I gotta be able to look at myself in the mirror and figure out what are those things because I feel very responsible for us being in this position. I’m never gonna run away from the responsibility that I share with our team, our players, our coaches.”
That was very evident during the game against Arizona. Without Stafford, McVay had to get creative with the offense and call a different game than he ordinarily would. The problem is, he still relied way too heavily on the passing attack instead of leaning on the ground game.
On the opening drive, the Rams rushed for 30 yards. It was a blend of Cam Akers, Darrell Henderson Jr., Brandon Powell and John Wolford. They got a field goal out of the drive, going 57 yards in 14 plays.
On their second possession, Akers had a 4-yard run to start, followed by two incompletions. On the third drive, Bryce Perkins threw a screen to Cooper Kupp for a 3-yard loss, followed by an incompletion by Wolford and a 2-yard completion to Kupp. The following possession, it was a similar story: 2-yard run, pass, pass, punt.
The offense has gotten predictable. It’s usually a first-down run that gains minimal yardage, followed by two passes and a punt. There were too few first-down passes and too many first-down runs.
In the second half, Wolford was finally getting into a rhythm with rollouts and play-action passes. Once the Rams got to the 10-yard line, McVay stuck Perkins on the field and he lost 4 yards on a designed run. The Cardinals likely knew a run was coming with Perkins out there, too.
McVay’s third-down calls were questionable, too. There was a third-and-13 screen to Kupp that had almost no chance. On third-and-14, he put in Perkins for a QB draw that gained 8 yards. There just didn’t seem to be much aggressiveness on offense for a team with its back against the wall and a 3-6 record staring them in the face.
To be clear, McVay doesn’t deserve all of the blame for the Rams’ issues. He can’t prevent injuries to four-fifths of his offensive line, to Matthew Stafford and to several starting defensive backs. He wasn’t the one who failed to get Von Miller back. But he’s failed to adapt as a play caller to the Rams’ situation this season. The running game finally showed some signs of life, yet after gaining 30 yards on the first drive, they had just 36 total rushing yards after that point.
If the Rams are going to turn their season around, it’ll take some improvements from McVay, too.
