Having watched, read, and listened to hours of analysis on the Ram/Saints game, there are factors I believe have been lost in the shuffle. Here are mine...
Havenstein v Jordan. Two weeks ago, Clowney dominated Big Rob and McVay was slow to adjust. Even on the pivotal bomb to Woods, Rob had to get away with holding to prevent a strip/sack/safety or defensive TD. Enter Cam Jordan who is being snubbed for the Pro Bowl and needs to make a statement. Personally, I don’t want to see that one on one matchup at all...even though I appreciate Hav’s very good play this year.
UM...nailed it. Then again, he beat Whitworth too. Jordan is like Donald, Clowney, Watt, and Campbell...you single them and your play is likely wrecked.
Listen to Kromer. Sean McVay made his bones around a scheme that has evolved from the Shanahan zone running with WCO passing concepts. Wisely, McVay hired an accomplished power running line coach to integrate variety to the attack. It would seem the marriage is going well but here’s to hoping Kromer’s influence takes a bigger role. If New Orleans has to adjust their defense to account for power running (with help from the secondary) their second string corners will be exposed big time and our explosive plays will come in bunches.
I was sooooo wrong. McVay attacked their corners to get the lead and stuck with mostly zone blocking and misdirection in the second half. Hey, they won so Sean was right. Still, I want to see more power running plays. Maybe he’s saving it for another game.
Where’s Brockers? The force of the Saints running game is up the gut where Westbrooks is too light to hold up and Ogletree isn’t the thumper to limit the damage and Barron isn’t cast to be much help either. I believe THIS WEEK, Brockers needs to man the middle on early downs and switch to his 5 tech DE on obvious passing downs. If not, Max zinger will make me return to the days when I screamed for the Rams to acquire either Alex Mack or Rodney Hudson when they came available. (That’s not to say I’m unhappy w Sully).
Yeah, it was a traditional set on the Kamara long run...but did anyone else notice both Donald and Brockers rotate to the nose? More work by Fox and very few snaps by Westbrooks. Wade took my suggestion and expanded it way beyond my thinking. Kudos
The Reynolds/Thomas debate starts here once again. With Woods out and others getting his game reps ... this is the game where we see McVay’s true evaluation of these guys. All we really need to do is count reps and targets (along with types of routes run). My belief? I think he trusts neither very much so Tavon, Pharoh, and Everett will see the action we’ve been hoping from these two. Personally, I want to see what they can do.
Winner, winner, chicken dinner...Reynolds is McVay’s choice over Thomas and even the other options to fill Woods’ shoes.
Finally, does McVay keep Goff in safe mode and stay the course (limit turnovers at all costs) or do we start to see him take more chances as he opens the offense a bit? If it’s a Goff/Brees shootout, does Jared get the green light to fire at will? I kinda wanna see that happen (but only if we win).
