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By: Jake Gould | 1 hour ago
“It’s a copycat league.”
It’s the phrase you’ve overheard for years from broadcasters, players, coaches and fans when describing the NFL. But the football cliché has withstood the test of time (and will continue to do so for years) because it is as true as it is overused.
Sean McVay took the NFL by storm with his 2017 “worst-to-first” makeover of the Los Angeles Rams offense. How did league owners and executives respond? By making the young 33-year-old offensive wunderkind the poster boy for new head coaching hires.
And when the Los Angeles Rams went into Chicago last season for a Week 14 Sunday night game, then-Bears defensive coordinator Vic Fangio unveiled the blueprint to stifling the high-octane Rams offense through the air and on the ground: the 6-1 defense.
In a zone-blocking scheme, blockers are tasked to step in the direction of the play and get their near hip in front of the defender’s far hip to seal the edge. But it is difficult to expect all five offensive linemen to successfully “reach block” the man across from them when the defender has outside leverage – especially when dealing with speedy outside linebackers lined up in a “wide-nine technique” with the specific purpose of forcing runners to cut back inside.
So if I may, I’d like to drop another cliché – perhaps one that isn’t as restricted to the NFL.
“If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”
And if the tape shows that a 6-1 defense is truly McVay’s kryptonite, why on earth would opposing defensive coordinators ever abandon it?
Well, that’s because you can’t simply run a 6-1 all game without switching up some different looks. The Rams offense isn’t really “broken” either. But McVay certainly needs to consider fixing a few things here and there. This article breaks down the film of what is working and what isn’t working with the Rams offense through the first four games of the 2019 NFL season.
The good
WINDOW DRESSING
Integral to McVay’s offensive philosophy is “window dressing” everything to look the same. That means motioning guys back and forth with two, sometimes three play-fakes before running inside or outside zone, a jet sweep, a play action pass, a screen pass, a trap play to the wide receiver, etc.
But the widened edge defenders of a 6-1 defense takes away some outside zone opportunities. It is not that easy for an offensive line to beat slanting defensive linemen to the play side when the defense already has outside leverage in the direction of the play.
So, insert plays like “Toss Crack” for the Rams. It’s a nice addition to the offense that allows the Rams to use down blocks to replace pulling linemen.
Even though the Rams are primarily a zone blocking team, this does not mean they can’t run some trap blocking plays or toss crack/sweep plays that involve pulling offensive linemen. If teams continue to stack the defensive line with six-man fronts, McVay will have to answer with some creativity in the blocking schemes.
GETTING WIDE RECEIVERS INVOLVED IN RUN GAME
Rams are doing a great job of getting wide receivers involved in the running game.
Since the Rams are exclusively a one-back offense, McVay’s wrinkle in the run game involves a lot of motioned wide receivers getting the opportunity to carry the football on designed end-arounds, fly sweeps, and wide receiver trap plays.
As a team, the Rams are averaging 6.9 yards per carry on wide receiver running plays (not including the fly motion shovel pass, because that is actually a pass play) – which goes to show that they are doing well on these plays.
This doesn’t mean the Rams need to do it more. But they should continue to implement these plays as they already do, and maybe search for a few more nifty counters or reverses that defenses haven’t seen on tape before.
The bad
ABANDONING THE RUN
Just last year, Todd Gurley was an MVP candidate that fueled the Rams’ high-powered rushing attack. But a lot can change in a year.
It’s not as overblown as people like to say, but Todd Gurley’s mysterious knee injury has resulted in a noticeable decrease in his usage.
Every week since the opener, the Rams have carried the ball less than the previous week. Three weeks after Todd Gurley and Malcolm Brown collectively ran for 166 yards on 32 carries against Carolina in the opener, the duo combined for a minuscule 11 carries and 28 yards.
It didn’t help that the Rams fell to an early double-digit deficit in last week’s home game against the Buccaneers, but McVay has to get the running game going by any means necessary.
As is expected, 10 personnel formations with four wide receivers and no tight ends feature more passing than 12 personnel formations with two wide receivers and two tight ends.
Even in their base 11 personnel, the Rams are a pass-heavy team. There needs to be more of a commitment to the run game
But don’t let the lesser yards per carry in 12 personnel fool you. Seven carries is a small sample size. It can’t hurt to test the waters of the running game in 12 personnel.
CONSISTENT EXECUTION WITH PULLING
Remember that trap play to Woods from the Carolina game? The one that went for 20 yards?
Well yeah, the play is not always going to look like that. Look at that clip side by side with the clip from the loss to Tampa Bay attached above. When McVay tries to run the same exact play against Tampa Bay (only with Kupp) – multiple things going wrong.
- The two box defenders are not fooled by Goff’s fake toss to Gurley, therefore are not taken out of the framework of the play.
- Whitworth is losing at the point of attack, so Kupp is forced to lose more ground than he’s supposed to on the trap handoff.
- The unblocked edge defender for Tampa Bay (#94 Carl Nassib) is lined up much wider than is usually the case in a typical 4-3 Over front. This is probably as part of Tampa Bay’s strategy to eliminate outside-hitting stretch plays that the Rams love to do.
- Noteboom fails miserably in his job of pulling and kicking out Nassib.
- The Rams’ double team former teammate Ndamukong Suh with a “combo block” that fails to get up to the second level LB. As a result, the linebacker is able to fill in the hole and get in on the play.
- The play is a loss of 2 yards.
A solution to the 6-1?
MORE 12 PERSONNEL
There’s a reason Rich Hammond and Vinny Bonsignore over at The Athletic host an L.A. Rams podcast called “11 Personnel” – it’s because the Rams live and die in the set.
Lack of 2 TE sets from the #LARams has some to do w/ Higbee’s health.
But IMO, more “12” personnel (1 RB, 2 TE, 2 WR) would help combat the 6-1 defense that’s successfully limited LA’s big plays on edge.
Take my opinion for what its worth, but there’s at least one former Los Angeles Rams quarterback who agrees :
✔@Jim_Everett
https://twitter.com/Jim_Everett/status/1179549151761035265
"A Defensive coordinator that wants to throw 6-1 and double A gap blitzes, i’d go with 12 personnel, balance alignment and balance runs. Pass...slow block both TE, get wins outside use dump downs to non blocking TE."
Simply put, the Rams have to spice things up. Teams are starting to adjust to McVay’s offense. The third-year head coach doesn’t have to scrap his entire offensive philosophy when his team is still 3-1 with loads of talent on both sides of the ball.
But a few adjustments here and there can’t hurt.
Film room: Breaking down the good and bad of the Rams offense through 4 games
The Rams offense has sputtered this season, but it isn’t broken.
theramswire.usatoday.com
