Rams PFF grades: Best and worst performers in Week 15 win vs. Lions

[DzRams]

Shelton played well.

And that is reflected in their 73.7 rating for Shelton.

 

[Ballhawk]

Yeah, ma

Ehhh Forbes had a few good games but he played like this early on as well. That’s why you wait for a larger sample size of games before deciding to give someone a big contract.

Makes you wonder if he's playing with an injury?

 

[WestCoastRam]

We're ranked 24th in pass blocking at 61.7.

Wow, I wonder if they're just ranking it from pure pass sets and not play-action - I would not have guessed that low at all from watching this season.

Makes you wonder that this could be the achilles heel of the offense, I don't have stats in front of me but we gotta be top of league keeping out of 3rd down and keeping out of 3rd and long. (We were 2 of 9 or something on 3rd against the Lions btw but went for it a lot on 4th down.)

If a team can get us to 3rd more often and 3rd and long more often the offense could have a bad time (this is true of most teams).

 

[DzRams]

Yeah, ma

Makes you wonder if he's playing with an injury?

I doubt it.

He's had rapid growth this year, we should be patient. Starting week 6 he had a string of 6 games where he played as well as any CB in the league, based on multiple metrics.

Before that and the 3 games after that, he's had some rough games.

That's to be expected IMO. This is a guy who had a lot of potential as the 16th pick, then failed miserably and was cut after 1.5 years, completely lost all of his confidence and had to be rebuilt by the Rams coaching. Then he's been tossed into the deep end and is being baptized by fire. Ups and downs are to be expected.

The solid 6 games stretch shows great promise. That's more than a flash. The potential is there, now we just need to see consistency.

 

[WestCoastRam]

I doubt it.

He's had rapid growth this year, we should be patient. Starting week 6 he had a string of 6 games where he played as well as any CB in the league, based on multiple metrics.

Before that and the 3 games after that, he's had some rough games.

That's to be expected IMO. This is a guy who had a lot of potential as the 16th pick, then failed miserably and was cut after 1.5 years, completely lost all of his confidence and had to be rebuilt by the Rams coaching. Then he's been tossed into the deep end and is being baptized by fire. Ups and downs are to be expected.

The solid 6 games stretch shows great promise. That's more than a flash. The potential is there, now we just need to see consistency.

Sure looks like he was getting a bit greedy with his chances on pass breakups (most being successful in that 6 game run!) and then when he got burned a bunch of times a few games ago he's been playing timid since.

 

[DzRams]

Wow, I wonder if they're just ranking it from pure pass sets and not play-action - I would not have guessed that low at all from watching this season.

Makes you wonder that this could be the achilles heel of the offense, I don't have stats in front of me but we gotta be top of league keeping out of 3rd down and keeping out of 3rd and long. (We were 2 of 9 or something on 3rd against the Lions btw but went for it a lot on 4th down.)

If a team can get us to 3rd more often and 3rd and long more often the offense could have a bad time (this is true of most teams).

This is over the entire season. They struggled the first 4 games of the season and in week 11 against Seattle. Those weeks bring down the season rating, but eyeballing it, they've been a top 10 pass blocking OL since the bye. The only bad game was against Seattle.

I don't think the pass pro will be the team achilles heel because we have the best QB in the league against pressure.

To your point, since we're so good at run blocking, we've successfully avoided 3rd and longs. I saw a stat stating that we've been by far the best team in success rate per down.

 

[WestCoastRam]

This is over the entire season. They struggled the first 4 games of the season and in week 11 against Seattle. Those weeks bring down the season rating, but eyeballing it, they've been a top 10 pass blocking OL since the bye. The only bad game was against Seattle.

I don't think the pass pro will be the team achilles heel because we have the best QB in the league against pressure.

To your point, since we're so good at run blocking, we've successfully avoided 3rd and longs. I saw a stat stating that we've been by far the best team in success rate per down.

God yeah, the 1st four games seems so long ago

 

[DzRams]

Sure looks like he was getting a bit greedy with his chances on pass breakups (most being successful in that 6 game run!) and then when he got burned a bunch of times a few games ago he's been playing timid since.

Yeah, I don't know if that's from inexperience or from a bit of a gambling nature. We'll see.

I'm hoping to see the same trajectory of improvement we've already seen. It would be huge for our secondary if we do.

 

[majrleaged]

I like looking at PFF each week to get some kind of perspective. But I take into consideration that there are a few flaws. Mainly need to look at the ones who played the most minutes to get a firmer grasp. They rate the players who made an impact with a few snaps pretty high and those that made no impact with a few snaps pretty low. Who knows what they bring if they were on the field more. Also Landman isn't in there. Dude had 10 tackles plus at least one pressure. Is he somewhere between Young and Wallace? A 65-68? Maybe. I think I saw him miss 1 tackle.

Did you see Landman chase down 14 on the 50 yard play down the sideline? Has more speed than we think.

 

[Merlin]

For example, overall run blocking as a team we have a super elite 89.5 rating, which is good for a #1 ranking.

Yeah it's fuckin weird how strong this run game is, being used to McVay's offenses and all. Usually we open that run game by throwing. But this year's group they can dictate that shit early downs and trivialize short yardages at times as well.

Also the pass blocking rating doesn't surprise me. But it does potentially affect our old pocket QB if and when the run game gets shut down. Stafford doesn't need all that much time to kill opponents, but it would be nice to see the pass pro improve a bit over these games on the sched in tune-up for the playoffs.

 

[LARAMSinFeb.]

This is over the entire season. They struggled the first 4 games of the season and in week 11 against Seattle. Those weeks bring down the season rating, but eyeballing it, they've been a top 10 pass blocking OL since the bye. The only bad game was against Seattle.

Pre-Avila was rough. Dotson was also playing through something for awhile.

 

[DzRams]

Yeah it's fuckin weird how strong this run game is, being used to McVay's offenses and all. Usually we open that run game by throwing. But this year's group they can dictate that shit early downs and trivialize short yardages at times as well.

Also the pass blocking rating doesn't surprise me. But it does potentially affect our old pocket QB if and when the run game gets shut down. Stafford doesn't need all that much time to kill opponents, but it would be nice to see the pass pro improve a bit over these games on the sched in tune-up for the playoffs.

Yeah, I think this team can run on anybody, even defenses that are great at stopping the run.

All of our O'linemen are better run blockers than pass protectors. In previous years, we've had a mix where some of the O'linemen were better pass protectors than run blockers, and some were vice versa.

Early in the season, when the pass protection was bad, I stated that they needed to remake the OL in the offseason to have more of a balance and focus more on pass pro. But I think I was wrong on that.

Now I suspect that they've been really intentional with the makeup of the OL being better run blockers. Yes, we want to protect our 37-year-old QB, but on the other hand, he's the #1 QB in the league at handling pressure. If you form a dominant run blocking unit and focus more on play action, that protects the longevity of our QB more than anything else, especially since they are also decent at pass protection.

My only concern is the great defenses like Seattle. As you said, it would be good to see some pass pro improvement against them.

 

[Merlin]

MacDonald is gonna be a problem in Seattle for us. He's a much stronger counter to McVay than Peteyboy was.

I mean imagine coming in to Arizona in the offseason to take over their program and looking at these coaches in this division. Shit is rough as hell man. Arizona is going to have a hell of a time finding a coach who can play in this sandbox.

 

[I like Rams]

Did you see Landman chase down 14 on the 50 yard play down the sideline? Has more speed than we think.

It's prob the lion tattoo.