The first week of the NFL season is almost in the books, and while teams like the Rams and Chargers seem to be living up to their preseason hype, others—like the Packers and Titans—have a lot left to prove.
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Sean McVay and Matthew Stafford
Three plays. That’s all Matthew Stafford needed to justify the
steep price the Rams paid to get him from the Lions this offseason. On the third play of Los Angeles’s opening drive, Sean McVay dialed up a call that only a handful of quarterbacks can execute. After a quick play-fake, Stafford rolled to his left, planted his feet, and launched the ball 53 yards to an open Van Jefferson for a score.
McVay had been waiting all offseason to call that play. But dialing up deep shots has never been a problem for the Rams coach—not even with Jared Goff under center. The benefit of having Stafford, though, became more apparent as the game progressed. Without having to worry about holding his quarterback’s hand, McVay could call plays without fear of falling behind the chains and getting stuck in obvious passing situations. Those situations always gave Goff problems; on Sunday night, they elevated Stafford. The Rams’ new signal-caller averaged 0.76 expected points added on third down with a 60 percent first-down rate,
per RBSDM.com. Both of those marks would have led the NFL last season.
Stafford wasn’t just good on third downs, though. He made it look easy throughout the game, completing 20 of his 26 attempts for 321 yards and three scores in the 34-14 win. It’s fitting that Stafford’s first game came against the Bears,
the team that provided the NFL with a blueprint for how to slow the Goff-led Rams late in the 2018 season. That defense was coordinated by Vic Fangio, who’s now in Denver, but Chicago still runs the same scheme. And, as it had in past meetings, the Bears defense was able to slow the Rams’ run game on first and second down. That used to be enough to derail McVay’s offense. Not anymore.
McVay was able to call more dropback passes on early downs, knowing that Stafford would, at the very least, avoid disastrous mistakes—something the previous Rams quarterback couldn’t always be counted on to do. And Stafford did much more than that. His second deep touchdown of the night came on a play we rarely saw during the Goff era in Los Angeles. On a first-and-10 early in the third quarter, the Bears were playing a variation of the Cover 6 that had given Goff issues whenever he went up against Chicago. It’s a pattern-matching coverage that adapts based on the routes run by the receivers. Goff always had trouble figuring out what exactly he was looking at. But it didn’t trouble Stafford.
Stafford wanted to hit Cooper Kupp on the deep post, but he knew he had to look off the safety in order to open up a window for the throw. By the time the ball was in the air, the pass looked like one that any NFL starter could make—but Stafford created the easy play for himself. Goff isn’t making that throw, and I’m not sure McVay would’ve trusted him enough to call the play in that situation.
I’m not ready to declare the Rams legitimate Super Bowl contenders just yet. After the departure of defensive coordinator Brandon Staley, it remains to be seen how this defense—which was fourth in DVOA last season—will fare against teams not quarterbacked by Andy Dalton. But the offseason hype surrounding the McVay-Stafford partnership appears to be warranted. And if these two keep producing like this, it might not matter whether the defense takes a step back.
