Stafford concerns have come full circle after the Vikings game

[Loyal]

The experts are making Rams wins barely more enjoyable than a losses. Rams have won 11 games and still they talk shyte about our team. Screw them to death.

 

[The Ramowl]

Regarding the INT in our 20 against the Vikings : how about we don't play empty set on 2nd and 10 in that area? Sounds to me like a good start.

 

[TexasRam]

As a long time lions fan who has also followed Stafford after coming aboard the rams.. I feel like I have a decent sense of his game. He's always been a bit streaky, but I do think it's been extra hot and cold this year.

I think Stafford's turnovers and accuracy issues at times is a combination of not being as comfortable in the offense, along with the moving pieces around him. My concern is growing with Odell Beckham.. I think his route running has been all over the place, and Stafford is never sure where he is going to be. Most of his bad throws have been targeting him and Jefferson. Stafford has always forced the issue to get the ball down the field. That will continue. But sometimes I think he is waiting for guys to break.. and when they don't.. he hesitates and his clock starts to race. It's not necessarily all on the wrs.. but it seems like they aren't seeing the same thing. It's like the opposite of Kupp. Rarely has Stafford badly missed him.. because the anticipation and trust are there. I don't think the same thing can be said of Beckham and Jefferson. Robert woods was such a big loss.. and in this complicated offense with tons of options.. throwing in a revolving door of backs and wrs just doesn't make it easy.

Stafford was consistently out of synch with Woods before he went down. Constantly throwing behind below and over him. Your bordering revisionist history here.

Further, Stafford is more consistent with Kupp but if you watch closely, even last game but any for that matter Kupp is constantly catching bad passes by Stafford. Stafford just isn’t a pinpoint accurate thrower like Goff. For those fans that try to deny that I don’t know what to say. It’s in film every week with the exception of the Cards game where he was pinpoint accurate all game.

 

[Ramlock]

Lol yea...

The Vikings beat the Packers in Minnesota. Beat down Seattle. Should have beaten Arizona. Took Cincy to OT.

We were up by 10 with 2 minutes to play.

No other team has been up by two scores against Minnesota with two minutes to play.

Their worst defeat is technically the Niners - but the Vikings cut the deficit to 5 points with 4 minutes left.

So in a way we handed the Vikings their worst defeat of the season, or at least tied with their Niners loss.

They've played the Rams, Cardinals, Niners, Cowboys, Packers, Ravens, Bengals, Browns, Steelers - 9 teams currently .500 or better.

And we did this despite Stafford having arguably his worst game. On the road, a game the Vikings had to win, on a short week.

Will we need Stafford to play better to beat the better NFC teams? Sure. But having AD and Ramsey do give us some room for error

Super post

 

[Ramlock]

I'd say each "pick 6" is its own animal,,, and if an INT is returned for a touchdown or not isn't always the result of what the QB did or didnt do.

The pick 6 against the Titans - the dude came off his man to jump another route. Was a bad throw - id give that one as being mostly on stafford.

The Pick 6 against Green Bay - Was mostly a great play by douglas to jump inside on kupp.... ill still give most of the blame to stafford as the ball placement wasnt ideal.

The pick 6 against the 49ners? Not putting that one on stafford - was a decently placed screen pass that higbee muffed.

Turnovers inside the 10 id say are more what needs to be addressed - those cant happen. But 2 of those 3 were a result of protection breaking down.

they could start by running the football inside their own red area

 

[TexasRam]

Jared Goff needed a little more Matt Stafford in his game. Matt Stafford needs a little more of Jared Goff in his game. Matt needs to take what defenses are giving. Goff needed to take more shots down field. But here is the thing, Goff threw interceptions even with that tendency. Stafford is throwing INT's too but he's throwing a lot more TD's. And the Rams are scoring more points.

Agreed except the last point. The Stafford Rams are not scoring more points than the 2017 or 2018 Goff lead Rams. That team lead the league over 35+ games averaging 33 pts per game. This Stafford averages 27.7 pts per game. It is no where near the juggernaut the 2017-2018 team was.

The major difference is the 2017-2018 teams had Sullivan and Saffold who were superior run blockers so Mcvay opted for goaline TD’s way more often. Not to mention Gurley’s ability. This current Oline is a better pass blocking line thus the goaline throws. The end result of the 2021 team is less offense by nearly a TD a game. These stats don’t even touch on Kip’s injuries in 2018 or analyzing the depleted secondaries faced this year which is a conversation in itself.

If you want to compare 2021 to 2019-2020 then yes, more points are scored now, but those are the depleted Online years which is a whole big argument in themselves.

Having said that, if Stafford can play more Jekyll and less Hyde in the playoffs and show what he did vs the Cardinals 2nd game then we will be going deep.

 

[Kupped]

You took the words right out of my mouth. Missing Woods has been a huge blow to Stafford. Woods was a reliable target, always where he should be and if you noticed he was often Stafford’s outlet receiver when the deeper plays weren’t there or Stafford had to hurry.

Beckham is not fully integrated in this offense. There is no way he’s learned it in a few weeks. Same for Skowronek. I’m disappointed that Van Jefferson still struggles with routes but he was forced to learn Woods position so I guess he gets a pass.


See above. Woods loss was huge.

Agreed. What are they supposed to do? They write for a living. It can’t be easy to come up with stuff to write about.

The pick six against the titans was a pass to Woods.. against the pack it was to Kupp.. the deep ints were both bad throws.. he got hit as he let the long one against Minny go.
The first Int against Minny was just ridiculous.

I can see blaming that kind of stuff for lack of production.. but not for turnovers, except when we see complete route miscommunication.

The inconsistencies I've seen in Stafford seem to have much more to do with awareness and decision making than rhythm and fit.

When he's on, it's sooooo much fun. When he's not? Anything bad can happen. And the sheer volume of turnovers deep in the Rams own territory this year should concern any reasonable fan.

Does that mean I don't like Stafford? No. Do I want Goff back? No. Do I think it was a bad trade? No. Do I think the Rams can win a Super Bowl with Stafford? Yes. Do I think he can play multiple clean games in high pressure situations to get to a Super Bowl? Remains to be seen.

 

[Loyal]

A 2nd Stafford thread? Cant this just be merged?

NO ~ football gods

 

[Loyal]

.

this is an interesting discussion where every point brought up on this site gets a run. i think mark sanchez is a better talking head than he was a qb.



.

the other two just piss me off!

 

[Kupped]

Correct.
I think fans need to realize Stafford is a Brett farve type of QB. A gun slinger if you will. He's gonna have a ton of TDs but he's also gonna take chances so he's gonna have INTs.
36 TDs
13 INTS
And we still have two games to go. So he's on pace for 40+ TDs and 15 INTs. I'll take that every single year.

When I think of "gunslinger".. especially in the context of... "he's a gunslinger.. so he'll throw some interceptions.." I think of a guy forcing passes in high-risk, high-reward situations and just letting it loose.

That's not the kind of stuff that bothers me.. and is also not what I'm seeing.

I'm seeing bad ints on bad decisions and bad throws deep in the Rams own territory. And some weird-ass throws too.. like both interceptions Diggs got off him.. weird shit.

IN ADDITION to that... we get games like the Arizona performance where he had multiple.. jaw-dropping, beautiful throws made from excellent decisions.

So, what bothers me, isn't just interceptions.. it's that he can look like two completely different QBs in different games.. the variance is wild.

 

[oldnotdead]

Wins and losses aren't totally the responsibility of bad play by the QB. Does Stafford bear some culpability? Yes, but this is a team game. As we saw on Sunday, this team can overcome mistakes by Stafford, but it requires other units of the game to step up. In the losses, especially with the first game to AZ, Morris had more culpability than Stafford. He played his bend and break idiotic soft zone and allowed the Cards to control the game. His defense allowed the Cards to run for almost 200 yds and Kyler to pass for 265 yds. Morris allowed the Cards to control the game by controlling the clock.

In the second game, the Rams almost halved the Cards running yds compared to the first game. The TOP was pretty even. Morris played his secondary aggressively getting 2 INTs. He frustrated Kyler by taking away many of his quick first reads making him force throws. What I'm illustrating is that McVay's playcalling offensively, and how Morris plays his scheme have a lot to do with the outcome. Once Morris started getting aggressive with his scheme the defense went from 21st to 16th in the NFL. If he quits going soft, this could be a top 10 unit, i.e. Morris has playmakers and he needs to put them into a position to make plays.

 

[Ramlock]

It's like the opposite of Kupp. Rarely has Stafford badly missed him.. because the anticipation and trust are there. I don't think the same thing can be said of Beckham and Jefferson. Robert woods was such a big loss.. and in this complicated offense with tons of options.. throwing in a revolving door of backs and wrs just doesn't make it easy.

Nice post

Acho and the chick in the vid with Sanchez give me a headache…every trope is trotted out and it sucks.

Cant trust Stafford? He beat his first team 5 games over .500 in AZ. He can do it with no fucking practice and the Covid backups.

Just stop it!

 

[Ramlock]

Stafford was consistently out of synch with Woods before he went down. Constantly throwing behind below and over him. Your bordering revisionist

Disagree with this take. Would have been nice to have more Woods to see how consistent it really was.

Matthew Stafford, Robert Woods' Connection Showed Signs of Improvement Thursday Night

Robert Woods capped off his best game of the 2021 campaign Thursday Night over the Seahawks.

www.si.com

12 catches, 14 targets, 150 yards…

Robert Woods discusses Jared Goff's departure, forging relationship with Matthew Stafford

www.nfl.com

Matthew Stafford says thumb is fine, Robert Woods gets going in Los Angeles Rams' offense

Stafford gave the Rams a scare but overcame it to set a season-high for passing yards, many of which went to Woods in a breakout game for the veteran.

www.espn.com

 

[Merlin]

Nice post

Acho and the chick in the vid with Sanchez give me a headache…every trope is trotted out and it sucks.

Cant trust Stafford? He beat his first team 5 games over .500 in AZ. He can do it with no fucking practice and the Covid backups.

Just stop it!

There's a lot of folks in the media that don't know shit. Prior to this season it was "can Stafford win games?" As ridiculous as that sounds now we had some folks here on this board trot that out there as some metric he needed to prove after being in Detroit.

Now they've simply moved on to the next hurdle they can overnuke and share their shitty insights with. Next will be "can he win a playoff game?" Then "can he get the team to the Super Bowl" followed by "can he win a Super Bowl." Nothing would be finer than seeing him shove that shit up their asses with a string of clutch performances and hoisting that Lombardi.

 

[Elmgrovegnome]

The pick six against the titans was a pass to Woods.. against the pack it was to Kupp.. the deep ints were both bad throws.. he got hit as he let the long one against Minny go.
The first Int against Minny was just ridiculous.

I can see blaming that kind of stuff for lack of production.. but not for turnovers, except when we see complete route miscommunication.

The inconsistencies I've seen in Stafford seem to have much more to do with awareness and decision making than rhythm and fit.

When he's on, it's sooooo much fun. When he's not? Anything bad can happen. And the sheer volume of turnovers deep in the Rams own territory this year should concern any reasonable fan.

Does that mean I don't like Stafford? No. Do I want Goff back? No. Do I think it was a bad trade? No. Do I think the Rams can win a Super Bowl with Stafford? Yes. Do I think he can play multiple clean games in high pressure situations to get to a Super Bowl? Remains to be seen.

Int’s backed up to the end zone are different than the rest of them because of the pressure. I’m not taking blame away from Stafford. Some of those throws were really bad. No Ram could have caught them. But as he’s still new to this offense himself, it is very important that everyone is where they are supposed to be. Some of his Int’s clearly look to be miscommunication, or a receiver running the route wrong.

I still think losing Woods was a much bigger loss than many. Woods has been in this offense since McVay arrived. There is no way OBJ nor Jefferson can duplicate that level of expertise in a month.

It’s no coincidence that Stafford and Kupp shot out of the gate after the extensive summer practices and film study they did together.

 

[Kupped]

Wins and losses aren't totally the responsibility of bad play by the QB. Does Stafford bear some culpability? Yes, but this is a team game. As we saw on Sunday, this team can overcome mistakes by Stafford, but it requires other units of the game to step up. In the losses, especially with the first game to AZ, Morris had more culpability than Stafford. He played his bend and break idiotic soft zone and allowed the Cards to control the game. His defense allowed the Cards to run for almost 200 yds and Kyler to pass for 265 yds. Morris allowed the Cards to control the game by controlling the clock.

In the second game, the Rams almost halved the Cards running yds compared to the first game. The TOP was pretty even. Morris played his secondary aggressively getting 2 INTs. He frustrated Kyler by taking away many of his quick first reads making him force throws. What I'm illustrating is that McVay's playcalling offensively, and how Morris plays his scheme have a lot to do with the outcome. Once Morris started getting aggressive with his scheme the defense went from 21st to 16th in the NFL. If he quits going soft, this could be a top 10 unit, i.e. Morris has playmakers and he needs to put them into a position to make plays.

Broken record.
Yeah.... defense didn't do enough in the AZ game, for sure.
Similar to Buffalo game last year, except the offense made a game of that one.
Know what the biggest difference was between the two games? Turnovers.
And.. aggressive secondary? Ernest Jones and Floyd got the ints.. so.. um.
You can't always count on the other team turning the ball over.. but you can take care of the ball when you have it.. and that's one of the main reasons the Rams won the second AZ game.

The Rams D is a top ten unit in multiple metrics.. and yes, does keep getting better and tighter on the back end as it grows.
Morris has coached them all season to get to this point.

 

[Merlin]

I would like to see Stafford reduce maybe a quarter to a third of those bad/hero type decisions. Turn those into incompletions and we punt the ball and play field position. That's all we need in the playoffs. If that happens Rams will be an enormously tough out for anyone they play.

 

[oldnotdead]

Last year Brady threw 12 INTS and 11 INTs so far this year.

Sanchez was a QB and understands the dynamic of the position. The other guy is a clown and the bitch is just stupid.

Stafford has always thrown a lot of INTs. Why? Because he's a gunslinger and playing soft is not his nature. Troy Aikman was also a gunslinger and only threw single digit INTs in 3 seasons over his entire career. Funny how these two ragging Stafford are ignorant of that. Matt is in a completely different system that is very complex. It requires a high degree of being in sync with his receivers. He is with Kupp but not with OBJ and Jefferson. That will change as he understands how they read the coverage. Sanchez knows that and the other two are clueless. They need to watch Baldy's breakdown of Kupp to understand just how complex McVay's offense is and why the QB and the receivers all need to be in sync to make it work.

 

[Ellard80]

Stafford was consistently out of synch with Woods before he went down. Constantly throwing behind below and over him. Your bordering revisionist history here.

Further, Stafford is more consistent with Kupp but if you watch closely, even last game but any for that matter Kupp is constantly catching bad passes by Stafford. Stafford just isn’t a pinpoint accurate thrower like Goff. For those fans that try to deny that I don’t know what to say. It’s in film every week with the exception of the Cards game where he was pinpoint accurate all game.

You lost me at Jared Goff was a pin point thrower.... At times he definitely could and can be - but he got worse and worse over the past couple years, and not always the result of pressure or any other excuse. Goff has plus accuracy on short passes but chunk type throws he has declined greatly.

His completion percentage has been very high the past two years because he throws mostly 3-5 yard passes.

Stafford defintely could be more accurate - but Goff could never hit anything consistently down the field for the last few years.

 

[Loyal]

I don't get the bickering concerning our franchise QB.... To those who bag on him, he's not reading this site, but even if he was, he's not listening to fans as tp how he should improve his game (nor should he). He's the most talented QB we've had since Warner and our management has hitched the wagon to him. How about we hope good things for him and the team, instead of shredding him after every interception? Mistakes happen, lets fucking move on. JMHO.