Watch Out For The LA Rams

Watch Out For The LA Rams

Beware the slumbering giant who resides in Los Angeles.

When he wakes, there’s no telling what he could do to unsuspecting victims.

Over the last month, he has been stirring. But this week, a mere few days ago, I fear he fully woke up and is ready to wreak havoc.

No, I’m not talking about Diddy (or Jay-Z. 100 problems now).

I’m talking about the Los Angeles Rams, who now have virtually all of their key offensive contributors healthy and ready to give the NFC West a shake after beating the Bills in an instant classic.

Coming into the year the Rams always had a house of cards feeling to them, particularly offensively.

When healthy, with Cooper Kupp, Puka Nacua, Kyren Williams, Matthew Stafford and a significantly beefed up offensive line as the primary pieces the Rams were always going to be dangerous.

However, the rub was always that the words “if healthy” were doing more work than any two words in the English language outside of the word “delay” and “deny” for the New York CEO killer.

All of those guys came into the year with injury concerns or at the very least an injury history, and through the first two months of the season those concerns reared their ugly heads.

At the beginning of the year virtually nobody was healthy at the same time, and it meant that the offence struggled mightily.

For the first six weeks of the season, an offence quarterbacked by Matt Stafford and called by Sean McVay was 17th in EPA/play.

It was like if Batman was really trying to find his suit but couldn’t find one to work for him.

I’m imagining this as a cut scene in Batman Begins before he’s awesome.

He was putting on other suits that weren’t 100% right and he couldn’t do anything as well as he usually does.

He was a bit stiff and didn’t have all his weapons available to him, so it took an extra punch or two to incapacitate guys.

There were none of those bat star things and Christian Bale was grunting more than he wanted to, his voice was a little high.

However, as the boys have come back over the last month, everything has gotten better.

Stafford, one of the most talented passers of the ball finally has guys he can it to, and the offence is reaping the rewards.

Since Week 9, the week that both Kupp and Nacua started playing full games together consistently, the Rams are the sixth best dropback EPA team and the fifth best dropback success rate team.

If you isolate those numbers further, and confine them just to second halves and overtime, the Rams are the second-best offence in the league by EPA/play and third by success rate.

Since that game in New England, every time they have dropped back to pass in the second half or overtime they have generated half a point worth of value.

Now they’ve found the suit, Christian Bale has gone into the deeper Dark Knight voice, and they’re ready to smash The Joker, Riddler, and Penguin all at once.

A lot of this is a credit to McVay, who has consistently been able to adjust more effectively at half-time and find creases in the defence for his guys to exploit.

Take the run game for example.

It was never meant to be explosive for the Rams given Kyren Williams’ plodding nature as a runner, but the beef up front has meant that he is consistently able to get what’s blocked for him.

They’re a top-10 offence by rushing success rate because of that.

That persistence and success has given McVay the ability to go back to a more under centre play-action heavy approach rather than putting Stafford in the gun and having him sling bombs around like he’s Dan Fouts.

He can do that, but this approach to offence is making life easier on his quarterback while also making those empty looks more manageable.

The Week 13 game against Buffalo was this offence’s most dramatic statement of intent for the year.

Matt Stafford generated over 27 points on his own, a 99th percentile performance on the season as he fit balls into tight windows consistently.

On late downs he was particularly money throwing it to Kupp, Nacua and even Tutu Atwell, generating 1.31 points worth of value just on third and fourth down on 13 dropbacks.

The Rams had a 52% success rate in the game which would lead the league by 2% on the season.

However, like I said at the top, if healthy we expected the offence to be good.

After Aaron Donald’s retirement, the defence was much more of a mystery.

Coming into the season, the Rams were the second youngest and second cheapest team in the NFL despite being built around expensive 30-somethings in Matt Stafford and Cooper Kupp as well as a veteran offensive line.

The Rams are spending $30m less than anyone else on defence.

That’s the difference between the second cheapest defence and the 11th most expensive, which is shown in the player breakdown. The Rams lead the league in in snaps played by rookies and are getting the second most snaps out of players on their rookie contracts.

By snap-weighted age, the Rams are the seventh youngest defence in the NFL (the Les Snead “F them picks” thing is one of the great lies).

On the whole, Chris Shula’s defence has been as poor as expected given the above numbers.

They are the second worst defence in the league by EPA but in one specific area they’re elite.

Built around rookies from FSU Jared Verse and Braden Fiske, the Rams are a dominant defensive line as they lead the NFL in hurry percentage despite being 15th in blitz percentage.

The defensive line is like casting Glenn Powell, great now and a super duper star in the near future.

Verse, especially, has been a revelation as he has consistently wrecked games on the way to a possible Defensive Rookie of the Year gong.

If you have an elite offence and a young, dominant defensive line that can be enough to make some serious noise in the NFL.

Over the last month, the Rams are 3-1 and have hauled themselves back up to 7-6, sitting just a game behind the Cardinals in the division and a game behind the Commanders in the wildcard race.

They got hot at the end of the season last year, finishing 7-1 on the way to a classic playoff loss to the Lions.

If they do it again, and they’re on their way, the Rams are a threat to shake up the NFC’s big three of Philadelphia, Detroit and Green Bay.