McVay’s history shows Rams can’t afford to be pass-happy on offense

McVay’s history shows Rams can’t afford to be pass-happy on offense

By Rich Hammond

OAKLAND >> Coach Sean McVay is a quarterbacks guru who loves tight-end mismatches and now gets to plan with receiver Sammy Watkins. But don’t forget the Rams’ running backs. McVay should not.

The Rams have Todd Gurley, who underachieved badly in 2016 but seems poised for a bounce-back season after a strong training camp. McVay, the Rams’ rookie coach and their play-caller, might be tempted to throw the ball a lot, but his recent history suggests that the ground game works.

McVay’s second preseason game as a head coach takes place today, when the Rams play at Oakland. Last week against Dallas, the Rams totaled 33 pass plays and 28 run plays.

“When you put together any offensive system,” Rams running backs coach Skip Peete said this week, “you try to have some form of balance, with the run and the pass. When you go back and look at Coach’s history, as far as his time in Washington when he was calling plays, that’s what he did. There was a balance between the run and pass.”

Sometimes, yes.

McVay called plays last season as Washington’s offensive coordinator. In the team’s eight victories, it ran the ball on 47.2 percent of its plays. In seven losses, Washington ran on only 29.1 percent of its plays.

Washington ran the ball more as the 2016 season progressed, but in total, the team passed on 61.6 percent of its plays, the seventh-highest average in the NFL last season. Washington averaged 24.8 points per game, only the 12th-highest average in the league.

Will that change with the Rams? They have a second-year quarterback in Jared Goff, and they don’t know exactly what to expect from Gurley or from an offensive line that seems upgraded but struggled badly last season in pass and run blocking, as the Rams compiled some of the NFL’s worst offensive stats.

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