Wild-card playoff preview: What the Rams must do to beat the Cardinals

[touchdownwire.usatoday.com] Wild-card playoff preview: What the Rams must do to beat the Cardinals


Doug Farrar
January 14, 2022 8:59 am ET
This season, both the Los Angeles Rams and the Arizona Cardinals started their seasons with 7-1 records, and both teams fell a bit from there. The Rams finished 12-5, the Cardinals finished 11-6, and when these two teams faced off in Week 14, it wasn’t just for NFC West bragging rights, or for the Rams’ potential revenge after losing 37-20 to Arizona in Week 4 — it was about potential postseason relevance.

Sean McVay’s team evened the score with a 30-23 win in which Matthew Stafford had a major rebound during a nasty stretch, Aaron Donald did his usual “Destroyer of Worlds” thing, and Cooper Kupp caught 13 passes on 15 targets for 123 yards and a touchdown. Kyler Murray threw no touchdown passes and two interceptions on 49 attempts, and were it not for a running game that was productive when it needed to be, this could have been a blowout in the Rams’ direction. This, by the way, was without Jalen Ramsey, who missed that game because he was on the Reserve/COVID list.

The Cardinals recovered their onside kick with 37 seconds left in the game, but Donald ended any threat of a tie or a win with an 18-yard sack of Murray to run out the clock, which is kind of how things went for Arizona all day.

If the Rams are going to take two of three against the Cards this season and advance to the divisional round, here’s what they’ll need to do.

Help Matthew Stafford stay within himself.

(Joe Nicholson-USA TODAY Sports)

The Rams traded Jared Goff, two first-round picks, and a third-round pick to the Lions this past offseason for the services of Matthew Stafford because Sean McVay was tired of dealing with Goff’s ceiling. And in the first half of the season — Weeks 1-9 — Stafford was the NFL’s most efficient quarterback. He completed 219 of 321 passes (68.2%) for 2,771 yards (8.6 YPA). 23 touchdowns, six interceptions, and a league-best passer rating of 111.0.

But since Week 10, Stafford has been anything but consistently efficient. He’s completed 185 of 280 passes (66.1%) for 2,115 yards (7.6 YPA), 18 touchdowns, a league-high 11 interceptions, and a passer rating of 93.7. Which goes to show that this passing game can still be pretty explosive even when the quarterback is throwing the ball where he shouldn’t a lot of the time.

Stafford’s best game in the second half of the season? Week 14 against the Cardinals. Arizona’s pass defense has been a major liability down the stretch, plummeting like Monty Python’s dead parrot from second in the NFL in pass defense DVOA in the first half of the season, and 28th in the second half. That declining defense allowed Stafford to complete 23 of 30 passes for 287 yards, three touchdowns, no interceptions, and a passer rating of 139.2.

But overall, Stafford has been a mess more often than not of late. Defenses are jumping all over his first reads, and this is a major component of his high volume of pick-sixes. He’s missing open receivers a lot, the deep passes have generally been an adventure, and the Rams REALLY miss Robert Woods in their passing game.

I’ve already detailed all of that here, so…

How the Rams can turn Matthew Stafford into more than a postseason liability

…McVay and Stafford had better hope for coverage breakdowns like they saw on this 51-yard touchdown pass to Van Jefferson in Week 14. Coverage allowed the score up the numbers, and had Stafford thrown the ball to Odell Beckham Jr. on the deep crosser, that would have been six (or close to it) as well.



McVay must scheme Stafford into favorable situations, and Arizona’s pass defense would like to be a little less helpful in that regard.