Five Takeaways from the Rams' Victory over the 49ers

Five Takeaways from the Rams' Victory over the 49ers

Myles Simmons

Los Angeles won its first divisional matchup of the year on Thursday night, outlasting San Francisco 41-39 on Thursday Night Football. With plenty to go over, here are five takeaways from the victory that made the Rams 2-1.

1) Excellent offense

Despite the short week, Los Angeles looked prepared and confident throughout the game on offense. The Rams racked up 418 total yards — the first time the club has eclipsed 400 yards since 2014. The club has now scored 107 points through the first three games, which is a far cry from the 46 it had at this point last year.

“Credit goes to the players for being able to execute and being able to maintain some drives and put up some points,” head coach Sean McVay said postgame.

“We had a short week so we only had so long to game plan,” quarterback Jared Goff said. “We have so much variety in our offense and so much stuff that we do, that we can mix and match and dress up in different ways.


“So I think that’s the main thing we tried to do, is run stuff that we know we’re good at and run stuff that we know we’re comfortable with, but maybe make it look like something else. But at the same time, if we can run the ball like that, it’s tough to beat.”

Additionally, the Rams hadn’t scored at least 40 points in two games since 2006. Now they’ve done it two of their first three times out.

There’s still improvements to be made, for sure, but L.A. has clearly made significant progress under McVay.

2) Goff looks the part

Within those 418 yards and 41 points were a number of strong individual offensive performances, one being quarterback Jared Goff.

Last year’s No. 1 overall pick finished 22/28 passing for 292 yards with three touchdowns. That works out to 10.4 yards per attempt and a 145.8 passer rating. A perfect passer rating is 158.3.

“I think he did a lot of really good things. I thought he distributed the ball well. I thought in crunch time, some of the third down conversions he made were really exciting,” McVay said Friday. “Anytime that you go 22-for-28 you feel pretty good, taking care of the football and then again, no sacks, huge credit to the offensive line, so can’t say enough about what those guys did yesterday as well.”

Through three games, Goff has looked like a player who spent a lot of time working to improve during the offseason. He’s completed 70.4 percent of his passes for 817 yards with five touchdowns and one interception. He’s averaging 10.1 yards per attempt, 14.3 yards per completion, and owns a passer rating of 118.2

“What’s crazy is how much he humbled himself and just went to work,” offensive lineman Rodger Saffold said. “After that he started trusting us — trusting the guys in front of him. I mean there’s going to be battles, there’s going to be technique off here and there, but to be able to sit in the pocket and throw whenever you have somebody barreling at you or if you have somebody right in your face, that’s what makes the difference. He is just gradually becoming the quarterback that we want him to be and the way that he’s supposed to be.”

Read Complete Article
[www.therams.com]