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I'm in no way slamming McVay, but like any offensive play caller he has some warts. He himself is being self critical on this as well.

I understand that McVay is aggressive, and that is much of the reason of our success. I just think there is a time to dial back that aggressiveness. With how successful they had been running the ball, and forgetting about the actual details of the play, but rather the actual play call, in that situation I think you should dial it back a bit. JMHO

Yeah being "aggressive" on every play regardless of situation is just as dogmatic as being "conservative" on every play.

The best play callers have a good situational awareness.

McVay himself directly comments on that and on how he should develop a finer sense of situational awareness which you can do without being less aggressive overall.

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Those are the things that, hopefully, you get better with and you learn from experience. But the aggressive nature in which we operate and try to attack people, I’ll never apologize for that. It’s more of the situational awareness

The way I read that, he's basically saying that the 2 things---being aggressive, situational awarenss--don't contradict one another.



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I agree with this over all.

Above, I stated to err is human and that I'd rather err on the aggressive side. But I also understand we're searching for perfection, and if not that, at least improvement. And I realize that he can improve as a play caller.

However, on that particular sequence it was still the 3rd quarter. If McVay feels he needs to dial it back that early, I'm gonna have to disagree with the coach. I've seen too many teams be burned by dialing anything back in the 3rd.

My vote is that they play their normal game until some point in the 4th.

Well the one I am talking about is the 4th quarter .

[www.pro-football-reference.com]

4 11:02 3 3 DEN 19 Jared Goff sacked by Bradley Chubb for -10 yards
4 10:19 4 13 DEN 29 Cairo Santos 47 yard field goal no good

Rams are up 20-10 at that point

So to list the factors again which I count heavily here:

1. they are in FG range on the 3rd and 3...or at least pretty comfortable FG range, a 37 yarder
2. Denver was already hitting on a 12.5% sack percentage, which if ranked across 6 games would be the best in the league (or, from the Rams side, the worst). This is the team with Von Miller of course.
3. Denver was playing pass first. They were pass rushing and covering and downplaying the run to the point of ignoring play action.
4. Gurley was having a day.
5. Even if a run gets nothing it's still better FG range and you don't have GZ.
6. a FG puts you up by 13 with 10 minutes left in the 4th.

There's being aggressive and then there's stopping for a sec and noticing the situation.

By taking the sack and so missing the FG, you risk the possibility that Denver can get back in the game. A 10 point lead at that point meant the Rams needed to score again to win. A 13 point lead at that point lessens Denver's chance to get back in it (In fact the margin of victory was 3 points, though that's hindsight.)