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Rams43
Here’s Mojo Ram...
I think this is something McV has been focused on this season. We've all watched this offense. It is more short to medium area focused in the pass game. It's more ball control and dictating the pace of the game than before. Quite a bit of high percentage stuff. The shift from 11 to 12 personnel late last season into this season, the defensive improvement this season...
I've looked at the average T.O.P. numbers since 2017. Here they are excluding overtime:
2017
29:39 (21st)
2018
30:46 (8th)
2019
29:00 (22nd)
2020
31:59 (3rd)
Three minutes per game improvement is HUGE when looking at T.O.P. That's a result of a defense that can get off the field and an offense that can sustain drives and/or have more possessions per game i'd suspect(i haven't looked at that).
I've read where (some)fans have been critical and a bit disappointed in the style of the Rams offense this year.
No deep game, safe throws, far less quick strike scoring, less chunk plays etc. Is McVay protecting Goff etc. Lack of a deep speed WR etc.
It could be some of that stuff i guess...but i'd be willing to bet that once McV got a feel for what his defense can do, he realized that longer, more deliberate drives gives Goff and company a better chance at finding that game rhythm he wants to get into.
We've all witnessed how out of sync this offense gets at times, and how impatient the playcalling was last season. Of course the run game was terrible and clearly contributed to things grinding to a halt at times.
I think he wants to keep his unit on the field more than ever in order to ensure more plays to get to that place. More deliberate. Now he's got an elite defense to compliment that.
Or maybe i'm just full of it.
I think that's a good take though I don't agree with every detail. I am though among those who are tired of the assumption I see among a few fans that a ball control passing game is a bad thing and that there can only be bad reasons for running it.
IMO and this is just guesswork but I think that one of the key reasons for it is that early in the season they could not count on a dominant running game. That's starting to change. There's also the fact that as good as the OL has played this year, they entered the season with all sorts of questions about that unit. I just think that ball control passing steadied their development as a unit. They also played all of 2019 with an exposed qb behind a shaky OL and of course, since a problem OL
WOULD make a difference---it made a difference.
T.O.P is huge. Rams are right now 3rd in TOP, right behind the Packers and Saints. Last year they were 22nd.
And so is converting 3rd downs. This year the Rams are 6th in 3rd down conversions. Last year they were 16th.
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Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/17/2020 07:44AM by zn.
