Now, maybe I’m just a glass half full kind of guy, or maybe I’ve watched enough NFL football to know when the wheels have truly fallen off and when a team is just in a rut and needs some help getting out.

Sitting at 3-3, the Rams are in a rut. Statistically speaking, LA ranks 12th in total offense and 12th in total defense through six weeks. The offense might be skewed a bit after a 40-point game in week 4, but remember, the opposing team (Buccaneers) put up 55 points that day, so the defense is actually skewed a little bit the other way.

Either way you look at it, a 12th ranked team doesn’t spell “wheels off, SOS.” However, HOS (Help Our Ship), may be the correct call sign.

Who Is Jared Goff‘s First Mate?

The captain of a ship needs his first mate to take some of the pressure off and help with the crew and workload. As a quarterback, it’s safe to call Goff the captain of the ship, but who is his first mate in 2019?

In 2018, you could say that the young quarterback had a slew of worthy ship hands. Todd Gurley, Robert Woods, Andrew Whitworth, and Brandin Cooks all inspired confidence in their captain and took parcels of the pressure off. 2019 seems to be a much different tale.

What may surprise people is that Goff is on pace to throw for 4,604 yards this season, 84 yards fewer than last season. However, he just hasn’t quite looked the same. Many have attributed this to not playing any preseason games and needing to shake the rust off. Six weeks into the season that rust should be long gone.

Others have attributed this to the scheme no longer working, i.e. the play-action. This certainly has a direct correlation and plays a major factor. If the running game cannot get going, then the play-action poses no threat because the defense doesn’t need to stack the box.

The Raging Waters Of 11 Personnel

By now, many of you reading this know what 11 Personnel is, but for those of you that don’t, I will give a very brief overview. Personnel groupings are identified very simply with two numbers. The first number represents how many running backs are on the field. The second number represents how many tight ends are on the field. So 11 Personnel has 1 running back and 1 tight end in the formation (which leaves 3 receivers after the quarterback and offensive linemen). 12 Personnel has 1 running back and 2 tight ends. 21 personnel has 2 running backs (full back counts as a running back) and 1 tight end, and so on and so forth.

11 Personnel has become a very popular formation in the modern NFL, partially thanks to Sean McVay and the Rams. In the 2018 season, the league average for 11 Personnel was 66%. The Rams ran it at an astonishing 89% percent! One of the main benefits of running this scheme is that it will force the defense to spread out, keeping a thin box upfront, something Gurley was able to expose last year, and thus making the play-action so effective.

This season through six weeks, the Rams are still running 11 Personnel 80% of the time, according to Sharp Football Stats. That’s second only to the Cincinnati Bengals who run it 83% of the time (their head coach Zac Taylor formerly coached under McVay).

Now, what’s interesting is that if you look at the metrics, the numbers between last year and this year are not drastically different. In 2018, out of 11 Personnel, 60% of the plays were pass plays with a 49% success rate. This season, 69% of the plays are pass plays with a 48% success rate.

In 2018, 40% of the plays in 11 Personnel were run plays with a 59% success rate. This season, 31% of the plays are run plays with a 56% success rate.

In reality, the only difference is the slight uptick in pass play percentage and downtick in run play percentage. Here is the one major difference, however. In 2018, Goff’s TD:INT ratio in 11 Personnel was 30:15, or 2:1 (including Playoffs and Super Bowl). Not great, but not bad. This season his ratio in 11 Personnel is 6:6 or 1:1. Not bad, awful.

So what changed?