Biggest Improvements The Rams Must Make During Offseason

The problem with high expectations is that they make decent things seem intolerable. Sean McVay set the bar very high in his second year at the helm. They made it look too easy, then the 49ers became an elite team and Lamar Jackson became an unstoppable force. There was nothing easy for the Los Angeles Rams in 2019.

To the Rams, not making the playoffs is a gut-punch of reality. A punch they are taking seriously. They have already made significant changes to the coaching staff, firing DC Wade Philips and hiring new DC Brandon Staley and OC Kevin O’Connell. And there is still so much offseason to go and a lot of improvements to get this team back up to that high bar. Here are the biggest improvements the Rams must make during the offseason

The Running Game

Just like those tiny sunglasses from the ’90s, 2019 saw the running game come roaring back into fashion out of nowhere. Seven of the top 10 rushing teams made it to the playoffs.

1. Baltimore

2. San Francisco

3. Tennessee

4. Seattle

6. Minnesota

8. Buffalo

9. Houston

While only three of the top 10 passing teams made it.

5. Kansas City

7. New Orleans

8. New England

This flies in the face of the prevailing narrative from the last few seasons: If you want to win in the NFL you needed to throw… a lot. We saw many teams double down on this tack for 2019, including the Rams. In 2018 the Rams threw the ball 56.4% of the time, which ranked them 24th in passing play percentage. In 2019, they jumped to eighth, throwing the ball 62% of the time.

Sean McVay made the decision to put the game squarely on Jared Goff, calling 65 more passing plays this season. Goff finished 2019 tied for first with Jameis Winston with 626 passing attempts. Those extra passing attempts resulted in five fewer total yards, 10 fewer touchdowns, and four more interceptions.

All that said, the Rams aren’t having a Jared Goff problem. Goff did everything that was asked of him. This is a Todd Gurley problem. More specifically, it’s a ‘what-is-Sean-McVay’s-problem-with-Todd-Gurley’ problem. And that is a big problem. A $60 million problem

Without a contribution from Gurley, the Rams are woefully predictable. Predictability is one thing when simply talking about run/pass ratio. The Chiefs are doing just fine throwing 61.4% of the time, but the Chiefs have Patrick Mahomes and Jared Goff is not Patrick Mahomes. The Chiefs also threw to their running backs 125 times. The Rams only threw to Gurley 50 times and 12 more passes to the rest of the backs. That’s down from 109 in 2018. Gurley was thrown to 88 times in that season.

No one really knows why exactly McVay lost confidence Todd Gurley and the offensive backfield, in general. That mystery has been brewing since before Super Bowl LIII. What isn’t a mystery are the huge contract extensions. The Rams are locked into Goff and Gurley until 2023. Those contracts and the fact that the Rams haven’t had, and don’t currently have for 2020, a first-round draft pick since they picked Jared Goff in 2016, shows just how much confidence the front office has in this squad.

Therein lies a paradox: With the best in the league turning to the running game, the Rams seemed precinct in paying a boatload to keep Gurley. Plus, with McVay’s reputation as a genius, he should be at the forefront of any big trends in the offense. And yet, given all those factors, they stick to an ineffective game plan game after game. After making the Super Bowl in only his second season, McVay was seen as the reincarnation of Bill Walsh. It is time for McVay to look to Walsh’s former team to get back to the top.