LA Rams: How each quarterback fits into the evolving offense

Josh Love is the LA Rams Spread Option specialist

Rookie QB Josh Love signed with the Rams as an undrafted rookie free agent on Sunday following the NFL Draft. Most rookies have a difficult time adjusting to the pro game. Undrafted rookies generally move from the practice squad to another practice squad until the interest goes away.

Love played in 33 games at San Jose State from 2016-2019. While there, he completed 578 passes for 7206 yards with 43 touchdowns. Love averaged 7.2 yards per attempted pass. While Love was undrafted, he offers an ever-improving ability to read defenses, make the right throws, and prolong the play to give receivers additional time to get open.

Standing 6-foot-2 and weighing in at 205 pounds, Love brings a game more like that of John Wolford in terms of his passing game. However, he has the mobility of Goff, failing to record positive rushing yards in each of his San Jose State University seasons.

While at San Jose State University, Love ran an up-tempo spread option offense.  The spread option offense focuses on two particular plays. The zone read is a key play in the running game.  Outside zone screen passes are the other facets of the offense. Both fit the McVay style of Rams offense.

Ian Boyd of footballstudyhall.com describes it best in the following:

"Spread-option teams are “spread to run” squads but they aren’t looking to smash people out of the paths of their runners but use conflicts to out-leverage them. The zone read play was one of the initial means to achieve this goal but now teams have a wide variety of QB option schemes and RPOs to allow them to put conflict on defenders all over the field and “hit em where they ain’t.”"

Love wins games by playing the defense against itself. Unfortunately, his time with the LA Rams will probably be a brief stay, relegated to quarterbacking the practice squad. Now we come to the next and final quarterback on the roster, and it’s now time to consider his fit.