5 critical takeaways from LA Rams victory

Completion rate? Needs to improve

The Rams receivers must do a better job of catching balls. And the Rams quarterbacks need to do a better job of throwing a catchable ball. Wolford’s first outing was 22 completions on 38 attempts, for 231 yards and no touchdowns with one interception.  That was a completion rate of just 57.9 percent.  That’s not very impressive.

But to be fair, this was Wolford’s first NFL start, and the pressure could not have been greater upon the young man. After throwing his first NFL pass right into the arms of Cardinals’ linebacker Jordyn Hicks, he completed just one of his next three passes for three yards. In fact, he completed just three of his first eight passes. Thankfully, he was able to scramble for several first downs early in the game to keep the offense on the field.

Wolford will bounce back

Nobody can ‘teach’ what the first NFL game will feel like to a quarterback. That falls upon the player to mentally prepare as best as he can, withstand the tsunami of stimuli that tries to crash his ability to process what is going on around him and come out the other side of that early case of jitters to play the football he is capable of playing.

John Wolford did exactly that. With a few stumbles and snafus, along the way, he did enough to win the football game. Keep in mind that the Cardinals’ lone touchdown was a gift after Wolford’s interception.  The Rams offense scored nine points. While not much, it was enough to win this game.  And it’s enough to give the Rams the opportunity to play another day.