LA Rams Matthew Stafford: How d’ya like me now?
By Bret Stuter
Did the play of LA Rams quarterback Matthew Stafford on Sunday Night Football for his opener as the team’s new offensive leader do enough to calm fears of the skeptics? Well, let’s not get carried away. If this were a loss, we’d be talking about 16 games remaining. This was expected to be the easiest contest in the month of September, and the Rams came out and got a good win.
The Chicago Bears are no pushover. They certainly have plenty of quality players and their defense has historically given LA Rams head coach Sean McVay plenty of headaches since he’s arrived to lead the team. A defense that masks pass coverages, gets after the quarterback, and is every bit as capable of ruining the debut of any NFL quarterback was not just going to roll over in this one.
Is this a new Sean McVay 2.0 offense? While one game doesn’t set a trend, it’s certainly enough to recharge some optimism and squelch some skeptics. After all, if there was going to be a clumsy period of adjustment, the highest chance for that to happen was the first game purely from the offense’s mechanics.
Well, from the look of things, the Rams offense won’t be struggling with any clumsy periods of adjustment.
Some of that can be attributed to the fact that the Chicago Bears had no clue what the LA Rams were going to do on Sunday Night Football. Some of the Rams’ stellar performance on offense can be attributed to the Chicago Bears secondary, a secondary that struggled with injuries before opening day. Some of the Rams’ offensive assault can be attributed to the Chicago Bears’ new defensive coordinator, Sean Desai. Learning a new defense can be tough.
But most of the Rams’ effectiveness at scoring points and moving the ball? Matthew Stafford and the way he makes this LA Rams offense hum.