Optical Illusion: How bad was the LA Rams defense?

How did we do?

Rams fans were eager to demolish the competition, and any indication that may not go according to plan was not met well.  The 2021 Rams defense was clearly a work in process, but it was not nearly the weak link that so many portrayed it to be. In fact, over the course of the season, the team pulled starters off the football field in the fourth quarter against the New York Giants and the Houston Texans.  Backups allowed the opponent to score 30 points over that time.

If you combine that with the fact that Rams quarterback Matthew Stafford threw four pick-sixes in 2021, and you have 58 points that were scored against the LA Rams in the regular season, but were not scored against the defensive starters. The LA Rams allowed 18.5 points per game in 2020. If you remove the anomalous points from the LA Rams 2021 defense {(372-58)/17}, you will discover that the 2021 version of the LA Rams allowed just 18.47 points per game.

Rams 2021 defense as good as 2020’s folks

Need more proof? The LA Rams have allowed just 18.3 points per game in the NFL playoffs so far. Perhaps you need even more proof?  Here is LA Rams reporter J.B. Long with some curious statistics from Football Outsiders.

What we find is, if we can remove our bias, the evidence is solidly supportive of the conclusion that the LA Rams 2021 defense was as capable as that of the 2020 version, and in some ways has withstood the challenges faced in the postseason with far more resiliency.