Optical Illusion: How bad was the LA Rams offense?

Throughout the 2021 NFL season, it seemed an almost weekly ritual to be met with some postgame tirade about the LA Rams. Of course, that includes the tremendous outcry from so many who micro-managed each game, looked for an example of bad performance, and used that discovery to leap from the ‘that’s gotta be addressed’ to ‘Fire Raheem Morris.’ instantly. All the while, almost nobody connected the performance of the offense to that of the defense.

It was simple enough to say that the LA Rams defense sucked. No thought. No analysis. Just shootin’ from the hip. Because when we say that, we don’t need to investigate further. We don’t need to weigh the circumstances of turning over the football frequently. Nor do we need to change our minds. It gives carte blanche to overlooking the facts of the game itself, the rule of closed-mindedness that demands agreement, or else risk being ostracized.

Honesty is not always a welcome topic

And yet, sometimes those who write about the LA Rams must risk the Hari Kari story, the subsequent outrage, and feedback,  and simply point out that it’s not that bad.  No, the sky is not falling, the Rams defense will be okay, and there is no need to simply fire somebody in mid-season because a player missed a tackler or the other team converted at third downs at a rate that bested the NFL norm.

On the other hand, we must also connect the dots that others seem to gloss over. The story-behind-the-story for lack of a better term. In the course of analysis and minutiae data analytics, Fantasy football, and online simulators, we’ve suffered a bit of a disconnect in our understanding of how all three phases of a football team are interrelated.|

One such glossed-over fun fact is the time of possession statistic. Per Teamrankings.com, the LA Rams offense was the fifth-ranked offense in that category in 2020. Last season, the Rams offense controlled the football an average of 31:39 per game. The Rams offense plummeted in 2021, controlling the football for a mere 29:58 per game. That aligned with the Rams’ intention to have a more explosive offense, but it came at a price of shifting more of the burden of gameplay onto the defense.