No word on LA Rams QB John Wolford should be puzzling, but it’s not

Alarming trends

A single data point means next to nothing. Two data points show a direction. Three or more data points reflect a trend. The Rams only had one data point from one regular-season game. More would soon follow. In the meantime, the Rams made a significant change at the starting quarterback.

The team traded Goff and a sackful of draft picks to the Detroit Lions for veteran QB Matthew Stafford. Stafford was an innovative quarterback, could throw out of sequence and from virtually any platform, and was incredibly adept at cycling through his progressions quickly.

Because the LA Rams had anointed John Wolford as the backup quarterback, the team held him out of all preseason games. That meant that the only real competition in training camp and preseason games was for the QB3 position between second-year quarterback Bryce Perkins and veteran quarterback Devlin “Duck” Hodges.

Perkins clearly QB3 for 2021

It was clear early on that Perkins, not Hodges, had the better mastery of the Rams offense. Perkins won the competition and was so impressive that the LA Rams opted to forego releasing him to re-sign to the practice squad, and instead held him as a third quarterback on the active roster.

Meanwhile, Wolford would see action in 2021, but in an unconventional manner. In routes of the New York Giants in Week 6, the Houston Texans in Week 8, and the Jacksonville Jaguars in Week 13, the Rams pulled starters off the field in the fourth quarter and sent in the backups. Wolford was the quarterback sent onto the football field in all three games.

In 24 offensive plays, Wolford passed four times. He completed one pass, made one bad throw, and threw an interception. He also rushed twice, but that resulted in a net loss of one yard. Over two seasons, Wolford has now completed 23 of 42 passes for 236 yards, no touchdowns, and two interceptions. That’s not very positive trending.