Have LA Rams passed their way into the danger zone already?

Normalizing the Rams’ rushing offense

And if we normalize the Rams’ rushing offense by removing the 26-yard loss to create the safety in Week 2 to end the game, the Rams are averaging nearly 3.7 yards per running play. While that is not nearly enough to be considered among the Top-10 rushing offenses in the NFL, it certainly is enough to ask ourselves the question: Why does this offense insist upon almost exclusively passing into a defense that has committed to stopping the pass?

The Rams are averaging just 225.5 yards per game through the air, which is only good enough to come in as the 20th-best passing offense in the NFL. That, combined with an offense that is reluctant to run the football, has sunk this offense to the 28th-ranked offense in the NFL in terms of yards gained. In terms of points scored, the Rams’ offense sinks to the 29th-ranked scoring offense in the NFL.

Despite the abundance of offensive weapons, the Rams struggle to put points on the board because every NFL defense knows what the Rams’ offense will do. Run on first down. Pass to Cooper Kupp on second down. Then pass to either Cooper Kupp or Tyler Higbee on third down. No matter how talented Matthew Stafford, Cooper Kupp, or Tyler Higbee may be, if the offense becomes that predictable, then the chances of winning that game decrease considerably.

In case of emergency, why pass?

The LA Rams seem to fall into a pattern of losing, and then panicking a bit and trying to pass their way out of an offensive slump. After losing three games in a row in 2021, the LA Rams had passed their way into dangerous territory by falling to 7-4. The following week, the Rams committed to run RB Sony Michel and the offense got back on track.  In fact, when the Rams later faced the daunting pass rush of the Minnesota Vikings with a makeshift offensive line, the Rams committed to the running game and ran very well in that game as well.

No, I don’t want this offense to go back to the Jeff Fisher offense of run, run, pass, punt. But surely there is a balance for a team that is sinking to the bottom of the NFL in both yards gained and points scored. A little more variety, and in turn unpredictability, would go a long way right now.

Have LA Rams passed their way into the danger zone already? Perhaps. Perhaps not. But if they intend to throw 48 times against the Dallas Cowboys defense, a defense that already has 15 quarterback sacks, behind their fifth version of an offensive line? Week 5 is going to resemble Weeks 1 and 4.