How will LA Rams Matthew Stafford work w rumored OC Mike LaFleur?

The LA Rams are starting to work on their 2023 NFL season. This is a full month ahead of last year’s official schedule, and if you factor in the post-game celebrations, interviews, and victory parade, more like two months ahead of schedule. And then factor in all of the injuries that the LA Rams played through, and some of the Rams players are about four or five months ahead of where they were just a year ago.

Life comes at you fast. And right now, events are rocketing past at lightning speed. This is the way things go for the NFL teams that are not competing in the NFL Playoffs. As other teams compete and slowly join the teams that are sitting this one out by losing and not advancing, more and more of those teams are reforming their coaching staff, resetting their rosters, and ultimately getting their house in order for the NFL Free Agency market and the 2023 NFL Draft.

McVay is back, and so is Stafford

And now that LA Rams HC Sean McVay is back, the team can begin the process of preparing for 2023. But look for some changes…er, I hope that some changes are in store.

Why did I backtrack? Well, for starters the LA Rams are now rumored to hire former Jets offensive coordinator Mike LeFleur. While he is certainly a worthwhile NFL offensive coordinator who was the offensive coordinator for the New York Jets, for two seasons and involved in NFL offensive coaching for nine seasons. He was the passing game coordinator for two seasons with the San Franciso 49ers before his Jets OC role, as he followed Robert Saleh to the Jets when Saleh was hired on as their new head coach:

The ideal candidates in my mind were those candidates who could reason with and actually form independent arguments over how to handle the Rams offense going forward. The Rams had two other offensive coordinator options: Frank Reich and Kliff Kingsbury. Reich is an astute offensive mind whose veteran leadership is well-documented and established.

Kingsbury, despite his self-imposed exile to Thailand, would have talked with his good friend Sean McVay about a chance to compete in the NFC West in 2023. Had that conversation ever taken place, I’m not sure that Kingsbury ends up flying.

But the Rams are close to adding Mike LaFleur. So what can the team look for in terms of new offensive wrinkles?

What did OC Mike LaFleur accomplish with the Jets?

Well, the good news is that offensive coordinator Mike LaFleur has been basting in the San Francisco 49ers style of offense for years, and he brought that style of offense with him to run the New York Jets offense. And he had the confidence of his head coach up until the very end.

Mike LaFleur was fired, because New York Jets owner Woody Johnson was completely irate over the meltdown of the team that began the season at 6-3 and then 7-4, only to lose their last six games with a combined scoring effort of just 66 points.

The reality is that the Jets’ offense struggled because the Jets lost gifted running back Breece Hall after just seven games, but who helped lift the Jets to a 5-2 record to start the season. Hall is a 6-foot-2 220-pound thundering runner out of Iowa State, who put up 463 yards and four touchdowns in 80 rushes over the first seven games, averaging 5.8 yards per run.

Jets fell shot of playoffs at quarterback

The greater problem for the Jets’ offense was entrusting their playoff aspirations to a young quarterback Zach Wilson. Like many Jets’ quarterbacks before him, his completion percentage was stuck near 50 percent, and he was more likely to throw an interception than a touchdown pass.  And it’s that lack of development that held LaFleur’s feet to the fire in New York.

The Jets needed a scapegoat, and Mike LaFleur was it:

But that only defines what led to his Jets dismissal. So we’ll have to dig more deeply. Ready? Here we go:

What offense does Mike LaFleur run?

Before I tell you who I think Mike LaFleur is, check out this video interview of Mike LaFleur from February 2021.  It’s over 37 minutes in length, but to truly get a 360-degree perspective, if you have the time to spare, this is a worthwhile investment of your time.

Because he was oriented to the San Francisco 49ers’ offensive philosophy, you can bet that Mike LaFleur holds much higher regard for the running game than LA Rams head coach Sean McVay. In a Mike LaFleur offense, you are getting plenty of 12-personnel packages, empty backfield formations on third down, use of slot receivers,  and an offense that is at least very aware of the benefits of a strong running game to the effectiveness of the offense and to the ability to enhance the passing game.

But it is not wall wine and roses, nor should it be expected to be when hiring on an offensive coordinator from an offense that clearly struggled in 2022 due to player injuries and an offense that truly did not have a clear leader on the roster at quarterback. What do I mean? Here is a video highlighting the Jets and their 2022 red zone woes:

In the end, Mike LaFleur is only as good as the players perform on the football field.  That goes for any team. But how will that pan out for the LA Rams and ultimately the performance of veteran quarterback Matthew Stafford?

LaFleur will be McVay’s conscience

The LA Rams have gotten further and further away from the things that seemed to work very well for their offense. The Rams have a pretty good sense of how to work out of their 12-personnel package, how to distribute the football to their receivers, how and when to test defenses deep, and simply when to tighten their belts and just run the ball down the throats of the defense. But those qualities seemed to be lost in 2022, particularly early in the season.

While I don’t see Mike LaFleur as an offensive coordinator who can win any arguments with HC Sean McVay, nor to pry offensive play-calling from McVay’s plate, I do see LaFleur as holding that good conscience role for McVay, pulling his perspective out of the smoke and carnage of the battles at the line of scrimmage, and forcing McVay to be more cerebral, more strategic, during games, but particularly when preparing the game plan for the next opponent

Protection, Play-Action, and keeping Matthew Stafford upright

So what does Mike LaFleur do for the LA Rams, and most importantly, for veteran quarterback Matthew Stafford? After all, the LA Rams’ future rests entirely on the ability to keep quarterback Matthew Stafford healthy and upright. I think that he helps Stafford in three distinct areas.

First and foremost, I suspect that LaFleur will lobby for a stronger offensive line for the LA Rams. Perhaps he will need to compromise a bit, but he will surely point out the need to ensure that in order to get the optimal value out of Stafford, the offensive line will need to get intense scrutiny. I’m not of the opinion that the LA Rams offensive line is rubbish. But I am convinced that the team cannot expect different results if the starting five are the same players who started in 2022.

Offensive balance is everything in 2023

The second area of improvement for the Rams’ offense is returning to a more balanced offense. That not only means more running plays throughout the course of the game but more evenly distributed passing plays as well. The team was completely predictable and stuck in an offensive rut in 2022, and did not make use of many of the team’s offensive weapons until the option to have Matthew Stafford to Cooper Kupp or Tyler Higbee was impossible.

Finally, the team has to ensure that Stafford uses all of his weapons. The LA Rams’ offense was loaded despite the injuries that ravaged the team. But it was not until the team did not have alternatives to throwing to Tutu Atwell or handing the ball off to Cam Akers that we truly had the chance to witness what they were capable of.