Are LA Rams GM Les Snead and HC Sean McVay still on the same page?

Rams roster does not match the playbook

The LA Rams offseason strategy is clearly not optimal when considering the teams first five games. Despite the team's interest in focusing on tight ends and running backs for the 2024 NFL season, the team has persisted in sticking with their base 11 personnel on offense. That defies all common sense, particularly in the face of the team's injuries this season.

The team lost WR Puka Nacua in Week 1. The team lost WR Cooper Kupp in Week 2. However you grade them in terms of offensive usage, it's clear that the offense played most of their games before the Week 6 BYE with a depleted wide receiver room. And yet, the team only used 12 personnel in Week 3, the lone victory for the season. In all other games, the team stuck with 11-personnel.

Making the team's disinterest in going with two tight ends is the fact that both offensive tackles were unable to suit up until Week 3. And yet, the team left backup offensive tackles alone on islands against some of the fiercest pass rushers in the league. Is it any wonder that wide receivers, tasked with blocking on par with much larger tight ends, burned out so quickly?

The Rams active roster has three tight ends, four running backs, and six wide receivers on the roster. Per Lineup.com, the first five games so far have distributed offensive snaps as follows:

• 4 Running backs (31 percent) - 327 offensive snaps (20 percent)
• 3 Tight ends (23 percent) - 362 offensive snaps (22 percent)
• 6 Wide receivers (46 percent) - 946 offensive snaps (58 percent)
• Total offensive snaps for skill players - 1635 offensive snaps

The table above illustrates my point. Ignore injuries. Ignore quality of backups on the roster. The front office loaded the Rams roster with nearly one-third offensive skill players in the running back room, only to get 20 percent of the offensive snaps from that group. And while the team seems to have matched the skill players in the tight end room to the current usage rate, that masks a far greater problem. The team's OT injuries should have amplified the use of tight ends significantly.

But as you can see, the Rams altered nothing.

And the team is carrying one TE on the IR/PUP list (starting TE Tyler Higbee). Beyond that, the team is carrying two more tight ends on the practice squad. And then there was the 2024 NFL Draft, and the revelation that Jared Verse was not the team's first choice in Round 1.

Imagine the debacle so far this season if the team had drafted TE Brock Bowers. Would the team carry four tight ends and four running backs on the roster? The scenario is believable, if unlikely.