Film Breakdown: A Deep Dive on the Rams' New And Improved Offense

Los Angeles' offense has evolved with Matthew Stafford at quarterback.

Author:
Mike Santagata
Publish date:
Feb 10, 2022 11:29 AM EST

The Cincinnati Bengals play the Los Angeles Rams on Sunday in Super Bowl LVI. This is the Rams' second appearance in the big game in four seasons.

The Rams' offense has evolved since their loss to the Patriots in Super Bowl LIII, but it's still a well-constructed machine.

If the Bengals want to come home with their first ever Lombardi trophy, they will have to find a way to slow down this offense. Most of the differences are due to the change in quarterback. Matthew Stafford is now the signal caller for the Rams and the vast improvement that they got at that position is the main reason why Sean McVay has changed the offense.

Let's look at the film to see how this offense has changed and what remains the same.

Formations

McVay has always predicated his offense on playing in condensed formations. This means that they like to keep their skill players relatively tight to the offensive line.

This is a great example of the Rams condensed formations. It’s 11 personnel (one running back, one tight end, and three wide receivers), but two of the three wide receivers are split less than five yards away from the tight end of offensive tackle. These formations require the wide receivers to block and dig out linebackers and safeties. The Rams wide receivers do a great job of doing just that.

They also put their skill position players in stacks and bunches. This allows for more free releases from their wide receivers and stresses the defensive backs' communication with how to deal with them.

When the Rams attach their bunch to the line of scrimmage, it not only stresses communication but also gives them advantageous angles in the run game. Cooper Kupp and Van Jefferson will be tasked with blocking from time to time, but they are up to the task. They will use these attached bunches from both the shotgun and from under center. However, they also use detached bunches.

These detached bunches are specifically to attack the pass defense. You can see in the image above that it’s an empty set, but they will also do this with offset gun. Either way, they are getting to these formations to pass the ball. As I have mentioned a few times, it’s to stress communication and coverage. The communication aspect of it is interesting to look into. There are probably a dozen different calls that the defense can make to deal with bunches, but here is a look at a few of them as an example.

This difference between the attached versus detached bunch is one of the tells of the Rams offense. Similar to the Bengals (and the rest of the NFL) they also commonly pass the ball from the gun and run the ball from under center. Now that we have taken a closer look at how McVay utilizes formations to gain advantages, let’s look into some more aspects of the Rams' offense.

The Run Game

The Rams' run game is still built around the same concepts and formations that it was in 2018. McVay bases his offense around wide zone with duo as his main change up. I’ve written extensively about these two plays before, but let’s go over each one again along with how the Rams like to get to those plays starting with wide zone.

Like we talked about in the last section, the Rams like to condense their formations and that it requires the wide receivers to block more. The “F” here is typically played by Kupp. He does a tremendous job of blocking defensive backs. This is a big difference between the 11 personnel wide zone from the Bengals and the Rams.

The Bengals prefer to spread the opponent out to lighten the box while the Rams condense their formations and have their talented wide receivers block defensive backs. Everything else about the concept is the same. The offensive line works to displace the front horizontally, the back will read the end man on the line to make his cut, and the quarter back will fake boot action off of the other side.

Here is a cut up of the Rams favorite run play:

Like every team, the Rams keep a change-up to throw at teams when they start to sit on the fastball. The main reasoning for utilizing duo as the change-up to wide zone is that it hits much faster. So if teams are trying to sit back and play slow, duo will hit them fast. It also is a play that pushes for vertical displacement rather than horizontal displacement.

The Rams run duo out of these same condensed looks. I have written about duo before, but the quick summary is that it is power without a puller. The back will read how the MIKE linebacker fits the play and cut off of it. If he fits to the inside of the double, the back should bounce the ball, if he tries to get into the C gap, then the back should hit this up the middle. There are typically two double teams that try to push the interior of the line vertically. These doubles will hang together longer than the wide zone combos before coming off to the linebackers as well. The Rams also ask their wide receivers to block on these plays similar to their wide zone concept. If this summary was not clear enough here is a cut up of the Rams running this concept.

These two concepts are commonly paired together. Most recently, the Bengals faced the Titans who also utilize these two concepts to run the ball. The Titans major in duo and minor in wide zone, but it’s still the same two concepts. D.J. Reader could have a big role again in the Super Bowl just like he did against the Titans in the divisional round.

Reader took over that game by destroying solo block the Titans threw his way. It was one of the most dominant performances from a nose tackle this season. He could easily do this again because I personally think that the Rams offensive line is weaker than the Titans offensive line. If Allen or someone else gives performances like this, then it could be curtains for the Rams' ability to run the football.

On the other hand, the Bengals will not be able to sell out to stop the Rams' running game because they have a much better passing attack than Tennessee.

The Drop Back Passing Game

The main difference between what the Rams do now versus what they did in 2018 is in the drop back passing game. They upgraded at quarterback with Matthew Stafford and have made the drop back passing game the crux of their offense. This is something they couldn't really do with Jared Goff. It has truly opened up their offense.

Even though they don’t run as well as they used to, their offense is just as good. There are three main concepts that the Rams utilize when they drop back to pass.

The intermediate/deep concept that they utilize the most is sail.

The play is designed to get the ball to the “F” here. The read starts with the go route from the “Z” but that is more of an alert than a real read. Although Stafford has no issue throwing that alert with his arm talent, that route is more designed to clear out the coverage so that the out breaker from No. 2 has more room to operate. The flat from “Y” is the 3rd read and operates to hi-lo the defender with the out breaker from No. 2 if it’s zone coverage.

It’s also the hot route in case the defense brings heat. That’s how this concept works on the front side, but Stafford has the ability to get to the back side on this concept fairly often. The backside is the dig route from the X. Dig routes are good versus a lot of different coverages which is what makes it a perfect backside complement to the sail concept. The Rams will get to their sail concept in quite a few different ways. They are very creative with how they can run the sail concept.

Check out this cut up of their different sail concepts and see all of the different ways they can run this play.

There are about a half dozen variations of sail that the Rams run, but it always sorts itself out in the same way. There is a 3 level stretch along the sideline including an out breaking route around 10-12 yards (that’s the sail route). It’s commonly paired with a backside dig although not always. The Bengals need to be prepared for this concept and its variations because the Rams are going to run it fairly often on Sunday.

The next concept that the Rams get to with their drop back passing game is dagger.

Dagger is another concept that is good against most coverages and it really works out similar to sail on a macro level. There is a clear out and a route breaking underneath of it around 10-12 yards. The main difference is that dagger is a 3 level vertical stretch over the middle of the field while sail is a 3 level stretch to the perimeter of the field.

You can see from the diagram how the quarterback reads the play. Once again, the vertical route is really an alert that is not thrown all that often. The backside is sometimes a vertical route but also can be a 2-man beater like a comeback. The comeback is a nice complement because 2-man is one of the only coverages that defeats dagger on a chalkboard. The play is designed to get No. 1 the ball on that dig route and if it’s not open No. 3 is usually on some type of check down.

The Rams get to their dagger concept in different ways, but it is not as creative as how they get to sail. It is a very nice concept and a staple of the Rams offense for a reason.

Lastly, the Rams like to run weak choice.

Unlike the last two plays, this concept is a bit more of a 1-man route than a real concept. Nearly every time the Rams run this play, Kupp is the player who runs the choice route. This maximizes his ability because of how extremely talented he is as a route runner. He is quick, smart, and deceptive. The route is essentially a slant/out option based on the defender’s leverage. If the defender overplays the slant, then Kupp will run the out. If the defender doesn’t bite hard enough on the slant, then he has no issue catching the ball over the middle of the field.

Kupp has used this play to great success ever since he came into the league. The really nice thing about this concept is that it can essentially be tagged onto the backside of other concepts. The Rams will pair it with stick, stick-n-nod, and other quicker concepts. If Stafford likes the matchup with Kupp, then he will look to throw the choice, but if he does not, he has an entire other concept to work on the opposite side of the field. This is why teams cannot always overplay the choice concept. Once you commit multiple defenders to that side, Stafford will just attack the front side.

One last thing that the Bengals need to be prepared for is the Rams screen game. They run screens to all of their skill players but I specifically want to look at the tight end screens.

These screens are a nuisance because of how tight to the line they are. Even if the tight end isn’t the most skilled player on the field, the Rams are able to get blockers in front of him fairly easily. The tell with this play is that the tight end will solo block a defensive end without a tackle ready to overtake him and the 49ers played on that tell wonderfully.

Whenever the 49ers defensive ends got that solo block, they would stop their rush and just hangout near the tight end. This forced Stafford to turf the ball and waste a down. The Bengals defensive ends are smart too and they should be able to take advantage of this tell. Maybe Stafford even makes a mistake and we get another B.J. Hill type of interception from one of the big men in the trenches.

That is just about everything that the Rams do on offense. Unlike 2018, this is a much more complete team. The offense is not just McVay controlling someone at quarterback. He trusts Stafford and it's helped this offense reach another level. The Bengals can still win this match up, but they will need to keep up their fantastic coverage. If anyone has earned the benefit of the doubt when it comes to playing on the other team’s tendencies, it’s Bengals defensive coordinator Lou Anarumo. If he can slow down this Rams' offense, the Lombardi trophy may find a new home in Cincinnati.

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