How concerned should LAR be?

[biggie.]

LAR has been on a three game losing streak ever since they continued going all-in this season with their acquisitions of OBJ and Von Miller. Stafford has noticeably regressed and could tie Matt Schaub's record of four straight games with a pick six next week. Not only does ARZ has a stranglehold on the division at the moment, SF is heating up and have a 1-0 advantage over LAR. 

With all of this going on, should LAR hit the panic button? Could they right the ship?

Edited November 29, 2021 by biggie.

[MWil23]

They're 0-2 since signing OBJ

That said, Woods was a great X Factor type, solid WR, and guy they could use jet sweeps and other fun wrinkles with, and while I've always loved Stafford, you're starting to see that the "Detroit LULZ" wasn't all it was cracked up to be. He's always had some wartz with some of these things.

It's certainly not all on him, but 3 in a row in that division and HOW they've lost is cause for concern.

[LeotheLion]

Extremely concerned. 

[KhanYouDigIt]

When they stop having Jalen play that stupid “star” position, they will be alright. He needs to be on the opposing teams best receiver every play. At one point he was defending Marcedes Lewis on a key 3rd down. Marcedes Lewis.

Raheem Morris is in over his head.

[Dome]

1 minute ago, biggie. said:

LAR has been on a three game losing streak ever since they continued going all-in this season with their acquisitions of OBJ and Von Miller. Stafford has noticeably regressed and could tie Matt Schaub's record of four straight games with a pick six next week. Not only does ARZ has a stranglehold on the division at the moment, SF is heating up and have a 1-0 advantage over LAR. 

With all of this going on, should LAR hit the panic button? Could they right the ship?

 

They shipped their only panic button away as part of one of those trades.

 

 

 

 

They're one of the best teams in the league. They need that to translate to better play, and I think we'll see improvements the longer this team is together. Having a lot of great players doesn't automatically make you a great team, you still have to build those. Rams have shown they have the pieces and know how to make them work together, it just needs to be more consistent.

[J-ALL-DAY]

Panic button? No, they are still one of the best teams in the NFC but they have their fair share of weaknesses. They just need to start taking care of the ball better and need to commit to the run game a bit more. They have been down double digits early in the last three games and that has messed up their game flow but overall they should be okay. They have two divisional losses while Arizona is currently 4-0 in the division. Even if they beat the Cardinals in two weeks, they won't have the tiebreaker as the Cardinals are likely to finish at least 5-1 in the division. I don't think it matters TOO much if they end up with the 5th or 6th seed. They just need to get in the playoffs and once they do that, they will have a punchers chance to get out of the NFC. 

[Hunter2_1]

Concerned. Look at this…

 

So Ram’s games 1-8

Faced 5 or more blitzers on; 22% of snaps, 29%, 22%, 25%, 34%, 31%, 23%, 28%….

The last two weeks, before the Packers game (both losses); only 7.5% blitz rate and 9.3%. Haven’t seen stats from this game though; but it looked like a lot of 4 rushers only. 

Which is what teams started to do to Mahomes. They have been figured out in this particular sense. If we know this though, they certainly will, and will look to address this particular issue

[stl4life07]

Well on a scale of 1-10 Im a 3. Most of yall will say thats bc Im an extremely positive person who never sees anything wrong. Thats not true. I dont have peaks and valleys like most people on here. I try not to get too high when things are great and I try not to get too low when things arent going well. I try to put everything into perspective.

The reason why Im not all that concern is bc I saw this same movie before in 2018. Rams start (8-0) then get beat by double digits in New Orleans whom at the time was at the top with the Rams as the best team in the NFC, then the Rams went on to win three straight to get to (11-1) although they did struggle to beat the Lions after the BYE. After that Lions game, they went to Chicago got beat looking bad then the following week at home against a depleted Eagles team led by Nick Foles the Rams lost again. It wasnt even close heading into the 4th quarter but the Rams did fought back to have a shot. So the Rams were on a two game losing streak and everyone was wondering, what was wrong with the Rams? Kupp had gotten hurt in the Seattle game, Gurley was hurt so the Rams had to sign CJA off the street, Goff wasnt looking good, Peters was clearly the weakest link on defense bc he kept giving up big plays, and the Rams couldnt stop the run. Even the Rams lost their kicker Zeurlein for the last part of the regular season. Everything was looking bad. Then the Rams got their act together they beat the Cards and Niners to end the season, went into the playoffs ran all over Dallas, went to New Orleans and won in OT and went to the Superbowl.

Again I saw this movie before with alot of the same cast of characters. Replace Kupp going down with Woods going down, replace Goff struggling with Stafford struggling, and the Rams still have trouble stopping the run. In 2018 I think the Rams had to figure out how to play the offense without Kupp and an injured Gurley. Right now the Rams trying to adjust to life without Woods meanwhile trying to get OBJ comfortable in the offense. The defense has to get Von adjusted in the system in the same way in 2018 they had to work Fowler Jr into the system after trading for him in the middle of the season. Plus they had to work getting back Talib who missed most of the season due to injury. All of it paid off in the playoffs bc Fowler Jr. made that big play in OT to help beat the Saints, Peters and Talib were great locking down the both the Cowboys and Saints passing attack. Suh showed up in a big way in the playoffs as well. Even Cooks made a key play in the Saints game that sparked the offense some to get going. So I do think while its going to take some time for Von and OBJ to get things going in this offense and Jefferson has to continue to grow as a 2nd year player in this offense I do think the Rams will be fine.

The only concern I do have is the lack of turnovers on defense. Its hard to win games when you dont take the ball away. People are focusing on Stafford too much but he is in a slump right now. His season as a whole has been great. If he has been up and down all season long or flat out bad all season long then we can talk. Im just going to say he is in a slump over 3 games just like we have seen alot of great QBs have two or three game slumps. Not saying the team goes on three game losing streaks bc other factors are at play but we've seen Brady, Brees, Russ, ARod all have two or three game slumps. Maybe not as bad as Stafford is right now but still bad. He will work through it. The defense again thats my concern. I never thought it would be a top 3 defense but I assumed that they would get sacks and force takeaways. They are getting sacks as they are top 5 in sacks. They are the best in pressuring QBs. The only thing is they pressure a QB but they dont capitalize on getting interceptions or forcing and recovering fumbles. Idc if Stafford is league MVP if the defense dont force takeaways and have a hard time getting off the field on 3rd downs then thats going to be an issue for the team. So thats my only concern right now but I do know turnovers happen in bunches so all it takes is one turnover game to get rolling again. The Rams have the Jags coming up where they will get plenty of opportunity to get themselves 2 or 3 takeaways and then we will see if that spark them moving forward but thats the only legit concern I have. 

[J-ALL-DAY]

40 minutes ago, Hunter2_1 said:

Concerned. Look at this…

 

So Ram’s games 1-8

Faced 5 or more blitzers on; 22% of snaps, 29%, 22%, 25%, 34%, 31%, 23%, 28%….

The last two weeks, before the Packers game (both losses); only 7.5% blitz rate and 9.3%. Haven’t seen stats from this game though; but it looked like a lot of 4 rushers only. 

Which is what teams started to do to Mahomes. They have been figured out in this particular sense. If we know this though, they certainly will, and will look to address this particular issue

I mean in recent years the Rams offense would always fall off from quick starts. Looks like the same thing has happened this season but still time for McVay to make some adjustments to turn it around. They need to run more play action and commit to the run game early on to give defenses a different look. The Titans and Niners did a good job for the most part of taking away the deep ball and the Rams offense had some struggles because of it. Against the Packers they got two long TDs so doesn't seem like they did as good of a job there. 

[J-ALL-DAY]

@stl4life07I'm not going to read that entire post but I can GUARANTEE you made some sort of comparison to the 2018 season LOL.

[agarcia34]

Think the panic button should be out and they should be looking directly at it. They’re what they shown us and that is a good but not great team. How many times do we need to read the same book expecting different results. They done a good job picking on bad teams and have gotten smacked by good teams. They had one win against a good team at the time of playing and that’s the Bucs. They beat a Colts team that was playing really bad football trying to figure out things themselves. 
 

Theyre frauds, but since they have those big names people will give them the benefit of the doubt 

[stl4life07]

13 minutes ago, J-ALL-DAY said:

@stl4life07I'm not going to read that entire post but I can GUARANTEE you made some sort of comparison to the 2018 season LOL.

You did read it lol. Seriously though I’m not concerned. How many times in the past decade when the Pats started off slowly and look not right early have people said “what’s wrong with the Pats”? Only for them to end up right where most thought they would be in the end? 
 

Two things are true about the Rams under McVay, they always start fast at the beginning of the season and in November go through a slump. So we are wasting our time worrying about what possibly could be wrong with the Rams? Yes they have issues clearly but overall I’m not worry bc same old stuff just a different year. I’ve seen it before.

 

[Zalixar]

18 minutes ago, J-ALL-DAY said:

@stl4life07I'm not going to read that entire post but I can GUARANTEE you made some sort of comparison to the 2018 season LOL.

Yeah, they beat the 2018 Cards to close out the season!  Impressive beating one of the worst teams to ever exist.

(Can't complain, got Murray)

 

Rams are struggling vs good teams this year.  2018 is also a different year, I think comparing them too strongly is not going to do much for the 2021 Rams.  They get a bye week before our showdown, but they do need to get their act together. 

[Zalixar]

4 minutes ago, stl4life07 said:

You did read it lol. Seriously though I’m not concerned. How many times in the past decade when the Pats started off slowly and look not right early have people said “what’s wrong with the Pats”? Only for them to end up right where most thought they would be in the end? 
 

Two things are true about the Rams under McVay, they always start fast at the beginning of the season and in November go through a slump. So we are wasting our time worrying about what possibly could be wrong with the Rams? Yes they have issues clearly but overall I’m not worry bc same old stuff just a different year. I’ve seen it before.

 

Just because you've seen it before doesn't mean anything.  2018 is a long time ago.  And you aren't the Pats and you don't have BB/Brady.  You can be optimistic all you want,as your right as a fan, but Rams have not looked good vs a decent team, only bsd teams.  Woods going down is a bigger blow than one may think.  I know you tried to swing OBJ as some x factor, but I have my doubts.

 

They have the bye to get their sh*t together.

Edited November 29, 2021 by Zalixar

[J-ALL-DAY]

2 minutes ago, stl4life07 said:

You did read it lol. Seriously though I’m not concerned. How many times in the past decade when the Pats started off slowly and look not right early have people said “what’s wrong with the Pats”? Only for them to end up right where most thought they would be in the end? 
 

Two things are true about the Rams under McVay, they always start fast at the beginning of the season and in November go through a slump. So we are wasting our time worrying about what possibly could be wrong with the Rams? Yes they have issues clearly but overall I’m not worry bc same old stuff just a different year. I’ve seen it before.

 

I promise I did not read it when I made that post...Still have not read it but skimmed through it and saw a 2018 reference. How did I know you were going to do that? You brought up 2018 like 10x in the Packers GDT including a response to mine and you brought up 2018 after the Titans game and probably even after the Niners game.

You love talking about the 2018 team like Niners fans love talking about the 2019 team...I get it...sort of lol.