Rams need more play action in their lives
Sean McVay has built the Los Angeles Rams up to the point where one automatically thinks of offense and points when the team is mentioned. Even with 2022 being the rollercoaster ride it was. McVay's success stems from innovation and the "illusion of complexity", the latter entailing the strategy of running multiple plays out of […]
Sean McVay has built the Los Angeles Rams up to the point where one automatically thinks of offense and points when the team is mentioned. Even with 2022 being the rollercoaster ride it was.
McVay's success stems from innovation and the "illusion of complexity", the latter entailing the strategy of running multiple plays out of the same looks, mostly; among other tweaks and wrinkles that make his offenses hard to decipher.
The seventh-year head coach has added more wrinkles to his offense in 2023. On top of moving from a zone running scheme to a gap scheme, he's also called play action passes at a historically low rate in the context of his coaching career.
Per Pro Football Focus, only 17.4% of Matthew Stafford's dropbacks have been of the PA variety, which is the seventh-lowest rate out of 31 qualifying quarterbacks with 133 dropbacks on the year. The Rams have used play action less and less with each passing year, but they've never dipped below a 24% usage rate with any starting quarterback since McVay has been in town. In fact, the Rams have used play action on 20% or more of their dropbacks in just two out of six games, so far.
And guess what? The Rams are 2-0 in those games with a scoring margin of 59-36. Both games also feature their highest point totals of the season in 30 and 29 points, respectively.
Stafford has also been exceptional when utilizing play action. For starters, he's the highest-graded passer out of all qualifying players (95.0), per PFF. And if you're like me and grades aren't really your thing, don't worry; there are plenty more stats to back up the 2021 Super Bowl champ's play action prowess.
As mentioned earlier, Stafford has one of the lowest PA rates in the league, yet, he has the seventh-most yards when throwing out of PA (438). 18.6% of his completions are considered to be big-time throws, which is already wild enough in itself. But when juxtaposing it second-place Josh Allen's rate of 8.6%, it's palpable to classify Stafford's No. 1 ranking as dominant. Plain and simple.
He also boasts an 81.3% adjusted completion percentage despite averaging 11.7 air yards per pass attempt. The latter number is the fourth-highest ADOT in the NFL and what makes the former number so impressive is only one of the top-10 QBs in terms of ADOT boasts an 81%+ adjusted completion rate and that's Buffalo Bills QB Josh Allen.
The idea that a team needs to be able to run the ball in order to effectively utilize PA has been disproved via multiple studies over the years, but that wouldn't be an excuse for the Rams if it were actually true, anyway, even if that were the case. They average 108.2 yards per game on the ground and 4.2 yards per carry, which are both around league average.
It's pretty wild to think that 26% of Stafford's passing yards have come via PA over the first six games of the year. And while all six of his passing TD's have come through non-PA attempts, so have all five of his interceptions. And, he's been sacked 14 times on traditional dropbacks compared to just twice when running play action. Even when adjusting for rates, it's a 19.7% pressure-to-sack rate when deploying traditional dropbacks versus an 11.1% rate, which also happens to be the seventh-lowest rate in the NFL.
In all, it's a bit of a mystery as to why the Rams aren't running play action more. No one is saying they need to do this on half of their dropbacks or anything like that. But it's clear PA helps Stafford and the offense, as a whole. So, if that's the case, why not increase the usage?
Maybe Cooper Kupp's return will help persuade McVay to do so, but so far, that hasn't been the case. In fact, Kupp's two games have featured the lowest rates of the season in a 4.8% rate and 14.3% rate.
It'll be interesting to see how McVay handles this moving forward. If there's any coach in the NFL that can identify a strength, it's him. Either way, it's clear utilizing play action more consistently can only help, not hurt.