The Los Angeles Rams looked somewhat like the team Jeff Fisher helped bring to L.A. on Sunday when they struggled mightily to produce any offense against the San Francisco 49ers. Jared Goff threw for just 78 yards with the team gaining a total of 157 yards, and the result was a 20-7 division loss at home.
After a beautiful first drive that reminded people why this team got to the Super Bowl last season, the offense not only stalled out, it completely broke down. Of the 157 total yards, 57 of them came from the first drive of the game, capped by a touchdown run by Robert Woods. A goal-line stand by the 49ers on the Rams’ final drive of the half would be the closest they got to scoring for the rest of the game.
Critical mistakes, like a dropped pitch by Darrell Henderson, led to the downfall of the Rams against the now 5-0 49ers, but Goff will be the first one to say there’s no excuse for their poor performance, according to Jack Harris of The L.A. Times:
“The flow of the game was really weird. It’s no excuse, but in the second half, we had that turnover on the first play and then we put ourselves in really bad spots on the next two drives on third-and-longs.”
Goff also said that he and his teammates have a lot of room for improvement after the huge loss, one that now puts them in a huge hole in their division and in the wild card race:
“It’s those little plays, those little things — the timing, the execution, me knowing where I am in the pocket, everything — there’s a million things that we can be better at, and we will be,” Goff said.
Goff is right in that a ton of little mistakes were made. The Rams were penalized eight times for a total of 60 yards, both numbers doubling what the 49ers amassed.
The Rams also made many critical errors, with the fumble being the major one. Goff had almost no time or space to make plays, getting sacked four times for 30 yards. This led to an embarrassing 1.7 yards per pass attempt in a career-low numbers day for Goff.
Now, the Rams will play a very important three-game stretch where they’ll face off against zero playoff teams, with the Atlanta Falcons, Cincinnati Bengals, and Pittsburgh Steelers on deck. They need to rack up wins now before they start playing playoff-caliber teams and division games again.
Above all, they must figure out why mistakes are being made, and what’s causing such terrible offensive rhythm if they want any chance at a postseason spot.
