Matthew Stafford’s second year with the Los Angeles Rams looks much different than his first as the team finds itself 3-5 after nine weeks.
Gone are the days of lighting up the scoreboard as Stafford and the rest of the Rams offense have struggled both passing and running the football. In their loss to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Stafford completed just 13 of 27 passing attempts for 165 yards and a touchdown.
After the loss, Stafford expressed his frustrations with how he’s been throwing the football and how that’s affected their ability to sustain drives, via Stu Jackson of TheRams.com:
“We made a couple of big plays in the passing game, but just my biggest frustration was our inefficiency, my efficiency,” Stafford said. “The whole season, I feel like I’ve done a decent job of keeping the ball in play, giving our guys opportunity to make catches, kind of keep the chains moving. Hasn’t been good enough in a lot of instances, there’s no question about that, but tonight, I definitely was just not good enough in some of those instances where 2nd-and-10, maybe 3rd-and-5, and don’t give a guy a chance to make a catch to get us out of those third down situations. Just behind the sticks way too much.”
Of Stafford’s 165 yards, 127 of them were to Cooper Kupp who got loose for a 69-yard touchdown catch and run and another 34-yard explosive to set the Rams up for a field goal. Outside of Kupp, Stafford has not had any success throwing to his other receivers.
It’s hard to blame Stafford too much considering how shoddy the protection has been up front, but there are certainly instances where he can make better throws to keep the offense on schedule. Head coach Sean McVay has already said changes will be made, and it will be interesting to see how that affects Stafford.
