After a promising Week 1 victory over the Seattle Seahawks, the Los Angeles Rams have now dropped back-to-back games to fall to 1-2 early in this season. Sean McVay’s team was competitive in both of those contests, but what is slightly concerning has been the turnovers from quarterback Matthew Stafford.
While Stafford has completed 60% of his passes so far this season and has made some excellent plays, he has also thrown two interceptions in each of the Rams losses. This has been an issue for Stafford in the past, but McVay doesn’t feel all of these turnovers are on him and thinks Stafford has played well overall.
“I think Matthew’s done a really good job. I thought the first two games were really high-level ball,” the Rams coach said at a recent press conference. “I think we’ve had some unfortunate situations relative to the turnovers that, you’re talking about two out of those four plays are truly tip picks where he’s making the right decision, he’s going to the right read.
“The other one the other night was a miscommunication in protection. He’s trying to make a play,” McVay added. “He knows better than that to be able to kind of throw late over the middle and (Logan) Wilson ended up making a play. But overall, I think he’s throwing the ball with accuracy, anticipation and we’ve got to continue to do a good job of playing well around him. I can do some different things to help and that’ll always be the case, but I love the way Matthew’s played for us.”
As McVay said, two of those picks from Stafford were tipped where he made the right play, but still suffered an unfortunate outcome. This is the case for all quarterbacks, but there were also some mistakes on the part of Stafford that must be fixed and the Rams coach took some of the blame on that as well.
Considering the Rams remain without star receiver Cooper Kupp, Stafford has done well with Puka Nacua and Tutu Atwell each benefitting from the play of the Rams quarterback. Turnovers are always a concern and Stafford and the rest of the Rams need to make sure they are cutting down and not gifting the opposition these takeaways and great field position.
The margin for error for the Rams isn’t great and the team simply can not afford to turn the ball over. McVay and Stafford will undoubtedly look at what is happening and do everything possible to ensure they are limited.
