For three hours in Pittsburgh on Sunday, it was clear that Los Angeles Rams coach Sean McVay doesn’t have the same magic as his first couple seasons. We can drill it down to a baffling two-play sequence.
If Freddie Kitchens or Adam Gase had a similar decision-making process, we’d want them fired before they got on the team plane. In the third quarter, with the offense stalled, all of a sudden Blake Bortles was in the game at quarterback. He ran a really awkward read option and was stuffed for 1 yard on third-and-2. This was the plan. There was a plan to remove Jared Goff for Bortles in a key situation.
“We just had Blake come in. That was the play that we had designed for Blake,” McVay said, via Cameron DaSilva of The Rams Wire. “It wasn’t anything where Jared – you know, he was good. He was OK. That was a play that we were going to get Blake involved in and that was part of the game plan.”
Somehow, that wasn’t even the worst play in that sequence.
This is the kind of stuff that drives me nuts. It's like running a Wildcat play with your fourth string tailback or working on a trick play all week and not even knowing it is illegal. You know, like Chis Petersen did? Why do these guys go batshit crazy like this? I still can't get over Ron Rivera going for two early in the fourth quarter.....DOWN 8!On fourth down, punter Johnny Hekker came on. He lined up at shotgun depth and not his usual spot to kick. The Rams practically announced Hekker was going to throw it; it’s hard to even call it a fake. Hekker’s pass was intercepted by running back Trey Edmunds.
So on a key sequence McVay took Jared Goff off the field to run with Bortles, then pass with his punter. That’s ... something. Just to show he hadn’t gone temporarily insane, McVay didn’t give Todd Gurley one touch in the fourth quarter of a close game. Gurley averaged 6.1 yards per carry over the first three quarters.
WTF?
https://www.msn.com/en-us/sports/nfl/th ... spartanntp
Some good stuff in there about other guys too. Kitchens? OMG, I had to start Kareem Hunt in fantasy, so I watched those goal line plays with a lot of interest. Cleveland is, well, they are still the Browns.
