With their 24-12 loss to the Green Bay Packers at Lambeau Field on Monday Night, the 4-10 Rams were officially eliminated from the postseason. Prior to the game, they had a less than 1 percent shot at it. For those who have witnessed this team pull off crazy feats, a flicker of hope still remained.
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But thanks in part to back-to-back third-quarter touchdown drives by the Packers and a gasping response on offense by the Rams, who are playing their fourth quarterback of the season behind their 12th offensive line combination, that flicker was squeezed out by a series of goal-line kneeldowns as the final seconds of the fourth quarter trickled away.
It’s hard to know what is left to say. So, here’s a mess of takeaways from a mess of a game, inside a mess of a season:
• Quarterback Baker Mayfield is in his second week on the team. So, overall evaluations of his play are tough to make and require that context. He’s not working with a full playbook, and the Rams’ offensive line was penalty-addled and porous Monday night.
Mayfield was sacked five times, hit nine times and pressured on 33.3 percent of his dropbacks, according to TruMedia. He went 12 for 21 with 111 yards, a touchdown to tight end Tyler Higbee in the second half (Higbee’s first of the year) and an interception. Mayfield had a 67.8 passer rating. The last time the Packers had five sacks in a game, it was also against Mayfield — then a member of the Cleveland Browns.
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Of the eight penalties for 76 yards incurred by the Rams on Monday night, four were called against Los Angeles offensive linemen. True to Rams fashion in 2022, Mayfield also had a center changeout in the first quarter, when starting center Brian Allen left the game with a calf injury and did not return. Backup Coleman Shelton is quietly one of the Rams’ best offensive linemen, but a changeout combined with such limited time in the team’s offense overall is yet another challenge.
This isn’t to excuse poor execution in places — multiple things are true. Mayfield missed an open downfield throw in the first half (he had Van Jefferson open but held the ball), he ran directly into one of his sacks off of a boot-action (of course, he wasn’t supposed to be dealing with multiple free rushers) and he didn’t take a couple of designed checkdowns early in the game that could have gotten the Rams into a better rhythm — he lamented over these in his postgame press conference.
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“I feel frustrated with how I played early on,” said Mayfield. “I think there were some plays, just easy checkdowns when they’re playing that soft coverage — that we got to later — that I think I could have made a few plays just to stay on track earlier in the game. I think we’ll be frustrated with how close we were. It’s just one of those games where not a whole lot was going our way.”
• Receiver Tutu Atwell draws a great pass-interference call. But the sweeps to him are not working, and further they are painfully obvious to defenders. A first-down sweep in the second quarter ended up costing the Rams a loss of four yards, as Adrian Amos sat down right on top of it. Atwell and Mayfield both need more variety for the second-year receiver in the game plan. It will be telling of both players, and the coaching staff, if adjustments don’t happen.
• The Rams are the worst team in the NFL in scoring points off turnovers. They have 16 takeaways, which is tied with Green Bay for No. 19, but aren’t capitalizing on those limited opportunities on the other side of the ball. In fact, the Rams have only scored 16 points off of all interceptions or fumble recoveries in 2022, according to TruMedia, including just one touchdown.
On Monday night, safety Taylor Rapp picked off a badly-thrown Aaron Rodgers ball on what appeared to be a route miscommunication between the quarterback and Allen Lazard, and cornerback Jalen Ramsey physically peeled away a ball on a run stop. The Rams totaled three points off the two turnovers.
• The Rams are without star pass-rusher Aaron Donald, who is recovering from a high ankle sprain. But this week especially, the defensive line felt his absence in the run game along with A’Shawn Robinson, one of the NFL’s best run defenders, and up-and-coming rotational player Marquise Copeland (also dealing with a high ankle sprain). Without them, the defensive line featured backups Jonah Williams, Bobby Brown and Earnest Brown IV trying to complement starter Greg Gaines. The effort of that group was there, but the Packers schemed up an excellent run game to keep the inexperienced players off balance and also to get offensive linemen and helping blockers into the second level to block prolific run-stopping linebacker Bobby Wagner out of a couple of plays. In the first half, the Packers averaged 5.6 yards per carry behind a mixture of inside and outside run concepts. They finished the game with 5.1 yards per carry and two of three touchdowns were on the ground.
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• The Packers, with an ability to build off a successful run game despite a tight score at halftime, were then allowed the flexibility to make notable adjustments in their passing game in the second half. Ramsey, for example, covered Christian Watson on 59 percent of his routes in the first half according to Next Gen Stats, and Watson had no catches with one target. In the third quarter, the Packers started scheming Watson into some of the underneath voids and he had two catches of 10-plus yards on the scoring drive that opened the second half. His first catch of the day came against cornerback Troy Hill.
Meanwhile, Rodgers killed the Rams’ blitz, completing 10 of 12 passes for 93 yards against blitz pressure (+9.7% CPOE), according to Next Gen Stats. The Rams stuck with their blitz in the first quarter at a 53.8 percent rate, then dropped it down to similar second and third quarters — 41.7 and 37.5 percent rates, respectively. They waived both of their starting edge rushers in the last month, in Terrell Lewis and Justin Hollins, so it’s somewhat understandable that they’re doing whatever they can to get pressure. But … as written here about a million times this season … sending extra pass rushers takes away help in the vulnerable areas of the Rams’ zone, especially when an offense adjusts to attack those areas. Needing more juice off the edge is not a new problem for this defense. If they can get consistent pressure with four rushers, they can play the way this defense is built to play in the coverage concepts (they’ll need a little development/long-term consistency from those players, too).
• Agree with the calls or not, multiple flags hurt the Rams at key moments. A false start in the first quarter by Shelton set up a third-and-11 that subsequently led to an incomplete pass. A holding called against rookie cornerback Cobie Durant, which would have set up a third-and-17 because of a sack on the down, instead gave the Packers a fresh set of downs on their first drive in the third quarter. On that same drive, Ramsey was called for an illegal contact penalty on third-and-6 inside the Rams’ 10-yard line. The Packers scored a touchdown two plays later to go up 17-6. A Russ Yeast facemask penalty (roasted by the broadcast crew for its duration) on a special teams play handed the Packers 15 extra yards of field position on their consecutive touchdown drive.
• Players who had solid games …
Running back Cam Akers has gotten much better over the last five games. Entering Week 15, he had a positive net EPA/rush play over that span for the first time all season. Monday, he broke off long runs of 18 and 19 yards (one also got 15 extra yards tacked onto the end because of a penalty) and averaged 5.4 yards per carry — a season-high.
Jefferson didn’t get many opportunities Monday night, but on a third-and-13 catch, it was clear to see by the route he ran that he has gotten his legs and precision back under him after missing the first half of the season due to injury. He finished with two catches for 32 yards.
Outside linebacker Leonard Floyd is finally feeling healthy (albeit missing some time this week with an illness) after a long recovery from the knee injury the Rams initially thought was season-ending, just before their 2022 season began. Floyd had two sacks (including one on third down) and three hits, and led the Rams’ pass rush with four pressures.
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• Kicker Matt Gay was a bright spot as well, minus a missed extra point that could have been meaningful late in the game if the Rams were consistently putting together scoring drives in the first place. Gay hit both of his field goals, including a 55-yarder in the first half, his fifth of 50-plus yards this season. He became just the third kicker to ever hit a field goal of that distance in sub-25-degree temperatures.
(Top photo of Baker Mayfield: Patrick McDermott / Getty Images)