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GREEN BAY, Wis. — The Los Angeles Rams spent all offseason telling fans they would be more competitive than expected in 2023 because of their three “weight-bearing walls”: quarterback Matthew Stafford, receiver Cooper Kupp and defensive tackle Aaron Donald.
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In Sunday’s 20-3 loss to the Green Bay Packers, whoever stuck around through all four quarters to watch the stink fest saw the depths of the other side. Without just one of those players — Stafford, who suffered an ulnar collateral ligament sprain last week in a loss to the Dallas Cowboys and was inactive — an offense that was already struggling to put together a complete game deteriorated.
Backup Brett Rypien completed 13 of 28 pass attempts, fumbled twice (and lost one) and threw an interception in an awful outing.
“I think there were some instances where we can play better around him, we can put him in better spots,” coach Sean McVay said, “and then he can certainly do some things in terms of his ability to play at a higher clip consistently throughout. … Collectively, we can do a better job.”
The Rams averaged 2.3 yards per carry between their two running backs and had five runs that lost yardage — including a sweep to Ben Skowronek on third-and-1 in the opening drive. The defense, which was not perfect by any stretch — they allowed 184 rushing yards and had some big miscues in the pass game on the Packers’ second touchdown drive — did take the ball away from the Packers twice, after which the Rams scored no points. The Rams had four first downs in the second half, of 10 total.
McVay and Rypien got a long chance to talk together near the sideline during the break between the third and fourth quarters, with a fourth-and-2 coming up on the other side and the Rams still only down 10-3. The play call was a short-yardage run, out of 11 personnel (three receivers, only one tight end), and out of shotgun. It failed.
Early in the third quarter, McVay took a delay penalty and elected to punt from the Green Bay 36-yard line instead of going for a 53-yard field goal (kicker Lucas Havrisik previously made a 52-yarder on the opposite goal posts, the Rams’ only points of the day), citing the distance as the issue. Havrisik missed his next attempt, a 49-yard try. Tight end Tyler Higbee, McVay acknowledged, has been “fighting through a lot of stuff, and is playing with something that restricts his hand on his right thumb.” Higbee also appeared to bang up his left hand during the game. Yet several of the run game concepts the Rams activated Sunday depended on Higbee’s blocking (a two-hand, two-armed task), and he had a pass broken up that should have been secured as a catch, with McVay indicating after the game that in part they needed to have another veteran presence on the field (they are without right tackle Rob Havenstein, as well as Stafford).
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And on, and on — yet even that descriptor is not accurate, because it implies forward progress and the Rams had next to none.
“A good, humbling day,” McVay said after the game, “sometimes you have days like that. … There really (were) not a lot of positives to take away.”
“Humbling is a word,” said Kupp, who finished the game with two catches for 48 yards. “‘Crappy’ would be good, too. … We have so many good football players, so many competent people on that sideline. And when things aren’t working, it’s a frustrating feeling.”
Among his postgame comments, McVay noted the weather — sporadic rain and chilly, though not freezing, temperatures — was a factor in Rypien’s and others’ play and even limited the menu of plays from which he felt comfortable selecting. There were multiple fumbles/ball-security issues from both teams and a couple of drops by receivers. Rypien, who changed his cleats and put on a glove mid-game to combat the more slippery conditions, didn’t want to use the weather as an excuse for his errors.
“It’s tough to say how I feel right now,” he said after the game, “because I did really feel like I had a great week of practice. Probably my best I’ve had, going into a start. It’s frustrating, to say the least. I can’t really put my finger on it, but I just never really felt like we were able to get over that hump and really get rolling and get on the same page. It’s frustrating, for sure.”
Stafford might return in Week 11, and McVay said he was “hopeful” on that front though couldn’t commit with certainty. Kupp was a little firmer on the matter, saying, “I’m optimistic. I’ve said earlier this week, Matthew is the toughest guy I’ve ever met. I know he’s going to do everything he can to be out there on the field. Whenever he is on the field, I’m sure it’ll be sooner than anybody else wants him to be on the field.”
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Sunday, no matter what McVay said or didn’t say at the podium throughout the prior week, Stafford’s availability was always going to come down to whether he could grip a football — it wasn’t even about pain, more so functionality. With that understanding, Rypien and the coaching staff prepared as if he would get the start, as noted frequently throughout the week. He spoke in Stafford’s designated news conference slot Wednesday. He took the first-team reps, and players talked about him to media as if he’d start in Green Bay as early as Monday afternoon.
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Do I believe the organization realistically thought Stafford could play Sunday after Monday’s tests revealed the sprain, with a Week 10 bye? No, I don’t (though some internally did remain hopeful). The Rams tried to sign former backup John Wolford last Monday, for example, which is not the sign of a team that is confident in its starter’s availability nor the ability of its rostered backups. The media can ask all the questions possible in McVay’s Wednesday and Friday news conferences — on grip, on swelling, on what the return-to-play process looks like — but he still declined to say Friday whether Stafford could grip a football (anything that is not a “yes” is a “no,” folks!) when asked directly. Sunday night, Rypien pulled back the curtain a little bit when he said he had a good idea he’d start throughout the week but knew for sure Friday — when Stafford “wasn’t really able to grip a ball or anything.”
Do I believe Stafford did everything he could to play, and so the organization publicly left the door open in case of some Sunday morning miracle in the team’s Appleton, Wis., hotel? Sure. Stafford will always try to play. If he can’t grip a football, he can’t play. That is a fact, it was all week, and it will be after the bye.
In truth, it matters less who was publicly vague or noncommittal throughout the week, and it matters most that the Rams caught a glimpse of a future without competent quarterback play. It was as bleak as the skies overhead, with a roster and staff seemingly ill-equipped in its current state to suffer such a future.
If they continue to play like this, the Rams might have a shot at solidifying their long-term outlook at the position, even if a returned-to-health Stafford (who was playing really well when healthy) is certainly their shorter-term future.
But there’s something more insidiously concerning at play: The Rams are an offense against which other teams are successfully breaking their own defensive tendencies.
That means the Rams see certain patterns and sequences on tape when studying opponents, but Kupp said after the game they are also frequently seeing teams deviate from that tape when they play Los Angeles. The Rams considered the Packers, for example, to be a “man (man-to-man) outfit on third down,” Rypien said, but they instead played disguised man looks where they sank into Tampa 2 after the snap.
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“This year, for whatever reason, I feel like we’ve seen a lot of that,” Kupp said of the defensive tendency-breaking, including on Sunday. “I’m sure Matthew’s brain is part of the reason why. Defensive coordinators want to feel like they throw some different stuff out there. Try to mess Matthew up. But we’ve been seeing some weird stuff, some different stuff that has kind of come from out of the blue.”
Kupp expanded when I asked him whether, collectively — players and coaches — are adequately coming up with the correct answers to their in-game problems on the fly. If defenses are throwing different things at the Rams during a game, the next step is the Rams’ adjusting to counter. But the offense has struggled to put four complete quarters together and has only scored more than 20 points once in the last five games (a 1-4 stretch).
“Yeah,” Kupp said, “I think there is something about being able to say, ‘What is the capacity to be able to make plays right?’ I do think, I credit Green Bay, they put some stuff on film, some tendencies (things that are) beyond tendencies, like, ‘Hey, this is pretty locked in. This is how they do things.’ Suddenly, we get something that’s not. They break that tendency on a random third down, or a random fourth down. It’s like, ‘shoot,’ well, you always anticipate and you never try to predetermine. And that’s football. … (Green Bay) did a good job of changing some stuff up, like most defenses have that we’ve seen this season. Stuff we’re seeing on film, we get some different stuff.”
Stafford alluded to the tendency-breaking Kupp discussed two weeks ago when I asked him a similar question.
“I think, from what I’ve seen from defensive coordinators, I think they have a lot of respect for who our head coach is and who our core offensive minds are in this building,” he said at that time. “What you see on tape is not what you get on Sundays. I think we’ve had to adjust quite a bit, probably more so than some other teams — then you’ve got to go out there and make the adjustments and go make the plays.”
Kupp said he believes the coaching staff has “done a good job adapting,” but added that in the middle of a play, the players also have to know their jobs “and when things change, you’ve got to make it right” (Kupp noted specifically he was also addressing himself in those comments).
Nobody, Kupp added, is reinventing the wheel against the Rams. “Nothing otherworldly,” he said, “It’s just about recognizing (it), and being able to make the changes.”
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Kupp was talking about collective in-game adjustments between players and coaches, against defenses.
But the Rams must apply his exact words to their bigger picture — during the bye, in the rest of the season, and beyond.
(Top photo of Brett Rypien: Larry Radloff / Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)
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