Rams, Week 2 — What Repeats: Play-Action Back at 2025's Rate

Last week the charting sheet said this was a different Rams offense. Play-action on 17 percent of dropbacks in Melbourne, half of last season's rate. Motion well under its usual level. Three interception-worthy balls from Matthew Stafford on 25 throws. On Monday night against the Giants, the biggest of those went back to last season. Play-action on 11 of 32 dropbacks: 34.4 percent. Across all of last season it was 34.6. That was sixth-highest of the 32 teams this week, after 20-sixth in Week 1. The notebook from Week 1 held three lines on this offense, and two of them reversed in seven days.

The second reversal is the ball charting. Stafford threw 31 passes and one was charted interception-worthy — a ball a defender should have caught — three percent. Last week it was three of his 25, and the team's rate was the highest in the league. This week the team's three percent was tied with Baltimore and Indianapolis for eleventh of 32, and Stafford's own rate across last season was two percent, so Monday sits close to his normal. He was intercepted once, and that was the interception-worthy throw. 25 of his 31 throws were catchable, 81 percent, seventh-highest of the 32 offenses this week, after the Rams ranked 30-first at 54 percent in Week 1. Last season he was at 73. The receivers gave some back: three drops on those 25 catchable balls, 12 percent, fifth-highest this week, against five and a half percent across last season. Five of the 31 throws were contested — a receiver and a defender arriving together — 16 percent, tied with Denver for ninth, a shade above last season's 15. No throwaways.

Here is the wrinkle inside the return of play-action. Last week the fake was the part that worked. This week it was the other way. Stafford's nine play-action throws went six for 69 yards. His 22 throws without a fake went 16 for 258. Last season his play-action throws averaged more yards apiece than the rest. So the call rate came home, and the yards came from the dropbacks with no fake in them.

Motion came back too, past where it was. A man moving before the snap on 44 of 74 charted plays, 59 and a half percent, fourth-highest in the league this week. Week 1 was 39 percent, 20-fifth. Last season, 52. No-huddle dropped to under two percent of snaps, 20-fourth this week, after 12 and a half percent in Week 1 and under seven last season. Screens stayed rare, two on 32 dropbacks.

Of those three notebook lines, the run game is the one that repeated, and it grew. The Giants showed six or fewer defenders in the box on five of the Rams' 24 designed runs — 21 percent, 20-eighth of the 32 teams this week — with an average of seven and a half in the box. San Francisco did it on 22 percent in Week 1, 20-ninth. Last season this offense saw a light box on 52 percent of its designed runs, with an average of about six and a half. Two opponents in a row have crowded the box well past what the Rams saw a year ago. In Week 1 27 designed runs went for a hundred 14 yards. Monday, 24 went for a hundred 64, 6.8 per designed run, the most of any offense in the league this week; the next best was 5.6. On Sunday, watch the box before a Rams run: two defenses have chosen to crowd it, and this week the run game made that expensive.

The defense changed its mind about the pass rush. Los Angeles sent five or more rushers on 16 of the Giants' 34 dropbacks — 47 percent, eighth-highest of the 32 defenses this week. In Week 1 it was 14 percent, tied for 20-eighth, and across all of last season 19 and a half. That is an average of 4.7 rushers per dropback. The same night, the Giants' throws came out uncatchable at a rate no other defense in the league matched: 14 of 32 catchable, 44 percent, the lowest allowed this week, against 71 percent for this defense's opponents last season and 85 percent for San Francisco in Week 1. Six of the 32 were contested, 19 percent, sixth-highest this week, against 14 last season. The charting does not say the rush caused the throws. It says they arrived together. The Giants' quarterbacks left the pocket on only three of 34 dropbacks.

The run defense kept the heavier look from Week 1 and got a better result. A light box on five of the Giants' 21 designed runs, 24 percent, 20-seventh this week, with an average of 7.1 in the box. In Week 1 it was 36 percent. Last season this defense showed a light box on 65 and a half percent of opponents' designed runs, with an average of 6.3. Against San Francisco the heavier boxes still gave up 5.3 yards per designed run. Against the Giants, 21 designed runs gained 52 yards, two and a half per run, 20-sixth of the 32 teams this week, where low is the good direction for a defense.

The stat lines have settled, scored half-PPR. Davante Adams caught eight of 10 targets for a hundred 95 yards and two touchdowns, 35.5. Stafford went 22 of 31 for 327, four touchdowns and an interception, 27. Kyren Williams, 12 carries for 85 +2 catches and a touchdown, 14.7. Terrance Ferguson caught six of nine for 54 and a score, 14.4. Blake Corum, 12 for 79 one catch for 13, 9.7. For New York, Cam Skattebo ran 12 times for 36 and caught four for 19, 7.5. Isaiah Likely caught five of 10 for 33. Malik Nabers caught one of four for a yard. Jameis Winston went 11 of 27 for a hundred 11 and an interception after Jaxson Dart left early.

On what all of this is measured against: two games in, the Rams have no season of their own to be compared with yet, so this show still holds each game up to the whole of last season — a roster that has moved in places and is a year older everywhere. That reveals what is unusual. It cannot yet reveal what is real. Week 1 comes in as last week and one game, never as this season's rate.

For anyone new: last season the Rams went 12 five. They opened this season losing to San Francisco 27 to seven, and beat the Giants 28 to six on Monday. The Week 1 notebook had three lines. Stafford's interception-worthy rate, the highest in the league that week: back near his normal. Play-action at half last season's rate: back to last season's rate to within a fifth of a point. The run game holding up against heavy boxes: it repeated, and more. Two games do not settle anything, and one of them was against a Giants offense whose throws the charting called the least catchable in the league. What goes in the notebook now is the box count — two opponents in a row crowding it against this run game — and a defense that sent five or more at more than three times its Week 1 rate. Which of those two weeks is the Rams' pass rush is the next question.

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_Data via nflverse. Charting: FTN Data via nflverse._