Super Bowl LVI is finally here! The Cincinnati Bengals are in the game for the third time after 1981 and 1988, while the Los Angeles Rams are trying their second attempt under Sean McVay after 2018. The Rams go into the game as favorites – also due to their high-class offense. But what does it matter? And what answers could the Bengals come up with? SPOX-Editor Adrian Franke highlights the Rams’ offense before the Super Bowl.
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At various points this season, the description of “roller coaster ride” seemed to most closely match what the Los Angeles Rams bought in with Matt Stafford. There were the impressive highs – and there were the pitch-black lows.
The first duel with the 49ers, for example, when Stafford’s serious mistakes put the Rams on the losing road. The same game had already happened the week before against the Titans. Against the Vikings, he threw the game away multiple times, even if L.A. won it in the end. And even in the championship game against the 49ers, he threw an interception, and when Jaquiski Tartt completely unconditionally intercepts Stafford’s Pass, the Niners receive the ball back almost ten minutes before the end under their own guidance.
On the other side of this equation is an offense that has regained its explosiveness, which was lost with Jared Goff last time. Stafford led the league in deep passing yards in the regular season (1,272), tripling the yield in this category from Goff (416 deep passing yards) in his final Rams season.
At least in part, Stafford’s fluctuations are also emblematic of the Rams offense’s search for identity. Head coach Sean McVay seemed to be looking to radically open up the offense at the beginning of the season, to act more from spread formations and to unload more on the shoulders of the quarterback, now that he had received the quarterback upgrade.
But that put Stafford’s inconsistency all the more in the spotlight, and it took a while before the Rams found a kind of middle ground between the very quarterback-friendly “Goff offense” and the more aggressive “Stafford offense”. There were always the games, who felt like a flashback and clearly reminded of the past Goff season.
Super Bowl: The Rams Offense – the Basics
- In terms of personnel usage, the Rams have completed the cycle: McVay’s Super Bowl offense in 2018 operated with the highest 11-personnel ratio in the league (one running back, one tight end, three wide receivers) and was able to build up their vertical play-action passing game. However, defenses became more and more attuned to this, so McVay had to find ways to continue to scheme mismatches and explosive plays despite Goff’s limitations. In terms of personnel, the answer was to offer more two tight ends and thus get over the matchup track: in 2020, L.A. played 29 percent of its snaps in 12-Personnel, the fourth highest rate in the league.
- With Stafford, that dropped dramatically, with the Rams playing only 12 percent 12-personnel this season – and leading the league with an 11-personnel ratio of 85 percent (league average: 61 percent). 12-Personnel, meanwhile, remains a shot-play indicator: when the Rams throw the ball on the field with two tight ends, they do it loudly Sharp Football Stats with 10.3 air yards per pass – 2.5 yards above the league average.
- The offensive conversion by the quarterback change is also evident in the play-calling. Stafford’s play-action quota was loud PFF at 23.7 percent – for comparison: Jared Goff got Play Action in 2020 at 32.9 percent of his passes, in 2019 he was at 32.8 percent and in 2018 at 35.8 percent. A drastic change. If the Rams, however, use play action, then very differently than they did last time with Goff. His average target depth at Play Action was 6.7 yards last year, the lowest in the NFL. Stafford 2021 was almost exactly two yards over it.
- Stafford had the third most touchdown passes in under 2.5 seconds in the regular season (23). It is striking that Stafford had to create comparatively few big plays himself, but the offense worked schematically excellently here. Stafford’s average target depth in under 2.5 seconds was just 4.7 yards.
- How well the scheme works is also evident in another stat: Stafford threw only 12.1 percent of his passes in narrow windows, one of the lowest scores in the NFL. By comparison, Super Bowl-vs. Joe Burrow is at the completely different end of the spectrum in this category with over 19 percent.
- According to expected points added per play, Stafford was the most productive quarterback this season against single-high coverages as well as against man coverage. Cincinnati likes to play single high with Jessie Bates as a free safety, but is primarily a zone coverage team.
- The change in the offensive role distribution due to the wide receiver transition from Robert Woods to Odell Beckham – forced due to injury – was obvious: Beckham spent just under 21 percent of his pass snaps in the slot with the Rams; Woods had spent almost 45 percent of the snaps in the slot until his injury. Beckham took on a much more vertical role, which also led to Tyler Higbee taking on a more consistent role on offense after the Woods injury.
- And there was another change with the Rams recently: in the regular season, only three teams – the Chiefs, the Bucs and the Bills – were more pass-heavy than the Rams in neutral game situations at early down, with a rate of almost 58 percent. This ratio fell to just under 51 percent in the playoffs, and here the figures fit the perception: the early-down runs with Cam Akers were often unsuccessful, but McVay remained more strict in the postseason than in the regular season. This could be an opportunity for Cincinnati to keep the game tight and low-scoring for longer.
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Stafford’s best games came against teams that tried to play him aggressively. Arizona, Tampa Bay, Houston, among others. At least Cincinnati is unlikely to do him the favor in the Super Bowl, but you only have to look at the performance of the Bengals defense in the Championship game against the Chiefs. You will probably also see Stafford less often.
The biggest question from the Bengals’ point of view, however, will be whether they can find the right balance between, on the one hand, enough people in coverage and the right amount of attention for Rams top receiver Cooper Kupp – and, on the other hand, a pass rush that can put Stafford under pressure behind an excellent offensive line.
Against the 49ers, Stafford was under pressure at only 25 percent of his dropbacks, Tampa Bay could only increase the pressure in the Divisional Round as the game progressed by the Bucs flashing Stafford at almost 40 percent of his dropbacks overall.
That, however, was rarely the right remedy against Stafford this year: Stafford has been one of the best quarterbacks against the Lightning this season.
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