[aeneas1]

great stuff @phoenixrising

I'm always a little dubious when defenders in the box are noted while ignoring offensive personnel. If you go with 12 or 21 personnel you will likely get an extra guy in the box. The Rams go with 11 personnel more than any team in the league which explains why Gurley sees fewer defenders in the box.

exactly - show me a team that runs a lot of 12, 13, 21, 22 etc. and i'll show a team that typically sees more crowded boxes.... that said, the average number of defenders in the box that teams face is so friggin' close from team to team, that it's almost not even worth talking about - for example, according to fo's annual almanac (have been getting it for years, great publication for the most part, can be prone to errors), the average number of defenders in the box teams faced last season ranged from 5.98 (lowest) to 6.56 (highest).

As an aside, I've always thought that the Rams bring their WR's in tight more than most teams because Gurley can bounce it outside like no other.

the minus splits out of the 11 that the rams love definitely serve a purpose, they use their wr to seal the edges more than any other team, there's a great (relatively) recent breakdown vid that illustrates this well, iirc it's an allen film room vid.

The concept of play action in the conventional sense doesn't really make sense when applied to the Rams. Rather than an occasional way to trick the defense it has become the Rams base play. I haven't seen a count, but it seems there's only a handful of plays per game where the OL is dropping into a traditional pass block formation.

the rams, typically, still drop into traditional pass pro when passing from the shotgun altho the threat of sweeps helps the shotgun pass pro cause... this season 59% of the rams passes have been thrown from the shotgun, while 41% have come from under center.

but that 41% from under center is huge, it's twice the rate of the league average (20.2%), and goes a long way in helping protect goff, in allowing the oline to protect goff in non-traditional pass pro schemes, given the far majority of these pass attempts are not only from under center, but they're also play action passes.

also, fwiw, the 59%/41% ratios i mentioned above are actually kind of overstated given they include 3rd down passes, which are almost exclusively out of the shotgun... if you take 3rd down pass attempts out of the equation it becomes 47% of the rams pass attempts have come when in shotgun, while 53% have come from under center, which is flat-out crazy, and illustrates how mcvay's scheme has benefited the rams oline tremendously, and by extension goff.

speaking of tendencies, here's an odd one - through week 6 teams are running the ball out of the shotgun 41% of the time which, in itself, is surprisingly high to me. the rams? 6% of the time.. the next closest team to the rams is at 17%, the eagles are at a whopping 68%... so what's going on here? my guess is the rams turning hand-off sweeps into little shuttle passes has a lot to do with.

I just noted in another post the Rams' deep to short tendencies.

where? i'd like to read it. @max recently linked to a great article that touched on this.

Incidentally, I heard that many college coaches are closely watching McVay's game plans. That's a bit of a role reversal.

hell, i would too, even if i coached pop warner!