The utter improbability of what Baker Mayfield did for the Los Angeles Rams, and to the Las Vegas Raiders on Thursday night really can’t be overstated. The Rams signed Mayfield on Tuesday to shore up their banged-up quarterback room, and as losers of six straight games, you didn’t really expect them to drive 98 yards downfield, with no time outs, in a hostile environment (L.A.’s SoFi Stadium was packed with Raiders fans), and with a quarterback who had one practice with his new team to travel that length to win the game.
But of course, that’s exactly what happened. Raiders punter AJ Cole III put the Rams at their own two-yard line with two minutes left in the game, up 16-10, and that was that, for all intents and purposes.
Except that it wasn’t. Mayfield was helped along the way by a couple of Raiders penalties — a pass interference call that negated an interception, and an unsportsmanlike conduct call that put the Rams in good stead after a sack — but it was what the Raiders did on the final play of that drive that gave Mayfield and the Rams one of the greatest comebacks in NFL history.
With 15 seconds left, and the ball at the Las Vegas 23-yard line, the Raiders — for whatever reason — lined up in press coverage with a single-high safety (Trevon Moehrig). Receiver Van Jefferson was running the fade route to the left side of the field, and the coverage gave Jefferson a one-on-one with cornerback Sam Webb. The Rams ran four verts with Tutu Atwell running the crosser from the inside right slot, Ben Skowronek running the seam from the outside right slot, and Tyler Higbee running the fade to the other side.
This was the result.
The throw was on the money, the catch was great, and even when the Raiders dropped a second safety (Duron Harmon) deep, it was to the middle of the field, which made no difference.
Four verts from the Rams for the game-winning TD. pic.twitter.com/g153JOSH7B
— Bill Barnwell (@billbarnwell) December 9, 2022
“To be honest with you, I was completely shocked that they lined up in press coverage with 15 seconds left on the clock,” Mayfield told the Amazon.com postgame crew. “I really thought they were going to try to pop out and play zone, but I saw the weak-side safety stay down, and Van is a great go-ball runner to go up and get it. He won off the line, and did a good job.”
Mayfield wasn’t the only one shocked by that coverage.
“I can’t take credit, that was him making plays,” head coach Sean McVay said of Mayfield after the game. “The guys made plays too. I thought just some of the opportunity throws, they were playing a lot of man coverage in those situations and guys were able to win. The catch down our sideline where Ben Skowronek goes up over somebody, even to be able to give Van Jefferson the attempt when we were still backed up, to draw the PI.
The throw to Skowronek, which came with 1:20 left in the game, and took the Rams from their own 28-yard line to the Las Vegas 40, was a real banger, and a crucial part of the drive. Once again, the Raiders were in Cover-1, and the “somebody” Skowronek went up over was cornerback Nate Hobbs. Moehrig tried his best to come over and help, but Mayfield’s throw — and Skowronek’s catch — proved too much to defend.
“Then when you got to get the ball into the end zone with 15 seconds left and no timeouts, for Van Jefferson to be able to win, unbelievable job right there. Really the credit goes to the players. They made it all happen. They brought those things to life. That’s how it always is. It’s a whirlwind and I’m really happy for those guys.”
Because the Rams were in speed no-huddle, once the Raiders committed to Cover-1 at the start of the drive, they were kind of stuck with it. They played Cover-1 on all but one of Mayfield’s six attempts on the final drive, allowing four completions on five attempts for 71 yards — and of course, the touchdown.
In Weeks 1-12, per Sports Info Solutions, the Raiders had played Cover-1 on 106 opponent attempts. They had allowed 64 completions for 857 yards, five touchdowns, no interceptions, and an opponent passer rating of 101.8.
We’ll just let that stand on its own.
The good news for Mayfield, as he looks to advance a career that has gone off the rails to a degree, is that he could be a great longer-term fit with his brand-new team. Mayfield has always been better in 11 personnel (one running back, one tight end, three receivers), and the Rams have lived in 11 for years.
“I used to not necessarily complain about the fact that I had that many different offensive systems and having to learn that, but it came in handy when having to learn a crash course and being able to relate certain things,” Mayfield concluded. “Sean’s protection scheme is similar to Bill Callahan’s, who I had in Cleveland, so terminology with that…that knocks out a big chunk of the learning curve and just trying to learn all the motions and the terminology for that. It’s tough, but those guys did a great job of helping me out and communicating when I got off the field on the sideline and just talking about the plays that were coming up.
“There were still definitely some, what looked like rookie errors with formations in motions. Obviously, it hurt us late, but it worked out. But not having the timeouts to be able to call on defense, it came down to that third one stop. The defense did a hell of a job making that stop and giving us the ball back. So there’s things that definitely need to be worked out, but those guys helped me out in this crash course.”
The 4-9 Rams have four games left in what has been a lost season, and McVay just wants to see the best version of Mayfield for this offense in that stretch. The future in the distance will take care of itself. The Rams next face the Green Bay Packers on Monday, December 19, so Mayfield will actually have time to unpack his bags, take half a deep breath, and get a sense of the playbook — not to mention the guys he’s throwing to.
“I think similar to what you saw tonight and really being able to continue to get more of a big picture grasp of…it’s not even a grasp, it’s more of just more time to be able to give him the totality of some of the different things that we can utilize with his skill set and the 10 players playing around him,” McVay said, when asked what he wants to see from his new quarterback.
“So it’ll be fun. It’ll be good to be able to have a couple days, these guys, you talk about two hard fought games in the last four days. I can’t say enough about this group, coaches did a great job. But I think it’s really just taking things a day at a time. But hopefully we’ll have a little bit more things that we can present to what we know is an excellent Green Bay team. I don’t care what their record is. [We] know them too well, their personnel, their coaches, and it’s going to be a great challenge going to Lambeau [Field] on Monday night.”
What we see from Baker Mayfield at that point might be the most compelling story of all.
