The Los Angeles Rams have often deployed a bend-don’t-break defense under Brandon Staley and Raheem Morris. They play a lot of top-down coverage with defenders staying deep and preventing big plays – which, for the most part, has worked.
It failed the Rams on Thursday night against the Bills, a game they lost 31-10. Josh Allen picked apart Los Angeles’ defense to the tune of 297 yards, three touchdown passes and a completion rate of 83.8%. He added 56 yards rushing and a touchdown on the ground, dominating the defending Super Bowl champions.
It was a zone-heavy plan from the Rams, but perhaps it wasn’t the right choice. Jalen Ramsey seemed to suggest Rams players would’ve preferred to play more man coverage.
“They were really attacking our little zones, like our soft spots in our zones,” Ramsey said after the game, via The Athletic. “Obviously we’ve gotta watch the film, but I’m sure we all would’ve liked to play man a little bit more. I feel like we kind of had a mentality like, ‘bend, don’t break’ a lot, because they were driving the ball but they weren’t scoring, like, we were getting turnovers, interceptions, whatever it was.”
The Rams went into this game believing the Bills would get frustrated by the defense forcing them to dink and dunk their way down the field. Allen took what the defense gave him, not throwing it deep a single time in the first half.
Passing charts for Matthew Stafford and Josh Allen from last night
Neither threw deep very much. Does Josh also have an elbow injury? pic.twitter.com/Rs8o9OIoIH
— Cameron DaSilva (@camdasilva) September 9, 2022
All of his throws were within 15 yards of the line of scrimmage until the fourth quarter when he hit Gabriel Davis for a 47-yard gain and later Stefon Diggs for a 53-yard score.
The Rams’ belief that the Bills couldn’t stay patient didn’t come to fruition.
“We felt like they weren’t going to be patient enough to do that the whole game, just take those five yards, three yards, four yards, right? But they were, for the most part,” Ramsey said. “(And) then they had … two or three explosives that ended up turning into touchdowns, and that was like, the difference. They won by three touchdowns.”
Another issue with the Rams’ approach was the lack of a pass rush. They hit Allen twice all night, and each came on a sack: one by Aaron Donald and another by Bobby Wagner. Otherwise, there was no pressure.
So he was able to sit back, wait for his receivers to find voids in the zone and throw darts around the field. The Rams will need to make adjustments in the coming weeks because when they face a great quarterback like Allen, this combination of coverage and a lack of pressure won’t get the job done.
