The Los Angeles Rams and Cincinnati Bengals are the last two teams remaining in the NFL playoff race and they both possess talented wide receiver trios. So it shouldn’t come as a surprise to see that the Rams and Bengals both run 11 personnel at the highest rate in the league, especially with Zac Taylor having worked under Sean McVay.
Even though both teams tend to run three-receiver sets often, there are areas where McVay and Taylor differ with their offensive tendencies.
The Rams and the Bengals tend to run a majority of their offensive sets out of 11 personnel and they are fond of running plays out of empty formations where the quarterback is the only player in the backfield. Where McVay and Taylor differ is their bunch and trips formation usage, along with the formation width that each offense operates under.
The Rams have averaged the most condensed average formation width in every season under Sean McVay, except for 2021 where they ranked 5th.
Meanwhile, Zac Taylor and the Bengals have aligned in wider formations since drafting Joe Burrow in 2020.#RamsHouse | #RuleTheJungle pic.twitter.com/dbr9RMV1e6
— Next Gen Stats (@NextGenStats) February 8, 2022
McVay loves to utilize bunch formations — where three wide receivers are bunched together on one side of the field — to create mismatches against certain defenses. Besides having three wide receivers bunched together, McVay also incorporates a ton of trips formations, which is when three wide receivers are typically spread out on one side of the field.
Despite Taylor translating some of McVay’s schemes and tendencies during his tenure with the Bengals, he doesn’t use bunch or trips formations nearly as much. Another area that Taylor has varied from the McVay system is the informational width, which has notably increased since the arrival of Joe Burrow last season.
Formations have become more condensed in certain offenses as pre-snap motions and pick-plays have become popular across the NFL. Meanwhile, the Bengals have elected to go against the grain by spreading out their offense.
Regardless of what McVay and Taylor are doing on offense, it’s clear that each coach has put together a successful scheme as both of them will be coaching against one another in the Super Bowl this Sunday.
