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Matthew Stafford comes out scorching hot against the Giants

Perhaps the mini bye week did Matthew Stafford some favors.

After a somewhat shaky performance in Week 5 against the Seattle Seahawks, Stafford came out scorching out against the New York Giants on Sunday afternoon. The new passer for the Los Angeles Rams began the day completing 20 of 26 passes for 232 yards and three touchdowns to help build a 25-point lead for the Rams on the road.

Stafford did throw an interception on the final play of the first half, but other than that, the QB has been red-hot for the Rams today.

His first touchdown came with Robert Woods on the end, on this well-designed and perfectly-executed passing concept down in the red zone:

Stafford takes the snap and first looks to the right, where the Rams have a go/flat concept called. He pumps on the flat route to try and create space for the vertical, but does not like the look and comes back to the left, where the design has both Woods and Cooper Kupp working across the field from the #2 and #3 alignments in the trips formation. Kupp is the deeper of the two routes. Stafford glances first at Kupp, and then spying Woods open underneath he simply takes the easier throw, and Woods finishes the play for a score.

Then, following a Daniel Jones sack, the Rams were gifted great field position to start their next possession. That ended with a decision by Sean McVay to go for it on a 4th and 1 at the Giants’ 3-yard line.

His faith in Stafford and the offense was rewarded:

McVay brings out one of his jet motion designs, sending DeSean Jackson in motion across the formation right before the snap. After faking a handoff to his receiver, Stafford slides to the right where he has a Flat-Seven Smash concept to that side of the field. Kupp is the receiver running to the flat, and is wide open for the touchdown.

There were concerns about Stafford’s deep ball after the win over the Seahawks. Perhaps his third touchdown of the day answered those:

Once again, you see the Rams empty the formation for Stafford and put him in the shotgun. On this play Darrell Henderson gets isolated on a linebacker, and runs a little slant-and-go route. That freezes the LB, and Stafford drops in a perfect throw over the top for the touchdown.

As I wrote for SB Nation this week, with Stafford as his quarterback McVay is running more dropback designs with his quarterback in the shotgun, rather than putting the QB under center to rely on play-action:

Now, with Stafford in place and McVay not having to serve as that “QB puppeteer,” the offense looks different.

Wildly different.

Through five weeks of the NFL season, Stafford has attempted 36 passes off of play-action.

That ranks the Rams quarterback 24th in the league among qualified passers.

Why the difference? Because McVay finally has a quarterback who he trusts, and can just rip throws from the pocket. Instead of relying upon these boot-action designs to give the quarterback half of the field to read, Stafford gives McVay the ability to call concepts that stress the defense from sideline-to-sideline.

…

The play begins with the quarterback in the shotgun, again a huge departure from last season when Goff had 197 passing attempts from under center, which ranked him third-most in the league. Last year Goff had just 355 passing attempts from shotgun according to Sports Info Solutions, which placed him 20th in the league.

Right now, Stafford already has 141 attempts from shotgun, through just five weeks of the season. His 31 passing attempts from under center, however, rank him 16th in the league. Right in the middle of the pack.
McVay has a passer he trusts, and as a result he has been able to shed the “QB puppeteer role” he took on the past few seasons. Today is just another example of what Stafford brings to the offense, and why the Rams made this move in the spring.

 

 

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