Matthew Stafford, Rams’ offense suffer a drop-off

It has been years since Matthew Stafford played two games in a row like this.

What “this” means is up for discussion. The quarterback has been either a cause of the Rams’ woes or a victim of them. Or both, as Coach Sean McVay suggested in a defense of the leader of the Rams’ offense.

“I think Matthew can certainly play better,” McVay said the morning after the Rams’ 31-10 loss to the San Francisco 49ers in Santa Clara on Monday night, their second straight heading into the team’s bye week.

But McVay quickly turned the blame to the Rams’ glaring number of dropped passes, the worst being tight end Tyler Higbee’s muff of a short throw that turned into a Jimmie Ward interception and runback for a 14-0 49ers lead.

“He’s going to get knocked on his quarterback rating for a tipped pick for him when a guy drops a screen for him,” McVay said. “That’s not Matthew’s fault. He put the ball in the right location. There was a lot of plays that I thought guys had a chance that they didn’t help him at all either.”

Stafford threw two interceptions early in each of the losses to the Tennessee Titans and the 49ers, having one in each game returned for a touchdown. They are his first back-to-back games with multiple interceptions since 2013. That was in the middle of his 12 seasons with the Detroit Lions.

Since McVay brought up passer ratings: Stafford’s ratings of 71.0 and 67.4 the past two games are his worst in consecutive games since 2014 with the Lions. They’re also the worst back-to-back by a Rams quarterback since the depths of Jared Goff’s November-long touchdown-pass drought in 2019.

(If you pretend that third-down pass to Higbee went for a completion and the 11 yards needed for a first down, instead of an interception, Stafford’s rating Monday would improve to 80.7. Then this two-game set would be his worst since 2016.)

On Monday night, Stafford as always refrained from blaming anyone else, calling Higbee’s damaging drop “uncharacteristic.”

In addition to having his stats hurt by drops by Higbee and Cooper Kupp, Stafford also seems to be misfiring more than he did during his fantastic first month with the Rams. His on-target pass rate of 68.6%, according to pro-football-reference.com, is 29th among NFL quarterbacks.

Stafford missed two days of practice before the Tennessee game with a stiff back and practiced with his left ankle taped in the week before the San Francisco game. Given his history of playing through a variety of injuries, it’s natural to wonder if the 33-year-old is hurting.

“I really do feel good,” Stafford said on the Thursday before the 49ers game.

After the game, he said it will be “nice” to rest his body for a week before the Rams (7-3) get down to practice for the Nov. 28 game against the Green Bay Packers (8-2).

Stafford said the interceptions were more about “tough decisions” than anything physical.

Stafford and McVay also didn’t blame the passing game’s problems on last week’s upheaval in the wide receiver corps, the season-ending injury to Robert Woods on Friday following the free-agent acquisition of Odell Beckham Jr. on Thursday.

“I don’t know that it really affected guys’ ability to throw and catch and not execute at the level that we expect (them) to,” McVay said.

The loss at Levi’s Stadium left the Rams trailing the NFC West-leading Arizona Cardinals (8-2) by a game (plus a tiebreaker), meaning the Rams would be the NFC’s fifth seed and open on the road if the playoffs started now.

The losses to the Titans and 49ers mark only the second time the McVay-era Rams have lost back-to-back games as point-spread favorites. The other time was when they lost to the Chicago Bears and Philadelphia Eagles in December 2018. They righted the ship that time – they didn’t lose again until the Super Bowl.

This time, they have fixes to make and injuries and roster changes to deal with on offense (which has scored two touchdowns in two weeks), defense (which gave up 93- and 91-yard drives and a 40-yard Jimmy Garoppolo to Deebo Samuel touchdown on a fourth-and-6) and special teams (how much time do you have?).

McVay was fired up about this year’s task when he vowed right after Monday’s loss to come back from the bye week “freakin’ swinging.”

“My emotions got the best of me. I almost said the wrong word there and you guys would have been really bleeping everywhere,” McVay said Tuesday. “I don’t know how to do anything else when our back is against the wall than just to come out and fight and really just work hard and try to be solution-oriented.”

He said there’s “urgency” with seven games left in the regular season.

“Guys have to play better,” McVay said, adding that coaches will be “figuring out what we can do to accentuate our player skill sets – whether that’s utilizing different guys, putting them in different spots, having better game plans.”

Then, he said, “it’s our players’ job to be able to go execute.”

That includes throwing and catching the ball.

NOTES

The Rams appeared to come out of the 49ers game without more significant injuries. Running back Darrell Henderson missed a drive while being evaluated for a possible concussion but returned to the game. McVay, speaking Tuesday morning, said he hadn’t received an injury report yet. …

Robert Woods will be the 11th Rams player to go on injured reserve during the 2021 season. That’s about the same rate for the Rams as the past few years. …

McVay praised the Rams debuts of Odell Beckham Jr. and Von Miller. “I think Von did a nice job. You could see him kind of feeling his way around, and he made some plays, and you could definitely feel his presence. I think for Odell to even be able to get out there and line up is a real credit to him. We didn’t even have one full-speed practice with him.”