After winning Battle of LA, Rams will go as far as Jared Goff takes them – Touchdown Wire


When looking at the NFL’s four remaining undefeated teams, it’s important to assess strengths and weaknesses to see just how sustainable these strong starts are.

The Chiefs are demolishing every defense they face, and Patrick Mahomes is nearly impossible to stop as a passer and a runner. But their defense will allow every opponent a chance to stay in the game—one wonders how many weeks in a row the offense can bail the defense out.

The Miami Dolphins are a surprising undefeated team, having beaten the Titans, Texans, and Raiders on their way to a 3-0 mark. Questions will always abound regarding the consistency of quarterback Ryan Tannehill, and we might want to wait until Miami faces their next three opponents—the Patriots, Bengals, and Bears—before we crown them. It’s never bad to win your first three games, but doing so against teams that haven’t been anywhere near dominant raises concerns regarding what the Dolphins will do against stronger competition.

The Buccaneers, who will take on Pittsburgh’s highly suspect defense on Monday night, have the most dominant aerial attack in the NFL, but the defense has multiple issues, and nobody knows just how long quarterback Ryan Fitzpatrick will be able to retain this torrid pace. Like the Chiefs, the Bucs are masking the pressure of a below-average defense with a historic offensive pace. Good luck making that last over a full season.

That leaves the Rams, who just beat the Chargers 35-23 in what became known as “The Battle of Los Angeles.” And while that catchy name gives us all an opportunity to review one of Rage Against the Machine’s best albums, there are now issues that this team, which looked like the NFL’s most complete coming into this game, must resolve.

Marcus Peters and Aqib Talib, the team’s starting cornerbacks, were each lost to lower leg injuries, and the timeline for each player won’t be known until comprehensive medical checks happen on Monday.

Those injuries didn’t matter in the grand scheme of things, though, because all of a sudden, the Rams’ offense can’t be stopped. Per NBC Sports, their 521 total yards on Sunday were the most in franchise annals since 2006, and their 33 first downs were the most the team has put up since 2003—the tail end of the Greatest Show on Turf era.

And now, it might be time for the offense to carry things. Yes, the Rams’ defense will still be formidable as long as Aaron Donald, Ndamukong Suh, and Michael Brockers are wrecking offensive lines, but defensive coordinator Wade Philips relies heavily on Talib and Peters to play aggressive press coverage and they’re two of the best in the league when it comes to that particular skill set. And the lack of a dominant edge rusher further exacerbates any potential coverage issues.

So, for the Rams to maintain their status as the league’s hardest team to deal with, the focus will shift, at least in the short term, from Phillips’ defense to the offense designed by head coach Sean McVay. There’s no question that McVay is one of the best designers and play-callers in the league, and third-year quarterback Jared Goff may have become the kind of quarterback who can carry a franchise on his back for a period of time.

Against the Chargers’ defense, Goff completed 29 of 36 passes for 354 yards, three touchdowns, one interception in Sunday’s win, and it was the way he amassed those stats that show great development over time. When pressured, Goff maintained his poise, making excellent throws—and there was no throw more impressive than his 53-yard touchdown pass to receiver Cooper Kupp.

Here, Goff makes his way out of a gauntlet of Chargers pressure and throws a perfectly-timed pass to Kupp, just beyond the reach of cornerback Trevor Williams.

Two touchdown passes to receiver Robert Woods further illustrated Goff’s comfort in, and ability to make plays in, McVay’s schemes. Here, a fake sweep in the red zone to affect coverage and positioning at the linebacker level (a staple of the McVay offense) gives Woods the room he needs for a quick comeback route. From there, it’s pitch-and-catch.

The second was a simple underneath route by Woods to create space, and with coverage taken with the deeper route into the end zone, Goff had another relatively easy throw for the score. Few offensive minds are better than McVay’s when it comes to opening voids into compressed areas, and Goff is well-versed when it comes to the timing of these quick throws.

Per ESPN, the Rams have outscored their first three opponents of the season by double digits for the first time since 1999—the year Kurt Warner came out of nowhere to lead the league’s most prolific offensive attack to the franchise’s only Lombardi Trophy. It’s far too early to utter Goff’s name in the same breath as Warner’s, and there’s a long way to go before we can start talking Super Bowl, but as it was for that final Rams team of the last millennium, it may very well be up to the quarterback when determining how far this new-era Rams team can go.

So far, so good.

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