LOS ANGELES — There have been many culprits in the Rams’ 2-3 start to the season. A defense hampered by injuries. A special teams unit that seemingly can’t get out of its way. Discipline issues that have resulted in penalties and, in Alaric Jackson’s case this week, a one-game suspension.
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But perhaps the most surprising aspect has been an offense that has yet to string together four quarters of good football.
The Rams had the best offense in the NFL by just about any measure last year – first in points scored, yards gained and success rate, second in expected points added (EPA) per play. An MVP quarterback in Matthew Stafford, an All-Pro receiver in Puka Nacua, the NFL’s leader in touchdown receptions in Davante Adams.
This year has not been so prolific, at least by the Rams’ standards. The team is ninth in EPA per play this year. Certainly not terrible. But the issue is the numbers don’t stay consistent across the course of the game.
In quarters 1-3, the Rams are 13th in EPA per play with a success rate of 44.1%. In fourth quarters, however, the Rams jump to seventh in EPA with a 56.3% success rate.
On one hand, this is something to be encouraged by. The Rams are playing their best football when the game is on the line. This allowed the Rams to beat the Eagles, and put them in positions to win before ultimately falling short against the Broncos and Bills.
But with slower starts, the Rams are putting themselves in adverse situations. And while the Rams understand they can’t be perfect as they try to get back in the win column this week against the Arizona Cardinals (1-4), there are still things that have to be fixed for this star-loaded roster to reach its ceiling.
“I think we try to prepare to go play as good as we possibly can and understand that there are going to be ebbs and flows in the game, plays that you want back and plays that you’re excited about,” Stafford said. “That’s what we do all this for. We do all this to prepare to go play. Then on Sundays or whatever day we go out there, we cut it loose and you live with the results.”
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So long as they control what they can control, that old football cliche that the Rams have lived by under head coach Sean McVay. But the Rams haven’t exactly excelled at that this year.
The Rams are 24th in penalties per game this season at 8.4. That number has actually ticked up in the last three games to 10.7. They are giving up 73.6 penalty yards and 2.4 first downs via penalty per game.
“There’s been a lot more flags in general,” McVay allowed before adding, “I’m never looking for excuses. That’ll never be something that you’ll ever hear from me.”
McVay does not want to overcoach the penalties that happen in the course of a play. Those happen so fast that you have to allow your players to play loose without overthinking what might happen.
But the flags that McVay has had trouble explaining over the last two weeks are the ones that occur before the snap, mistakes that weren’t characteristic of the Rams a year ago when they were the least-penalized team in the NFL.
“We can’t have four false starts from four different players. It’s players that have shown that that’s not something that’s the norm. You have to keep working through it. We have to figure it out and we have to be able to overcome those types of things,” McVay said. “When we get ourselves behind the sticks, it’s been difficult to overcome and we get out of the normal standard mode of operation that we want to live in. I do believe in these players. I believe that I have to do a better job of creating clarity and whatever that is that’s leading to some of these different things. Hopefully I’m not talking about this with you guys after our game this week.”
Five weeks isn’t a small sample size in the NFL; it’s almost one-third of a season. But there’s still time for the Rams to get right before these slow starts and lack of discipline become their identity for 2026.
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