Is the high-powered Rams offense... a fraud?

first off, let me say i'm not a Rams hater.  i'm not trying to say they suck.  they're an exciting young team who is going to challenge for Super Bowls over the next 8-10 years, but i don't think they're there yet.  especially the offense.

i think there is an element of fraudulence to the Rams offense.  they're good and they're going to get better.  but i don't think it's elite.  i don't think its the best offense in the league.  the Rams put a lot of big #'s on crappy teams.  46 vs the Tolzein led Colts, 41 vs the Hoyer led 9ers, 51 vs a terrible Giant defense, 33 vs the Savage led Watt-less, Mercilus-less Texans, 42 vs a Seattle defense missing almost it's entire back 7.

as i was looking at the Atl/LAR game it surprised me to see that despite leading the league in pts/game the Rams offense was 10th in yards/game.  heck Atlanta's supposedly broken offense was eighth in yards/game.  now i'm not saying that yards is more important than points or that Atlanta's offense is better because it averages more yards, but it still seemed odd that this supposed Rams juggernaut was only 10th in yards.  the #2 scoring NE offense was 1st in yards per game.  you think at worst, the league leading Rams would be top 5 in yards.  more yards usually correlates to more points.  

as i began to look through the Rams schedule i noticed they hung a lot of big crooked #'s vs bad teams with bad QB's.  they had a lot of short TD drives, 20, 30, 40 yd td drives.  now this isn't cause for diminishing what they accomplished.  you work with the field your defense gives you.  but it got me curious.  how did the Rams high-powered offense perform vs good defenses?  what i found wasn't encouraging. 

MY THEORY:   The Rams offense padded its stats vs bad teams and decent teams who were missing key personnel.  when facing good defenses at full strength the offensive numbers would be ugly.  

How to prove it:  so as i perused their schedule i found 5 games that the Rams played vs good defenses.  now i don't wan't to be accused of cherry picking games that supported my argument, so here are the 3 steps i followed to arrive at these five games:

1) the defense had to be top 10 in either Points Allowed/Game or Yds Allowed/Game.  Now i did make 1 exception:  the Seahawks.  the Seahawks were 11th in yds/game and tied for 13th in pts/game.  why make the exception?  if not for being destroyed by injuries (Chancellor, Sherman, Wright, Wagner,etc) this is clearly a top 10 defense.  i know other teams suffered injuries too, but i don't think you can argue with a straight face that this wasn't a top 10 defense when healthy.  so after step 1 we had Minnesota, Jacksonville, Philly, NO, Arizona (2), Dallas, and Seattle (2).  that's 9 games vs good defenses.

2) the opponent's defense couldn't be missing any key players.  i threw out the second Seattle game since their entire back 7 was practically out.  i threw out the NO game because Lattimore and Crawley, both starting corners, were missing (no surprise Goff threw for 350+yds).  i threw out the Dallas game because Sean Lee was out.  and if you think that's an overreaction, go check out Dallas' stats with Lee in vs Lee out.  you could argue he's the most important defensive player in the league.  so now we're left with Minnesota, Jacksonville, Philly, Arizona(2) and Seattle.  6 games.

3) had to be played on North American soil.  this was basically to weed out the London game vs Arizona.  London games are all trash.  every one was a blowout. one team never wants to be there.  Arizona, much like Baltimore and Miami didn't even bother showing up for a 33-0 beatdown.  the Cards can't even play on the East Coast, let alone another continent.  they let Detroit hang 35 on them, Philly hung 34 on them, heck even the Tom Savage led Texans hung 31 on them when the Cards had to play outside the pacific time zone.  

so to sum it up, the Rams played five games this year on North American soil, vs top 10 defenses who weren't shorthanded.  vs Sea, @Ari, @Min, @Jax, vs Phi.  let's see how they did.

Game #5 vs Seattle  LA put up 375 yards of offense resulting in 10 pts scored.  however 5 turnovers did them in.  Goff was only 22-47 for 288 yds, 0td-2int.  this was LA's best yardage output of the five games, but 10 pts and 5 TO's... not off to a good start.

Game #6 @ Jax  on the surface going into Jax and winning 27-17 looks impressive... not really.  Jax outgained them 389-249.  LA's offense put up 249 yards, generated only 13 pts, and scored 1 td.  14 of their pts came off a blocked punt and a 103-yd kick return.  Goff threw for 124 yds and 1td.  

Game #10 @ Min  LA put up 254 yds and 7 pts.  Goff threw for 225 yds.

Game #12 @ Ari  on the surface a 32-16 win on the road vs a top defense looks good, but this may have been LA's most fraudulent result.  Ari actually outgained LA 305-303.  while LA did put up 25 pts (7 came from a pick 6) most of them came from short fields as a result of Blaine Gabberts incompetence.  LA's offense had 2 td's.  one came on a 7 play, 23 yd drive.  the other on a 6 play, 30 yd drive.  they also had two, 31 yd FG drives.  they got 26 of their points off of 115 yards of offense.  that's fraudulent.  Goff threw for 220yds, 2 td, 1 int.

Game #13 vs Phi  by far LA's best point output in a 43-35 shootout.  the offense put up 28 pts.  however, they were outgained 455-307.  Goff threw for 199 yds, 2td.

to be continued...

in total, in these 5 games vs good defenses LA averaged 298 yds/game and 16.6 pts/game.  Goff threw for 211 yds/game and 5td-3int.  those are abysmal #'s.  298 yds/game would've ranked 30th in the league, and 16.6 pts would've ranked 29th.  now i know it's not fair to compare these #'s vs the rest of the league who had the benefit of bad defenses built into their averages, but i just wanted to put into perspective how bad LA's #'s would rank.

What is the point of all this?  ok, i know what you're saying after reading this... "well duh, teams aren't going to put up huge numbers vs good defenses."  i agree, but elite offenses usually average better than 298yds and 16 pts vs good defenses.  think of the elite offenses of the past 15 years.  Brady's Pats, Rodgers' Pack, Brees' Saints, Peyton Manning led offfenses... they had games where they would torch a good defense every once in a while and they sure as hell scored more than 16 pts/game. 

look, we're here to try and win money right?  this is a gambling forum.  how do you make money betting?  you identify things that the average bettor or bookmakers don't see or pick up on.  look at every prediction out there for this weeks game vs Atlanta.  everyone is saying the same thing, 31-27 Rams, 34-17 Rams, 35-21 Rams, etc.  the public will be hammering the Rams in teasers and ML parlays.  they will be betting the over, expecting a shootout. i think this is the game the public takes a bath on and Vegas cleans up on.  

guess what? Atlanta has a legit defense.  and guess what?  they're not missing anyone.  they're 9th in yds per game and 8th in pts/game allowed.  it's highly unlikely that the Rams are gonna march up and down the field and hang 30+ pts in this game.  Atlanta hasn't allowed a 100yd rusher since week 7.  in the last 10 weeks RB's have averaged 3.42 yds per carry vs Atl.  Look how Atlanta locked down Ingram and Kamara in their 2 meetings.  the Saints scored 40 pts in 2 games vs Atl, both on indoor fast tracks.  Gurley is not going to go buck wild in this one and Goff's #'s vs good defenses don't look condusive to him having a big game here either.  

i think Atlanta is a live ML dog.  i think getting 6 pts is a good bet.  i think betting the Rams TT U27.5 is a good bet.  i think teasing the Falcons to double digits is a good bet.  i think teasing the Under is a good bet.   

i think a underperforming, yet talented, hungry, desperate, Atlanta team that has been waiting all year to try and erase the foul taste of last years SB collapse is going to go out and expose this Rams offense and wreak havoc on the betting public this weekend.  

Atlanta 24 LAR 17 

thanks guys.

i also don't trust a QB laying 6 in a playoff game vs a good defense, when his coach is still making all his pre-snap reads for him.  that may work vs the poor defenses, but i don't know how this plays in high-pressure playoff football vs good teams.

https://www.sbnation.com/2017/11/30/16719282/rams-sean-mcvay-jared-goff-job-pre-snap-communication-cheating-rules

Saints were missing both starting corners.  Latimore and Crawley both out.  also, Saints were flying cross country after an emotional come from behind win vs. Washington.

Well done bro. Excellent post.

You're right, throw out every game they've played and only keep their worst games and they don't look great. 

Also, let's not mention that When they only put up 13 against Seattle that Gurley fumbled through the end zone and they had to go for the end zone at the end of the game instead of kick the FG.

Good offenses should NEVER PUNT. Lol. Rams roll.

Game #5 vs Seattle

Game #6 @ Jax 

Game #10 @ Min

Game #12 @ Ari  

Game #13 vs Phi

Let me just play devil's advocate here for a second. So you take 5 games, 3 of which are on the road and start looking at the stats. Let me preface this whole thing by saying that traditionally good / great quarterbacks struggle on the road. Good - Great quarterbacks REALLY struggle on the road vs WINNING teams. This is why home field is so important.

4/5 of those teams you just looked at are winning teams, and the other went 8-8. 3 of those games are on the road, and no one, I mean NO ONE looks good vs Minnesota on the road. Offensive outputs aren't always reflective by looking at box scores. When La went on the road to play Jax, you don't think McVays game plan going in was to play conservative and let Bortles beat himself? Bortles was sacked 5x, threw a pick, and fumbled twice if I am not mistaken. This type of game planning happens all the time throughout the NFL. Andy Reid does it to Alex Smith sometimes vs teams like Denver. You can tell the game plan going in is to let Seimen or Assweiller lose it for them, and just dont turn the ball over.

Cont...

Naturally good teams and Qbs are going to shred bad teams / bad defenses. A simple screen pass to Gurley vs the 49ers can be taken 80 yards for a touchdown, where as against say the Eagles, that could be a 8-15 yard gain. Goff has shown incredible poise for a 2nd year player and he typically takes what the defenses give him.

Also, LA would have beaten Sea in that game if it wasnt for a fumble through the end zone, and a wide open drop by Kupp...

so it's just coincidence that their worst games were vs good defenses?  i didn't just cherry pick their 5 worst games.  i took games vs top 10 defenses that weren't missing players.  

Atlanta is a top 10 defense and is not missing players.

Since his 2nd season Matt Ryan is 10-5 ATS when getting 6 or more pts.

in the last 15 years QB's making their first playoff starts are 11-26-1 ATS and 11-27 SU, including 4-10 ATS as home favorites.

Great work here. Someone dismissed the kicking game. I disagree. The Rams new kicker missed a 35 yarder and an extra point last week. To argue that the kicking game will not matter or to dismiss the kicking game is shortsighted.

I would prefer the 6.5 points though....the drop to 5.5 makes this just a tough pick.