Rams Offensive Woes the Only Thing Holding Team Back from Playoff Contention

The St. Louis Rams are slanted as a team. They’re disjointed, a little lopsided, or perhaps top heavy. And during a 12-6 loss to the Arizona Cardinals that featured nearly as many punts (16) as points, they toppled again.

There’s an internal struggle happening in St. Louis, a sort of inner rage. The offense destroys any and all hope the defense creates.

The result and how the Rams arrived at it Thursday night reinforces a reality that’s blatantly obvious, yet still so excruciatingly painful. They’re a quarterback away from being a playoff team. Which is still frightening, because finding a franchise quarterback—or even an average quarterback who can be sufficiently serviceable—is the most challenging project for any front office.

The Rams are great at something that’s exceedingly difficult: making sure the opposing offense nearly doesn’t exist. Yes, their two-game shutout streak when they outscored opponents 76-0 came against the Oakland Raiders and Washington Redskins, and Thursday they were able to tee off on third-string Cardinals quarterback Ryan Lindley for much of the second half.

But in the modern NFL with passing often seeming as easy as making microwave Kraft Dinner, the opponents matter so very little when a defense plays 12 quarters without allowing a single touchdown.

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That ends @STLouisRams shutout streak at nearly 145 minutes. Rams scored 86 unanswered points during streak

— Randall Liu (@RLiuNFL) December 12, 2014"

Anyone who still stubbornly doubts the recent defensive uprising should remember that of their previous four games, an offense took a snap inside the Rams’ red zone in only one of them. That red-zone shutdown includes a 22-7 win over the Denver Broncos.

Under the spotlight of Thursday Night Football that same defense did its swarming and swatting again. They held Arizona to only 4.3 yards per play, while limiting Lindley and Drew Stanton to 4.4 yards per pass attempt.

The defense’s weakness came against the run, with Cardinals running back Kerwynn Williams still forcing a lot of in-game Googling. Williams and Stepfan Taylor led a rushing attack that finished with 143 yards.

"We blocked them," Cardinals head coach Bruce Arians said during his post game press conference. "I think they had been reading their press clippings way too much"

But there wasn’t any breaking with that bending. The Rams still forced eight punts, they still allowed only five successful third-down conversion attempts on 17 tries, and they restricted all scoring to field goals, often of the lengthy variety too (three of Chandler Catanzaro’s four field goals were from at least 40 yards away).

None of that mattered because of an offense that was left baffled and clueless by the Cardinals’ blitzes, and a play-caller who refused to acknowledge logic. Oh and also, because of quarterback Shaun Hill who completed only 51.3 percent of his passes at 5.9 yards per attempt.

Hill was often lost, but not quite as bewildered as his offensive line.

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CB Blitz three man rush is a great idea: pic.twitter.com/QzRFgdGfbq

— Cian Fahey (@Cianaf) December 12, 2014"

Hill was actually effective to start the game, and flawless on the Rams’ first drive that ended in a field goal (yes, that’s a little redundant in a game that was the first without a touchdown in two years). On that one drive he threw for a fine 53 yards.

Quickly there was promise and some optimism from forward movement. Then on every other drive combined—all 12 of them—Hill averaged 14.7 passing yards. The slow spiral to offensive incompetence ended with a mere 280 total yards (only 211 from Hill through the air), and was highlighted by the Rams running five plays inside Arizona's 10-yard line while still not scoring a touchdown.

But let’s be fair and forgiving with Hill. He’s forever restricted by his status as Shaun Hill, a wildly inconsistent journeyman backup quarterback who has clung to NFL life for nearly 14 full seasons now. He’s not a long-term solution anywhere, and has survived as the definition of replacement level at his position.

Every quarterback needs run support, especially a backup on Hill’s level. Ideally he should face third-down situations that are more manageable. Against the Cardinals there was the added importance of not facing long passing downs so Hill could avoid having to regularly navigate Todd Bowles’ exotic blitzes, and then failing spectacularly.

A running game certainly didn’t materialize, with Rams running backs sputtering for only 37 yards on 15 carries. And any understanding or management of the Cardinals’ blitz packages was completely absent too.

In the third quarter the Rams ran 15 plays from scrimmage. The total yardage on those plays? Including the yardage lost on two sacks, only 10 total yards were gained.

Really let that rattle around for a moment. The Rams had five straight three-and-out drives to start the second half. Worse, they didn’t get a first down in the second half until the clock read 10:10 in the fourth quarter.

Yet because there are unimaginably powerful gods above who hate the Cardinals and struck Stanton down, St. Louis still stumbled its way to a chance in this game. After that quarter when darkness descended the Rams suddenly found themselves on the Cardinals’ 1-yard line trailing 12-3.

A touchdown would have made it a one-score game with still over six minutes left. And remember, the other team was forced to call Ryan Lindley its quarterback.

So on 3rd-and-goal, of course offensive coordinator Brian Schottenheimer—who left Hill exposed to a vicious blitz beating all night—could surely be trusted to make a logical decision and run the ball.

I mean, this must be a run formation, right?

A failed play-action pass to tight end Jared Cook followed. Then head coach Jeff Fisher compounded that mistake by not entertaining even the slightest risk and going for the end zone on fourth down. The blow of failing would have been softened greatly by seeing Lindley trot out to face a 99-yard field.

In a way that result was appropriate, though. It neatly put a bow on a game washed away because of poor offensive execution, and an even worse game plan against a Cardinals front seven known to be aggressive. It was wasted excellence on one side of the ball, with plenty of regret on the other.

The Rams can be a playoff team with a quarterback whose accuracy is even somewhat consistent. But who? The short-term solution will likely be a return to the status quo and a healthy Sam Bradford if he takes a pay cut. Which might be good enough, because the trade market (Jay Cutler? Robert Griffin III? Colin Kaepernick?) is filled with promise but plenty of uncertainty, and the free-agent quarterback cupboard is annually barren (Brian Hoyer? Michael Vick? Run?).

Adequate will be just fine at quarterback in 2015. The Rams just need a steady hand, and the defense can do the rest.