The Los Angeles Rams traveled to London to play the New York Giants in Week 7. The Rams started fast in this game going up 10-0 early on in the first quarter. Then the Giants scored 17 unanswered points to win 17-10. The Rams are now 3-4 & have lost 3 straight to fall to 3rd place in the NFC West. The New York Giants improve to 4-3 & both teams are going into a bye week in Week 8.
Positives:
- Getting Tavon Austin involved. The Rams did a good job getting Tavon the ball in this game. Tavon Austin finished with 10 catches for 57 yards & a touchdown. Austin almost had a third of the total receptions for the Rams (10 of 32). The Rams need to continue getting Tavon the ball & allow him to make plays especially with how bad the offense looks.
- Keeping Gurley involved in the passing game. Gurley has been unable to get much going in the running game this season but the Rams have done a good job getting him involved in the passing game this season. In this game Gurley had 6 catches for 35 yards. This was the 4th straight game where Gurley had 3+ catches & 30+ yards receiving.
- Run defense. The Rams were able to shut down the Giants run game all day. The Giants rushed for just 36 yards on 20 carries & without the 1 yard touchdown by Rashad Jennings their running game was completely ineffective.
Negatives:
- Running game. The Rams have been unable to get Todd Gurley going this year & were unable to do so in this game as well. Gurley has yet to have a 100 yard game this season & in this game he finished with 57 yards on 15 carries for a 3.8 yards per carry average. This season Gurley is 20th in the NFL in yards (403) & is 37th out of 39 eligible RBs in yards per carry (3.0). The Rams passing game has to open up & be more consistent for Gurley to get back on track as one of the best RBs in the NFL.
- Case Keenum. Keenum played awful in this game throwing for 291 yards, 1 touchdown, & 4 interceptions. The 1st interception wasn’t his fault with Tavon having the ball go right through his hands & then Landon Collins intercepted it & then made a great play scoring a pick six. The other 3 interceptions all came in the 4th quarter & were all terrible throws by Keenum. With the bye week coming up there’s definitely a conversation to be had on whether the Rams need to make a QB change or not. Whether it be Jared Goff or Sean Mannion I’m all for the Rams switching QBs.
- No sacks. The Rams were unable to record a sack on Eli Manning in this game. Credit the Giants for having a good gameplan to get the ball out fast so the Rams can’t get to him. The Rams were only able to hit Eli 5 times in this game with 2 of the QB hits coming from Aaron Donald.
- Jeff Fisher. Fisher seems to be watching a different game than everyone else. After the game Fisher stated that he’d make a change at WR before he did at QB & said “I have not changed my mind-set whatsoever with respect to Case and Jared”. http://www.latimes.com/sports/rams/la-sp-rams-fisher-20161024-snap-story.html In the article Fisher talks about how he believes the play from Keenum hasn’t been the reason they’ve lost 3 straight games. Really??? In Week 5 Keenum threw 2 late interceptions against the Bills & one of them was a pick six. In Week 6 Keenum played good until he threw a terrible pass into triple coverage & was intercepted to end the game when the Rams had a chance to drive downfield & tie it or win it against the Lions. Then this week Keenum throws 4 interceptions & the Rams lost by just 7 points. In the 3 game losing streak Keenum has thrown 4 touchdowns & 6 interceptions. He’s been a problem.
Moving Forward:
The Los Angeles Rams have their bye week in Week 8 & are 3-4 heading into it. The Rams need to use this bye week to get some guys like Trumaine Johnson, Michael Brockers, & Robert Quinn healthy on defense. The Rams really need to regroup & if it were up to me there’d be a change at QB. Jeff Fisher should be on the hot seat as far I’m concerned with how the teams performed this season & how he hasn’t improved the team much or at all since becoming the Rams coach in 2012. Hopefully the Rams figure some things out coming out of the bye when they play the Carolina Panthers.
