I wrote in my Bills article that it had previously been about Sammy Watkins before the trade to the Rams. So clearly, it's time to write about the Rams! Many are hopeful because Sean McVay has taken his talents from Washington to L.A. Others are not so hopeful because they remember the team's quarterback is still Jared Goff.
To the team's credit, they've done a great job of surrounding Goff with talent. From the Sammy trade, to drafting multiple skill positions that could make an impact, and improving their o-line this should be an offense that at least is better than last year's offense. Then again, saying an offense is better than the team that produced the 2nd lowest passing yards and fewest passing touchdowns isn't saying much.
As a Sammy Watkins' owner in at least one league, I'm very intrigued by this offense. Watkins' 2014 season reminds me of a great movie that you can't wait for more of. Then the sequel comes, and you wish they never made another. One of the best comparisons I can think of is Shrek. Sammy Watkins' is Shrek. Supposedly there is a fifth Shrek film that is due to come out that promises to re-invent the franchise. Sounds like what many analysts are telling us about the Rams offense this upcoming season.
2016 Rams Passing Attempts
Last season, the Rams attempted 536 passes which were good for 27th best in the league. Hey, they weren't dead last! To his credit, Jeff's Fisher Rams went from dead last in passing yards in 2015 to 2nd to last 2016. How could the Rams fire him after that marked improvement!?
It's important to keep in mind that these pass attempts were split between Case Keenum and Jared Goff. Many are quick to suggest that Kenny Britt's season with Jared Goff means Watkins will be fine. Graham Barfield, Senior Fantasy Analyst at FantasyGuru, (@GrahamBarfield) shot down this notion on twitter by demonstrating that Britt's fantasy PPG fell off in a big way after Goff took over, from WR24 to WR42 in 0.5 PPR.
Let's take a look at what the rest of the offense looked like last year:
Player Name
|
Targets
|
Catches
|
Yardage
|
TDS
|
Kenny Britt
|
111
|
68
|
1002
|
5
|
Tavon Austin
|
106
|
58
|
509
|
3
|
Lance Kendricks
|
87
|
50
|
499
|
2
|
Brian Quick
|
77
|
41
|
564
|
3
|
Todd Gurley
|
58
|
43
|
327
|
0
|
Tyler Higbee
|
29
|
11
|
85
|
1
|
Benny Cunningham
|
21
|
16
|
91
|
0
|
Pharoh Cooper
|
20
|
14
|
106
|
0
|
Nothing about this receiver group is particularly inspiring. I do think Kenny Britt should be nicknamed Rocket Raccoon for managing to make a rocket ship out of junk, but otherwise, there's nothing really notable here. If you're a Rams fan looking for hope, you can take solace in the fact that most of these receivers are now on other teams.
2017 predictions
We can't really begin to think about what this year will look like without having a better understanding of the new coaching in McVay and Matt LaFleur. McVay is the youngest head coach in the NFL (and NFL history!), but he earned his shot. Prior to taking over as OC in Washington, he worked under offensive guru Kyle Shanahan. While he served as the offensive coordinator for Washington, their team finished top ten in rushing touchdowns twice out of three seasons. Additionally, his passing offenses finished 11th in 2014, 11th in 2015, and 2nd in 2016 for passing yards. Until last year he had run a fairly balanced offense but definitely focused more on the pass in 2016.
What about LaFleur? Last season he served as the quarterback coach for Matt Ryan. When you can say you helped coach Matty Ice during his best statistical season that's certainly encouraging for your outlook.
So is the team going to attempt to pass the ball 37 times per game like Kirk Cousins did last year? I highly doubt that. Even if Goff pulls off a level up heard of only by using a GameShark, this is still a team that has Todd Gurley ready to run down the barrel of defenses. I believe the Rams will up their passing attempts to 560 this season, but let's examine if that's a good thing.
It really depends if you think the coaching can "fix" Jared Goff. I used the criteria of "First Round Rookie QBS who attempted at least 150 passes and had a QB rating of 70 or less" for the below table. It came up with some interesting comparisons for Goff.
| Games | Passing | |||||||||||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Rk | Player | Year | Age | Draft | Tm | Lg | G | GS | Cmp | Att | Cmp% | Yds | TD | Int | TD% | Int% | Rate | Sk | Yds | Y/A | AY/A | ANY/A | Y/G | W | L | T |
| 1 | Matthew Stafford | 2009 | 21 | 1-1 | DET | NFL | 10 | 10 | 201 | 377 | 53.32 | 2267 | 13 | 20 | 3.4 | 5.31 | 61.0 | 24 | 169 | 6.01 | 4.32 | 3.64 | 226.7 | 2 | 8 | 0 |
| 2 | Blaine Gabbert | 2011 | 22 | 1-10 | JAX | NFL | 15 | 14 | 210 | 413 | 50.85 | 2214 | 12 | 11 | 2.9 | 2.66 | 65.4 | 40 | 293 | 5.36 | 4.74 | 3.68 | 147.6 | 4 | 10 | 0 |
| 3 | Joey Harrington | 2002 | 24 | 1-3 | DET | NFL | 14 | 12 | 215 | 429 | 50.12 | 2294 | 12 | 16 | 2.8 | 3.73 | 59.9 | 8 | 75 | 5.35 | 4.23 | 3.98 | 163.9 | 3 | 9 | 0 |
| 4 | Mark Sanchez | 2009 | 23 | 1-5 | NYJ | NFL | 15 | 15 | 196 | 364 | 53.85 | 2444 | 12 | 20 | 3.3 | 5.49 | 63.0 | 26 | 195 | 6.71 | 4.90 | 4.07 | 162.9 | 8 | 7 | 0 |
| 5 | Vince Young | 2006 | 23 | 1-3 | TEN | NFL | 15 | 13 | 184 | 357 | 51.54 | 2199 | 12 | 13 | 3.4 | 3.64 | 66.7 | 25 | 129 | 6.16 | 5.19 | 4.52 | 146.6 | 8 | 5 | 0 |
| 6 | Blake Bortles | 2014 | 22 | 1-3 | JAX | NFL | 14 | 13 | 280 | 475 | 58.95 | 2908 | 11 | 17 | 2.3 | 3.58 | 69.5 | 55 | 345 | 6.12 | 4.97 | 3.81 | 207.7 | 3 | 10 | 0 |
| 7 | Josh Freeman | 2009 | 21 | 1-17 | TAM | NFL | 10 | 9 | 158 | 290 | 54.48 | 1855 | 10 | 18 | 3.4 | 6.21 | 59.8 | 20 | 102 | 6.40 | 4.29 | 3.69 | 185.5 | 3 | 6 | 0 |
| 8 | David Carr | 2002 | 23 | 1-1 | HOU | NFL | 16 | 16 | 233 | 444 | 52.48 | 2592 | 9 | 15 | 2 | 3.38 | 62.8 | 76 | 411 | 5.84 | 4.72 | 3.24 | 162.0 | 4 | 12 | 0 |
| 9 | Kyle Boller | 2003 | 22 | 1-19 | BAL | NFL | 11 | 9 | 116 | 224 | 51.79 | 1260 | 7 | 9 | 3.1 | 4.02 | 62.4 | 17 | 92 | 5.63 | 4.44 | 3.75 | 114.5 | 5 | 4 | 0 |
| 10 | Eli Manning | 2004 | 23 | 1-1 | NYG | NFL | 9 | 7 | 95 | 197 | 48.22 | 1043 | 6 | 9 | 3 | 4.57 | 55.4 | 13 | 83 | 5.29 | 3.85 | 3.21 | 115.9 | 1 | 6 | 0 |
| 11 | Jared Goff | 2016 | 22 | 1-1 | LAR | NFL | 7 | 7 | 112 | 205 | 54.63 | 1089 | 5 | 7 | 2.4 | 3.41 | 63.6 | 26 | 222 | 5.31 | 4.26 | 2.82 | 155.6 | 0 | 7 | 0 |
| 12 | Alex Smith | 2005 | 21 | 1-1 | SFO | NFL | 9 | 7 | 84 | 165 | 50.91 | 875 | 1 | 11 | 0.6 | 6.67 | 40.8 | 29 | 185 | 5.30 | 2.42 | 1.11 | 97.2 | 2 | 5 | 0 |
Matthew Stafford is obviously a very encouraging possibility. Eli Manning may make funny faces, but he does have six top ten fantasy QB seasons in his career. He has also only finished outside the top 15 twice since his poor rookie season. The picture isn't quite so rosy for Alex Smith, but he has put up five top twenty fantasy QB seasons since his rookie season. The other comparisons weren't great, but I guess there is some hope that Goff could still turn into Stafford or Eli.
Alright, so we proved there may be some hope for Goff, however slim it may be. Who should be his top target? Why if it isn't Sammy Watkins! If this offense is going to increase their passing offense, he stands to be the biggest beneficiary. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. Fool me three times, and I'm a truther. However, I think Sammy finally remains healthy this season and sees 135 targets come his way.
Robert Woods has to be pissed right? He thought he was getting out of Buffalo and finally going to be the main guy. Little did he know he wasn't getting away from Sammy that easily. If I were him, I'd seek advice from Luigi about what it's like to always be a sidekick and never the hero.Regardless, there's no reason he and Sammy can't both see 100 targets. Heck, that's exactly what happened in 2014. We will peg Woods for 110 targets.
As we saw last year, McVay really likes to throw to three receivers. Washington almost had a third receiver who broke 100 targets. Jamison Crowder only missed the mark by one target. While I don't expect the same thing to happen with the Rams, I do expect their third guy to see a good amount of targets. It pains me to say this, but I think Cooper Kupp wins the job over Tavon Austin.
I personally think Kupp is being incredibly overrated based on what he did at the Senior Bowl. However, the Rams have been getting involved early and he seems to have a connection with Goff. I believe Kupp will see about 75 targets out of the slot for the Rams this season.
Tyler Higbee may have been in line to see a good amount of work this season. Pleading guilty to assault is certainly not going to help his case. I happen to be someone who really likes Gerald Everett, though as I mentioned in my Buccaneer's article, rookie tight ends have trouble seeing the field. Last season, the TE group saw 116 targets. I expect that to go down a bit this year since they have a possible suspension coming for Higbee, and an inexperienced rookie in Everett. If Higbee isn't suspended, I'd expect him to see around 65 targets with the tight end group as a whole seeing about 90.
I know last season was a down season for Todd Gurley, but I can't shake the feeling that the Watkins trade helps him the most. He was likely putting pressure on himself to perform as the only real threat on the Rams offense last season. With the pressure taken off, we should return to seeing the Gurley who makes me mad that the Giants selected Ereck Flowers over him.
Gurley showed well in the passing game last season, and while it's a limited sample size 25 of Goff's 205 pass attempts came his way. I'm not sure that Gurley sees a 12% market share of the targets again, but I do think we will see him continue to be involved in the passing game. This season he will see 65 targets and the running back group as a whole will see about 80.
That leaves 70 targets unaccounted for. They're all going to go to Sammy Watkins clearly. I lied! He's going to seen 200 targets! Jokes aside-they'll likely go to Tavon Austin, Pharoh Cooper, Josh Reynolds, and others of that nature.
Now just because they'll see all these targets doesn't necessarily mean good things. One thing I've never really mentioned here is the quality of targets. Obviously, passes thrown by Tom Brady are more valuable than those thrown by Jared Goff. There's also the fact that a target thrown well over a receiver's head counts just as much in the stats as a bullet perfectly placed.
A receiver's catch rate can suffer as a consequence of this. My projections take that into account. For Goff to become a better quarterback this year, you'd be relying on a lot of factors coming together. It's not completely out of the realm of possibility as demonstrated by the Eli Manning comp earlier, but I wouldn't be banking on it either.
With that said here are the projections:
Player Name
|
Targets
|
Catches
|
Yardage
|
TDS
|
Sammy Watkins
|
135
|
70
|
1050
|
7
|
Robert Woods
|
110
|
68
|
748
|
4
|
Cooper Kupp
|
75
|
45
|
440
|
3
|
Tyler Higbee
|
65
|
38
|
304
|
2
|
Todd Gurley
|
65
|
47
|
376
|
2
|
This would clearly be a step forward for the offense in terms of offensive production. It's not a huge step forward, but it's a step in the right direction. I also fully admit I may be too low on Kupp, or maybe Sammy really clicks with Goff. This feels about right for what we will see in the first year of a new offensive scheme with a sophomore QB though.
Dynasty Slant
Robert Woods is currently the 146th player off the board and seems like a value there to me. He's only 25 and has shown flashes of success before. If anything were to happen to Watkins, he'd be the next man up. I know the same thing happened in Buffalo last season, but he did manage to have 613 yards on only 76 targets. He also had a 67% catch rate on targets that came his way. That's pretty impressive. Considering Woods can currently be had for less than a 2018 2nd in most leagues, I'd look to acquire him especially for those of you in best ball formats.
On the flip side, Cooper Kupp is the 141st player off the board and I can't get behind that. I rather have Woods who is apparently going after him. There's a whole host of players going off the board after him that I rather have. I know there are some people that love Kupp, but I'm just not one of them. If I ever become one, it'll likely be too late.
I'm not even going to bother commenting on Higbee. I like Everett, but I'd wait his price comes down after what will likely be a disappointing rookie season. Neither is a buy at the moment.
Todd Gurley is currently the 23rd player off the board which shows he didn't fall all that far after his "disappointing season" in 2016. For what it's worth, I expect a return to form and for him to possibly have the best year of his career with Sammy Watkins there now too. If you own Jay Ajayi and could get Gurley + a little bit for him I'd jump on the opportunity now.
I wrote you all a song to end the article (set to the tune of Duloc from Shrek)
Welcome to Ramsloc,
Not quite a perfect place.
Here we have some hope,
Provided by that Manning Face.
Will they make waves, run great routes?
Only time will tell,
while Jeff Fisher pouts.
*This article borrows stats and facts from the following:
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