Questions you tend to hear these days about the Rams include "Can Cooper Kupp repeat as the No. 1 fantasy wideout?" and "Can Allen Robinson bounce back from last year?" Recent developments with the team have me thinking Definitely and Absolutely.
In two of the past three seasons, the Rams have been one of the 10 most pass-happy teams in the league. The exception was 2020, when Cam Akers had his breakout season and Sean McVay soured on Jared Goff, shipping him out during the offseason at great financial and draft-pick expense. But the 2019 and 2021 seasons were predominantly pass-oriented, as shown in the table below. (Sorted by 2021 finish.)
| PERCENTAGE OF PASS PLAYS, 2019-2021 | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Team | '19 | Rk | '20 | Rk | '21 | Rk |
| Tampa Bay | 62.3 | 7 | 63.7 | 3 | 66.2 | 1 |
| NY Jets | 59.9 | 15 | 57.2 | 20 | 63.3 | 2 |
| Pittsburgh | 57.8 | 22 | 64.2 | 2 | 63.1 | 3 |
| LA Chargers | 63.3 | 6 | 58.7 | 17 | 62.5 | 4 |
| Kansas City | 61.6 | 10 | 61.9 | 10 | 62.0 | 5 |
| Jacksonville | 61.9 | 9 | 66.2 | 1 | 61.9 | 6 |
| Las Vegas | 55.8 | 25 | 55.9 | 23 | 61.7 | 7 |
| Atlanta | 67.0 | 1 | 62.1 | 8 | 60.9 | 8 |
| LA Rams | 62.0 | 8 | 56.5 | 22 | 60.3 | 9 |
| NY Giants | 64.2 | 3 | 58.7 | 16 | 60.1 | 10 |
| Miami | 65.9 | 2 | 58.1 | 19 | 59.7 | 11 |
| Buffalo | 54.3 | 26 | 60.3 | 13 | 59.7 | 12 |
| Detroit | 60.1 | 13 | 63.0 | 5 | 59.6 | 13 |
| Dallas | 58.0 | 21 | 61.4 | 11 | 59.0 | 14 |
| Carolina | 64.2 | 4 | 59.0 | 15 | 58.9 | 15 |
| Minnesota | 50.9 | 30 | 54.3 | 27 | 58.5 | 16 |
| Houston | 57.3 | 23 | 63.4 | 4 | 58.4 | 17 |
| Green Bay | 59.7 | 17 | 55.3 | 26 | 58.4 | 18 |
| Cincinnati | 63.3 | 5 | 60.5 | 12 | 58.3 | 19 |
| Seattle | 54.0 | 27 | 59.8 | 14 | 56.7 | 20 |
| Baltimore | 44.0 | 32 | 44.1 | 32 | 56.4 | 21 |
| Denver | 57.1 | 24 | 57.1 | 21 | 56.1 | 22 |
| Arizona | 60.4 | 12 | 55.8 | 24 | 56.0 | 23 |
| Chicago | 61.3 | 11 | 62.3 | 6 | 55.8 | 24 |
| Washington | 59.8 | 16 | 61.9 | 9 | 55.4 | 25 |
| Cleveland | 59.6 | 18 | 51.6 | 29 | 54.0 | 26 |
| New England | 59.2 | 19 | 48.7 | 31 | 53.5 | 27 |
| Indianapolis | 53.6 | 28 | 55.5 | 25 | 52.6 | 28 |
| San Francisco | 50.8 | 31 | 58.2 | 18 | 52.3 | 29 |
| New Orleans | 59.9 | 14 | 52.7 | 28 | 51.5 | 30 |
| Tennessee | 53.1 | 29 | 49.5 | 30 | 51.4 | 31 |
| Philadelphia | 58.9 | 20 | 62.2 | 7 | 48.8 | 32 |
And I'm thinking 2022 might be very similar to those pass-focused seasons, which is good news for Kupp, Robinson, Matthew Stafford and any Rams pass catcher you can think of.
We all saw Cam Akers in last year's playoffs. Very impressive he was able to return from an Achilles injury in basically six months to be a workhorse, but his performance (67 carries for 172 yards, which is 2.6 yards per attempt) suggests that perhaps he shouldn't have. Obviously Akers has now had an entire offseason to heal up and get back to 100 percent. But not a given he has the same ability he had pre-injury. He is basically off my draft board, in the sense that he is being selected a round or two ahead of where I would consider him on the risk of him not coming back from the injury at any sort of comparable performance level. (If he's averaging under 3 yards per attempt, they're not going to keep sending him out there.)
Three years in, it's fair to say that Darrell Henderson is just a change-of-pace type back. He's averaged 4.5 yards per attempt, which is nice, but he's small and has missed 9 games in his first three seasons. Yesterday Sean McVay said that Henderson is sidelined at minicamp due to a "soft-tissue" injury. It's June so no big deal, but a reminder that Henderson has that injury history and probably won't be a lead back anytime soon.
The Rams selected Kyren Williams in the fifth round; not a great spot to suggest an NFL star, but it's at least possible for running backs to emerge from these later rounds as NFL starters. Williams caught 42 passes at Notre Dame last year and seems a like a good candidate for a passing downs role, as we've written here before. Unfortunately, Williams broke his foot in practice last week; McVay said he's expected to return "during training camp," which is not only vague but potentially inaccurate. A broken foot isn't the kind of injury you rush back from, and a passing downs role (which includes protecting the franchise quarterback) isn't something you can get up to speed on quickly after missing a lot of the preseason. I picked up Williams in my dynasty league and I'm probably stuck with him, but my expectations for his 2022 contributions have been severely dampened. I'm not sure he'll be getting much on-field work until mid-August (thinking broken foot is a 6- to 8-week injury), and the odds of him opening the season as the passing-downs back look remote.
All this means I think those 2019 and 2021 pass-heavy seasons are probably what to expect from the Rams again in 2022. Thumps up Stafford and his receivers, at least in terms of volume. The ground game? We're gonna have to see on that one.
--Andy Richardson