Matthew Stafford

The Rams ultimately lost a heartbreaking game against the Eagles in which they had a double-digit lead and had two kicks blocked, but the silver lining is that their offense looks like an elite unit with room to get even better. When Matthew Stafford got traded to the Rams in 2021, Sean McVay started to shift from the under-center, compressed formations, run-heavy offense that he ran with Jared Goff. The offense became more spread out, used shotgun and pistol more, and passed at a higher rate because it had Stafford. The offense started to shift back last season to McVay’s original approach, going under center on 45 percent of plays, which ranked second only to the Detroit Lions.

So far, this season, they’ve shifted even more in that direction, going under center on 65 percent of snaps.

Related players: Kyren Williams, Puka Nacua, Davante Adams

Part of the reason for this shift is in direct response to Eagles defensive coordinator Vic Fangio, who has influenced the league’s 2-high meta, the story explained. The trend of keeping two safeties deep to stop explosives left them vulnerable upfront, so McVay countered with more under-center, gap-scheme runs and using more play action when throwing. The story said despite the loss, the scheme worked as intended against Fangio’s defense. The Rams had the second-highest success rate that any offense has had against Fangio’s Eagles defense (54.8 percent) and ran for the third-most yards against them as well, the story went on to say.