The Patriots face the Rams tonight in a Super Bowl LIII rematch. While many of the names and faces have changed on both teams, many of the schemes remain the same.
The Rams are still a heavy 11 and 12 personnel team on offense and defensively, they still play a 3-4 base despite a coordinator change in the off-season.
Los Angeles is well coached and they do not beat themselves. They run what they run and they run it well. Sean McVay has expanded on the Shanahan style offense he brought west with him and first defensive coordinator Brandon Staley has changed up some things conceptually with the Rams defense.
Here is a breakdown of the Rams offense and defense.
Offensive Philosophy: McVay has taken the Shanahan version of the West Coast offense and turned into a one back, shotgun/pistol system.
Inside and outside zone are the staple running plays of the Rams offense. In the diagram below, you see four different variations of inside zone. The Rams teach it like Mike Shanahan and Alex Gibbs did back in the day with the Denver Broncos.
Diagram 1: Inside zone variations
Diagram 2: Outside Zone: The Rams run a lot of outside zone or stretch as it is commonly known as. The Rams use motion and formations to create confusion for a defense and to set an edge.
McVay also uses outside zone to set up the Rams bootleg passing game. Like Mike Shanahan’s Broncos back in the day, boot is a staple pass play in the Rams offense.
Diagrams 3 and 4: Stretch Boot: As I said earlier, McVay does a great job of using formations to set up outside zone and in the process set up the bootleg pass plays and screens off of it. Quarterback Jared Goff does a great job on his handoffs and play fakes so the linebackers and secondary have a hard time separating outside zone from boot.
The Rams like to use middle floods and crossers in both the play action passing game and the drop back passing game.
Diagrams 5 & 6: Play Action: The Rams utilize a lot of frontside play action and they like to use two and three man concepts to attack the middle of the field. They will use deep sail routes, dig routes and skinny posts to make big plays off play action.
Diagrams 7 & 8: The Rams like to generate match ups in the drop back passing game. Whether they are in 11 or 12 personnel, they use balanced and compressed formations to give their receivers free releases and get them into space.
McVay likes to layer routes outside the hashes. This singles up defenders and puts pressure on them when deciding who to cover, especially in zone coverage.
The Rams are balanced and deep offensively. They have multiple options in the passing game. McVay learned his lesson after Super Bowl LIII. He will be more diverse this time around and spread the ball around.
Defensive Philosophy: New defensive coordinator Brandon Staley still operates out of a 3-4 base but he will play some 40 nickel fronts as well. Former defensive coordinator Wade Phillips was a big zone coverage coach. Staley plays a lot of zone as well but he also plays a fair amount of man coverage as well. Especially when the Rams are in an eight man front.
Diagram 9 & 10: Split Cheat Front (3-4)
The Rams play a lot of Cover 4 (quarters) and Cover 2 man and zone. They will occasionally drop the strong safety and play man free and Cover 3. They will primarily do it when they are blitzing.
The Rams like to vary their alignments up front. They will play their ends head up and on a shade. Nose tackle Aaron Donald will also vary his technique playing a zero technique and a shade technique. Donald’s explosiveness is best utilized in a shade technique because he can blow up a gap on the snap.
Staley doesn’t blitz a lot but he will play a lot of games along the defensive line in an effort to free up Donald. Donald lines up all over the defensive line based on down and distance. He plays nose and defensive end. Sometimes he will even line up as a stand up five technique defensive end.
As I mentioned earlier. The Rams are well coached and have some of the best talent. The Patriots will have to play a three quarter game in order to pull it out.