The Rams come into Week 5 looking like one of the league’s most familiar heavyweight teams, the kind that has lived in the Super Bowl conversation for most of the Sean McVay era. They won the Lombardi Trophy once in that stretch, and now they’ll take that profile into a Monday Night Football matchup with the Bills at SoFi Stadium.
For Buffalo, the first thing to circle is what Los Angeles does up front and how that affects Matthew Stafford. Stafford’s numbers while pressured are rough: his 29.1 rating under pressure is the NFL’s third-worst among qualifiers, and his 37.0% completion percentage in those spots is sixth-lowest. The gap between his clean-pocket production and his pressured production is even more striking, since his accuracy percentage drops by 34 points when he’s under duress, the largest disparity among all qualifying quarterbacks entering Week 5.
The Rams’ usage of 13 personnel has also been a major part of their offensive identity early on, though that picture has changed recently. Through four games, Los Angeles has used the three-tight-end look at a league-high 30.8% rate.
But after second-year tight end Terrance Ferguson went on IR, that tendency has faded fast. In Week 3, when Ferguson was injured, the Rams used 13 personnel on 31 plays.
Last week against the Eagles, they went to it just once.
Kyren Williams has become a bigger piece of the passing game, too. He just finished a 13-target, 10-catch day in the Rams’ Week 4 win over Philadelphia, which pushed him to 21 receptions on the season.
That already puts him more than halfway to his regular-season career high of 36 catches. He’s still a force between the tackles in Sean McVay’s zone-based run game, but he’s also turned into a key outlet and screen option for Stafford.
One area where the Rams and Bills differ sharply is play action. Josh Allen enters the game with the NFL’s second-highest play-action rate among qualifying quarterbacks at 39.4%. Stafford, by comparison, is near the bottom of the pack at 22.5%, which ranks 31st out of 39 qualifying passers.
Defensively, the Rams have some serious playmakers in the secondary. Trent McDuffie, one of their major offseason additions, has been excellent through the first month.
He hasn’t missed a tackle, and opposing quarterbacks have completed just five passes for 74 yards on 18 targets into his coverage. He also has an interception and seven pass breakups.
The safety pairing of Quentin Lake and Kamren Curl has been just as sturdy. Lake has an interception and five pass breakups, while Curl has only one missed tackle on 215 snaps through four games. Both are bigger defensive backs, listed at over 6-foot and more than 200 pounds.
Up front, Byron Young has stepped into the role of the Rams’ top outside pass rusher. The 2023 third-round pick from Tennessee is 6-foot-2 and 250 pounds, and he’s making his impact with speed-to-power and relentless effort. He brings a 20.1% pressure rate into this matchup.
And when the Rams settle into coverage, they’ve been leaning heavily on man. Cover 1 has shown up at the fourth-highest rate in the NFL through Week 4, sitting at 27.0% according to Football Insights. It’s not an outrageous number, but relative to the rest of the league, it tells you plenty about how Los Angeles wants to play.
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Alec Andersons move into the starting left guard job gave the group a clear new look after David Edwards departed in free agency, and now the line is about to be tested in a hurry. The Bills are staring at a stretch that includes the Rams, Raiders, Ravens, Vikings and Jets, a run of opponents that can expose protection issues and force Buffalo to answer some early questions about how reliable this front really is. [Read more 🡒]