5 key takeaways from Rams’ 36-28 loss to Packers

The Los Angeles Rams dropped their third straight game on Sunday, coming up short 36-28 against the Packers in Green Bay. The Rams had two weeks to prepare for a showdown with Aaron Rodgers and the team that knocked them out of the playoffs last year, but you wouldn’t know it watching the game.

Here are a few takeaways from yet another Rams loss.

Offensive questions continue to pile up

The Rams put together one actual successful offensive drive against Green Bay. With 4:21 left in the second quarter, the Rams swiftly drove down the field with an eight-play drive capped off by a beautiful pass from Matthew Stafford to Darrell Henderson.

Besides that and a final drive that went for 11 plays, the Rams offense was either throwing the deep ball or throwing the game away. Stafford connected on two long touchdown passes to Van Jefferson and Odell Beckham, respectively. He also gave the ball away twice, with each turnover resulting in a Green Bay touchdown. That’s 14 points. That’s the game.

What might even be more disappointing than the turnovers was just how lifeless the offense looked at times. Despite adding Odell Beckham to a high-powered Hollywood offense, the Los Angeles Rams have looked more like the 2009 Rams on offense than the 2018 Rams. Six different drives went five plays or less before a punt or turnover on downs. The line missed blocks. Stafford missed receivers. Receivers missed the ball. It was a nightmare.

Despite the big number for Green Bay on the scoreboard, the Rams’ defense played well enough to win this game, flaws and all. This loss sits with the offense. It’s great to be able to hit the home run play multiple times a game, but you also have to be able to put actual drives together. It’s no surprise that Green Bay won this game when they held the ball for twice as long as us. McVay and Stafford need to figure it out if they want to compete in the playoffs.

Special teams is still a disaster

It’s hard to imagine the return game getting any worse for the Rams, but it feels like we’ve said this every week, and the return game continues to get worse and worse.

The team continued to trot out random players to return kicks for the team, this time having Sony Michel return a few kickoffs in Green Bay. The results were middling, which is expected for a downhill veteran running back who has returned just four kicks in his NFL career.

Meanwhile, the punt return unit hit their low point of the season. JJ Koski coughed up a costly fumble in the third quarter and looked lost overall as a return man. Cooper Kupp continued to be horrendous as a decision-maker fielding punts, with one of his decisions resulting in Green Bay downing the ball at the 1-yard line.

The Rams have a problem with essentially no answers. Every single player they’ve trotted out as a punt returner has dropped the ball, capped off by Koski literally dropping the football tonight. This unit has come a long way since John Fassel helped make Pharoh Cooper an All-Pro return man. Unfortunately, no real solution is available right now. Our never-ending nightmare will continue into next week.

Troy Reeder remains a liability

Midway through the fourth quarter, Troy Reeder laid a massive hit on AJ Dillion for a loss of a yard. Troy Aikman commented that it was the best play Troy Reeder had made all day.

Clearly, Aikman was as shocked as all of us were that Reeder made a positive contribution to the game. Beyond that play, he was absolutely abysmal. Rams fans were quick to groan when Reeder somehow wound up against Davante Adams in coverage early in the game, a matchup that Aaron Rodgers immediately saw and exploited.

It was the first of many opportunities Rodgers had to make Reeder look like a Division II walk-on, and boy did he take advantage of it. Reeder missed open-field tackles, blew coverages on multiple occasions, and gave up critical plays on fourth downs and in the red zone.

Many were skeptical of the Rams to trade away Kenny Young, their best linebacker, for pennies midway through a season in which they wanted to content. The move sort of paved the way for the Von Miller and Odell Beckham signings. But it has also resulted in the Rams needing to rely on Troy Reeder more, which has yielded nothing but negative results.

Smart quarterbacks are going to continue to target Reeder as much as they possibly can when he drops back in coverage. The Rams need to figure out how to scheme around his weaknesses, or just simply keep him off the field. He can’t be caught in coverage as often as he was this week if the team wants to win more games this season.

Beckham and Miller begin to make impact, but it'll take time to get fully integrated

The Rams are 0-3 since acquiring Von Miller, and 0-2 since acquiring Odell Beckham. Many expected the two stars to elevate the Los Angeles Rams to a Super Bowl favorite, but the arrivals have done the opposite, and the Rams have looked lifeless ever since the duo walked through the door. Are they to blame for the team’s failures?

Not at all, obviously. The duo began to make an impact during the second half of the matchup, with Beckham scoring on a big 54-yard touchdown and Miller starting to wreak havoc on Aaron Rodgers late in the game.

Still, it’s going to take time for the effects of the duo to fully be felt, especially with Beckham. The loss of Robert Woods on the Rams offense is being felt in a big way. Beckham looked solid all things considered in this matchup, especially when you factor in the back pain he was clearly dealing with all night. But both of these guys have been in the building for less than a month. They’ll need a few more weeks before we can gauge their true value to the offense.

Today, the Rams are not contenders

It’s pretty easy to figure out if the Rams are going to win a game this year at halftime.

If they’re winning, they’ll win. If they aren’t, they won’t.

For whatever reason, the Rams are completely incapable of playing from behind. And while the team isn’t laying down and dying when they’re down, they’ve been incapable of coming back from a deficit.

More importantly, the Rams are 1-4 against teams with a winning record this season. Three of the four losses were by double-digits, and tonight’s loss may as well have been by double digits. For the Rams to make it to a Super Bowl this year, they’ll have to start beating teams with winning records. Three of them consecutively, in fact. Shocking, right?

Today, there’s no reason to believe the Rams can do it. They’ve been wildly inconsistent as a team. They’re likely going to route Jacksonville this week. If you want to take that as a false sense of hope that this team is a Super Bowl contender, that’s your prerogative. But it would be a false one.

The Rams have big matchups on the road coming up against Arizona, Minnesota and Baltimore. If they can win those games, the narrative about this team may start to turn back towards being a contender. But today, this team appears to be a paper tiger full of big-name stars surrounded by borderline-NFL players who can’t beat the teams that actually matter.

Hopefully the mindset is different a month from now.

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