How the Rams used play-action to dominate New England on early downs in Week 11.
Through the first 15 minutes at Gillette Stadium on Sunday, DeMarcus Covington’s defense held the upper hand on Sean McVay. The New England Patriots held on two third-down stops at midfield, forcing the Los Angeles Rams to punt twice.
Then, the dam broke.
The Rams scored touchdowns on four of their next five possessions and missed a field goal from the 8-yard line on the other. A 7-0 New England lead quickly became a 28-13 deficit.
Sean McVay exploited a league-worst pass defense on early downs, using the run early to set up big play action passes and attacking down the field.
Through their first two possessions, the Rams had seven snaps on early downs (1st and 2nd downs). Four of those seven featured 12 personnel (1 running back, 2 tight ends, 2 wide receivers), and all four were runs.
The Patriots matched that with a 3-4 front featuring three defensive tackles, Anfernee Jennings and Keion White at outside linebacker, two cornerbacks, and two safeties. Outside of one big run allowed for 18 yards, New England held firm, allowing carries for 1, 2, and 4 yards.
Starting with the first play of their third series, the Rams went away from the run and shifted to play-action. Through taking to the air, Los Angeles gained nearly 17 yards per play on a series of big passes that would help shift the game.
Motion revealed the Patriots were in a Cover 3 shell, with Marco Wilson, Dell Pettus, and Christian Gonzalez each covering a deep third of the field from the defensive left to right.
The Patriots dialed up a five-man rush with the Rams showing a run look, with Kyle Dugger, Jahlani Tavai, and Christian Elliss playing zones underneath the deep defenders.
With the outside deep zone defenders needing to eliminate anything deep or outside, that leaves the seams open. Typically, those seams will be filled by underneath defenders, but the five-man rush pulled a defender out of coverage and left the seams vacant.
Wide receiver Puka Nacua widened outside corner Marco Wilson and then cut into the open space between the numbers and the hashmarks. The pre-snap motion showed this space was likely to be open, and Matthew Stafford didn’t hesitate to rip a throw into his receiver despite defensive tackle Eric Johnson pushing center Beaux Limmer back into his lap.
On the next play, the Rams went right back to play action with the same personnel grouping.
Los Angeles aligned both wide receivers on the same side of the field, with Puka Nacua attacking the middle of the field and Tutu Atwell running a deep out. Tavai carried Nacua up the seam, while Wilson sat underneath Atwell in New England’s Cover 2 zone.
The play-action negated the pass rush, giving Stafford enough time to survey the defense. Seeing defenders backed off to take away the deep pass. Seeing this, he calmly dumped it off...