Just 22 months removed from the New England Patriots’ (6-7) triumphant 13-3, Super Bowl 53 win over the Los Angeles Rams (9-4), Sean McVay and the Rams offense exacted their version of revenge (although, can you avenge a Super Bowl loss in the regular season?) with a 24-3 dismantling over the Pats.
The Rams stuck with some of their offensive principles that the Patriots shut down two years ago (wide-zone rushing, bootleg, play-action passing), this time finding great success. But they also tinkered their game plan enough (shifting heavily from ’11’ personnel to ’12’ personnel) to catch Bill Belichick’s defensive unit off guard.
Of course, the main story of the game was the Rams’ dominance on defense (particularly at the line of scrimmage) against the Patriots offense, whose offensive line had perhaps their worst performance of the season. In fact, if you take away Cam Newton’s costly, second-quarter pick-six, the Patriots defense allowed just 17 points. So the offense probably deserves a bit more blame for Sunday’s outing.
But here, we focus on the Patriots defense. So we had a weekly session watching the tape, to see where things went wrong (or right) on that side of the ball for New England versus the Rams.
