In Week 4, there were 41 players in the NFL who carried the ball more than Todd Gurley did against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. That list of players includes Patrick Mahomes, Carson Wentz, Mark Walton, Dontrell Hilliard, Ryquell Armstead and Lamar Jackson.
Gurley took a handoff just five times in the entire game, which is the same number as Malcolm Brown received. It also matches the number of carries by Josh Allen, Jacoby Brissett, Chase Daniel, Daniel Jones and Aaron Rodgers this week.
Sean McVay’s usage of Todd Gurley has been confusing through the first four weeks of the season, but it was alarmingly bad on Sunday against the Buccaneers. There’s no excuse for Jared Goff throwing the ball 68 times and Gurley getting just five carries in a game, and after the embarrassing 55-40 loss, McVay had no explanation for that lack of run-pass balance.
“There’s a lot of different things,” he said of what made him call so few running plays. “Ultimately, it’s our job to figure out what we think is the best way to move the football and score points. That’s what we decided on, that’s what I decided on today.”
McVay was asked if the Rams are preserving Gurley by limiting his workload early in games. After all, he didn’t get his first carry until there was less than 8:30 left in the second quarter.
“No, there’s none of that,” he said. “We’re doing what we can to try to find a way to win games. It’s not about conserving, we’ve got to win right now and that’s the most important thing. There’s nothing like that.”
So why did it take Gurley so long to get involved? And why has he gone long stretches without getting the ball consistently?
“Yeah, each game represents different things so I can’t pinpoint one thing in particular,” he responded.
Gurley has carried the ball just 49 times in four games, an average of 12.25 carries per week. He has 11 catches thus far, seven of which came in Week 4 on 11 targets – five more targets than he had all season previously.
This time last year, Gurley was up to 79 carries and 15 receptions on 20 targets. And through six games, he had 129 rush attempts (21.5 per game) and 21 catches on 30 targets.
It’s impossible for McVay to stand up there and say nothing has changed because the numbers clearly paint such a different picture. And based on the way he discussed the subject of involving Gurley more in the future, it doesn’t sound like a sudden change is coming.
“Well, I think there are some things that, yeah, you’d like to find some solutions to be more productive offensively and there’s a lot of different directions that we can go, but ultimately it’s my job, it’s our job to figure that out, and I haven’t done a good enough job and I’m not going to make any excuses about it other than just try go to work and figure it out,” McVay concluded.
The Rams have the Seahawks up next on Thursday night, another difficult matchup and their first divisional game. Don’t expect Gurley to suddenly get 25 touches, but another game with just five rush attempts would set off a lot of red flags.
