Did you notice that the Rams’ offense has completely reinvented itself since their last Super Bowl?
The Los Angeles Rams’ trade for Matthew Stafford in early 2021 wasn’t just about swapping out Jared Goff for a new quarterback. It was also about finding a different sort of quarterback.
Goff was and still is excellent at firing intermediate throws to the middle of the field. The Rams’ hope was that Stafford could broaden the scope of the passing game.
And it worked. The Rams had a top-five passing offense during the regular season before Stafford went on an absolute heater throughout the playoffs, en route to winning the Super Bowl.
But on the Rams’ run to a championship, a flaw to their new approach had become exposed. During the playoffs, McVay’s offense posted just a 23.3 percent rushing success rate while averaging just 2.7 yards per carry. The Rams’ running game, once their calling card in McVay’s early years, had become an aspect of the offense that had to be overcome.
One of the main tweaks to the Rams’ rushing approach this year is also one of their biggest schematic changes of the entire McVay era. Even as other elements of the Rams’ offense began to evolve since Stafford arrived, their personnel approach remained mostly static. From 2021 to 2024, the Rams used 11 personnel — one back, one tight end, and three wide receivers — on a league-leading 87.2 percent of their plays. No other team was in the same zip code.
This season, that number has dropped all the way to 58.7 percent — the 16th-highest rate in the NFL, and a number that would’ve been unthinkable in previous years. The drop has coincided with the Rams using more 13 personnel — one back, three tight ends, and one receiver — at a nearly 30 percent clip, nearly double the second-highest rate of the past decade.
Of all the schematic changes the Rams have undergone since their last trip to the Super Bowl, McVay’s return to his play-action roots may be the most fitting — a full-circle moment for one of the league’s true innovators.
Over the past two years, the Rams’ usage of under-center looks and play-action calls from those alignments started to tick up again, before finally exploding in 2025. The Rams led the NFL in play-action usage yet again this season, something they haven’t done since 2018.
The way he’s attacking teams has changed, but the benefits of using all this under-center and play action remain the same as they were when McVay leaned on them back when he first got the job. By starting with run action from under center, different plays start the same. The hesitation that defenses were trying to create by moving to a two-high world has been put back onto them. It’s a fitting way to close the loop for an offense and a coach that remain on the cutting edge of the NFL.
The Rams offense may look a lot different than it did the last time they won the Super Bowl, but the mindset powering it — always trying to find ways to stay a half step ahead — has never really changed.