4 overreactions from Week 1’s loss to the Lions

Why you need not be worried about Blake Corum or the Rams offensive line

The Rams might be the only team in the NFL that can feel proud about how they lost in Week 1. Underdogs in Detroit on Sunday Night Football, the Rams fought back to take a fourth quarter lead and went to overtime despite a dogpile of injuries and pushed the Lions to the brink. Given a different outcome on the coin toss, the Rams could even be 1-0 right now.

“Week 1 is king for overreactions across the NFL,” said JB Scott in the comments of his Monday morning article about Cooper Kupp’s NFL-leading 21 targets (nine more targets than any other player in the league).

How are people maybe overreacting about how the Rams played in Week 1?

Overreaction 1: Blake Corum is RB3

The Rams spent a third round pick on a running back—the third running back off of the board overall—and he didn’t play a snap on offense. Does it matter? No.

Kyren Williams played over 90% of the snaps and likely will for as long as he can and Sean McVay needs him to. If the Rams were up 20 points in a game this season, we might see a lot of Corum. In a road primetime against the Lions in Corum’s NFL debut, maybe it’s not so necessary to give the ball to a rookie when L.A.’s only real goal is to give all the carries to their best running back.

Ronnie Rivers got seven snaps and two carries (including one that went for 12 yards) because this is his third season, his third year with Sean McVay, and I’m sure that the team trusts him more because he’s had that much longer to prove himself to them.

It’s amazing that in the year 2024 we still have to have discussions to explain that playing the running back position has a little bit more responsibility than “grab ball, run ball forward”.

Obviously, looking back on the Cam Akers situation, McVay needs time to develop trust in a running back. Kyren Williams didn’t take over right away either. I understand that Rams fans might be a little gun shy after picks like Isaiah Pead, Tre Mason, Darrell Henderson, and Akers.

It’s been one week of Corum’s career and I can guarantee you that the time will come this season when the Rams will need him to play, and probably need him to start. It wasn’t Week 1 in Detroit.

Overreaction 2: The Rams OL is in shambles

I’m not going to say that fans shouldn’t be worried about the offensive line—and it’s always fair to be worried about injuries especially—but there is some context here that I think should put your mind at a little bit of ease relative to where it was on Sunday night:

If Steve Avila is out for a month with a sprained MCL, is it the worst thing in the world to have Beaux Limmer at center and Jonah Jackson at left guard?

I’m not sold that the Rams interior offensive line is noticeably worse with Limmer than it would be with Avila. That’s one potential overreaction.

Also Joe Noteboom was injured at left tackle, another unfortunate situation. But Noteboom is also not a starter so when A.J. Jackson returns from suspension in Week 3, that should clear up the left tackle spot. Whether you like or dislike Jackson’s play at left tackle last season, he is still the player that McVay wanted out there all along for this season.

And at right tackle, Rob Havenstein avoided PUP and IR, so the Rams might get him back in Week 2 or Week 3.

As panicked as the situation looked during the game, a Week 3 offensive line of Jackson-Jackson-Limmer-Dotson-Havenstein isn’t far off from McVay’s ideal.

Overreaction #3: Tyler Johnson, now HE’s the next Puka Nacua

Tyler Johnson’s 63-yard catch and run was a stellar play and not to be discredited. And as the broadcast mentioned, also the longest play of his 5-year career and in fact would be tied for the second-most yards he had in a single game if that’s all he did.

Tyler Johnson played in one game last season, getting 36 snaps in L.A.’s “meaningless” Week 18 finale against the 49ers, catching two passes for eight yards and a touchdown. In 2022 with the Bucs, Johnson appeared in two games and was targeted zero times.

You must go back to 2021 to find a season in which Tyler Johnson was a part of team’s plan either on offense or special teams.

Ultra rare is the diamond in the rough receiver who was inactive for two whole seasons prior to his breakout.

I wouldn’t say you could overreact to Puka Nacua’s injury—that is really bad news because Puka is a top-5 player on L.A.’s roster—but the losses can be mitigated because the Rams have Matthew Stafford, McVay, Cooper Kupp, and a collection of options to spread the ball around to like Demarcus Robinson and Colby Parkinson, both of whom are probably still ahead of Johnson on the pecking order. And then there’s Tutu Atwell, who only got six snaps on Sunday night.

Maybe Tyler Johnson starts against the Cardinals next week and has another 80 yards. Just like last season, when Atwell had 119 yards in Week 1 and 77 yards in Week 2. And then Atwell had 287 yards over the next 15 games combined. And now he’s on the bench all night.

Stafford isn’t known for being that generous with his targets. He likes to feed one player, but he’ll feed two if it’s Kupp and Nacua. While Nacua is out, it would be the smarter bet to assume a heavy target share for Kupp, followed by a lot of distribution with the rest of the cast, which also includes Jordan Whittington, who only got 2 offensive snaps in his debut.

The fact that 80% of Johnson’s production came on a single play should also tell you something.

Overreaction #4: Run defense is a shitshow

The Rams allowed twice as many rushing yards as they had themselves, giving up 163 yards on the ground with 5.3 yards per carry. That’s the sixth-most rushing yards allowed in Week 1 and the sixth-worst YPC for a defense too.

Worse yet, the Rams -13.57 EPA allowed on the ground was dead last this week, significantly outpace the Chiefs at -9.89 as the next-worst mark.

Seems really concerning, right?

Well, here’s the thing: David Montgomery was amazing…in overtime.

Montgomery had five carries for 45 yards in the extra period, averaging 9.0 yards per carry and scoring the game-winning touchdown. He had 12 carries for 45 yards in regulation.

Not only was the Rams defense tired in OT, any team’s defense would have been tired in OT. The fact of the matter is that this was Week 1 and any player or former player would tell you the same thing, which is that if you don’t get ramped up in the preseason, you WILL be exhausted by the end of your Week 1 contest. Players can never be conditioned enough for the fourth quarter of a football game just by practicing, they need to actually play football.

I’m not making the argument that McVay should play his starters in the preseason. Getting 1-2 quarters of preseason for the starters probably won’t make that big of a difference. I’m just saying it’s the nature of the situation! The Rams were so exhausted in overtime that you could tell whoever won the coin toss would win the game.

They will not only make adjustments, they’ll get better conditioned for the fourth quarter as the season goes on and their run defense (most likely) won’t look nearly as bad as it did when the defense was playing deeper into a football game than any other defense played this week.