The Rams’ new WR duo may test Stafford’s ability to spread targets.
The biggest move that the Los Angeles Rams made this offseason was signing wide receiver Davante Adams after he was released by the New York Jets. After releasing Cooper Kupp, the Rams needed a second weapon on the outside. Adams’ playstyle and star power made him a perfect fit for the Rams who are in a ‘win now’ window with quarterback Matthew Stafford.
However, in a sense, the Rams have been down this road previously. In 2022, the Rams signed an older wide receiver with name recognition in Allen Robinson. To say Robinson didn’t work out would be an understatement. Robinson had just 339 yards over 10 games and his 10.3 yards per reception were a career low.
Throughout Stafford’s career, there has always been a narrative that he tends to lock on to specific wide receivers. That was the case in 2021 with Kupp which went into 2022. During the first nine games of the 2022 season, Kupp had a 32.1 percent target share to Robinson’s 14.3 percent.
It can certainly be argued that Robinson wasn’t a fit for the offense. In combination with his injury history, the Rams were also getting a shell of the player that they were expecting. It’s fair to note that Robinson was a divergence from the original plan to re-sign Von Miller. When Miller signed with the Bills, the Rams moved on to Robinson who theyhadn’t done extensive background work on before signing.
However, as mentioned, this was also an issue in 2021. Prior to getting injured in 2021, Robert Woods also struggled to get targets from Stafford. Through the first nine weeks of the season, Woods received just 20 percent of Stafford’s targets compared to Kupp’s 30.8 percent. That’s nearly an 11-point gap. Additionally, removing the Week 5 game in which Woods had 14 targets after voicing frustrations, it was just 17.7 percent to Kupp’s 31.6 percent. That was much different than in 2020 when Woods led Rams receivers in targets with Jared Goff at quarterback.
It was also much of the same with Odell Beckham Jr. From Week 10 to the NFC Championship game, Beckham had a target share of 18.3 percent to Kupp’s 30.8.
Kupp’s season in 2021 was obviously historic and the job of the quarterback and offensive playcaller is to get the ball into the hands of the best player. In 2021 and the first half of 2022, that player was Kupp. However, that doesn’t make the discrepancy less noteworthy. Six of Stafford’s 17 interceptions in 2021 came when targeting Kupp as did four of his eight interceptions in 2022.
As Stafford has continued to spend more time in the offense, he has improved in this area. In 2023, Cooper Kupp and Puka Nacua had a near-identical target share. From Weeks 5-17 when both players were on the field, Nacua led the team in target share at 25.2 percent compared to Kupp’s 23.4 percent. That’s the closest that two receivers had been in target share with Stafford on the Rams. It was more of the same last season. In games in which Kupp and Nacua were both on the field, it was Nacua that led 28.3 percent to 24.7. With that said, it is worth noting that if you exclude Kupp’s Week 1 performance, Nacua would have led 31.3 percent to 21.9.
During Stafford’s tenure with the Rams, he consistently tends to overly target receivers that he trusts. In Stafford’s four years, a Rams wide receiver has ranked inside the top three in target share three times. The lone exception was 2023 in which Nacua finished 11th.
Heading into the season, the Rams have more of a 1a and 1b at wide receiver than a designated WR1. However, if Nacua begins to get significantly more targets than Adams, will that cause a potential rift? Adams has been a target-heavy wide receiver throughout his career. He’s ranked inside the top-six each of the last four seasons in target share.
The potential good news here is that with Nacua out of Organized Team activities, it has allowed Stafford and Adams to begin building a connection. Said McVay, “He and Matthew have a dialogue of their accumulated experiences and getting on the same page for how they want to be able to do things.”
Added Stafford,
“It’s always a work in progress. We’re always talking out there…It’s fun just trying to communicate as much as I can with him…I was texting with him late last week a little bit and just saying, ‘Hey man, you’re a great player because of your skillset and I’m going to continue to work and watch…whether that’s watching live after I throw and then go back and rewatch and make sure what I was seeing and feeling at that moment was real.’ Then we just talk about it too right, after every single set, it feels like we’re over there talking about, ‘Hey, this is kind of how I’m thinking that I’m going to come out of this or feel that and it’s just constant dialogue. Honestly, those are the best relationships I’ve had with the receivers and the most success that I’ve had is guys that want to talk to you on what they felt, what they were doing. I can also say, ‘Hey, this is what it looks like from my angle and go from there. But he definitely has that feeling, he has that understanding and that’s a huge positive.”
We won’t know exactly what the Stafford-Adams connection looks like or how Adams and Nacua play off of each other until Week 1. Still, while there is a lot of excitement for what it could look like, there are also some reasons for concerns. Much of that reason for caution is due to the fact that Stafford has struggled in the past involving multiple receivers in the offense. Only twice in his career has Stafford supported multiple 1,000 yard wide receivers in the same season and neither of those seasons came with the Rams. The last one came in 2017 in which Marvin Jones and Golden Tate each hit the milestone.
The Rams’ acquisition of Davante Adams adds firepower to an offense that already boasts a rising star in Puka Nacua, but history suggests the transition might not be seamless. Matthew Stafford’s track record shows a tendency to lean heavily on a trusted target, which has at times led to imbalanced distribution and underutilization of talented weapons. While the rapport between Stafford and Adams appears to be growing early in the offseason, the true test will come once the games begin and both Adams and Nacua are on the field together. If Stafford can balance their usage and keep both receivers involved, the Rams could field one of the most dangerous duos in the NFL.
