How Baker Mayfield led Rams to improbable win: ‘Just like we drew it up’
INGLEWOOD, Calif. — Exhausted, elated and admittedly slightly confused, Rams head coach Sean McVay took to the rostrum after a 17-16 win over Las Vegas on Thursday evening.
“The way we designed it,” he stated dryly.
The Rams took over quarterback Baker Mayfield, who had fallen out of soccer grace, from waivers on Tuesday afternoon. Two days later, Mayfield executed a 98-yard landing drive with 1:45 to play, tying the Raiders with 16 factors and 15 seconds to play. Kicker Matt Gay scored the additional level and security Taylor Rapp intercepted Las Vegas quarterback Derek Carr simply as time was up to seal the win.
It was, frankly, unbelievable given the circumstances.
“I’m still like, ‘What the hell is going on?'” McVay stated.
Rams coach Sean McVay and Baker Mayfield (Kirby Lee/USA Today)
Mayfield arrived in Los Angeles Tuesday evening and it’s about an hour’s drive from the airport to the crew’s coaching services in Thousand Oaks, California.
The Rams’ Wednesday follow (a “Friday” due to the quick week) consisted principally of red-zone work and throwing and catching follow. Mayfield tossed to a gaggle of receivers at the moment Nos. 1 and a couple of with out Cooper Kupp (ankle) and Allen Robinson (foot) and shook palms with a gaggle of offensive linemen who’ve gone via 12 completely different mixtures in 13 video games. McVay and his teaching workers put collectively two 10-game intervals, working and passing, for Mayfield so he may at the least begin getting his toes moist on their offense. That’s it. They additionally wanted to get him a crash course of their silent depend, as a result of not solely did Mayfield fall into their plan midweek, the Rams knew they’d be internet hosting a loud and dense Raiders crowd at their house stadium.
“What a quick study,” McVay stated, “I mean, he got here about five minutes ago. … I’m very happy for these players, these coaches. It’s a great testament to the resilience of this group. Man, you forget what it’s like to win (after losing six in a row) and it’s really fun.”
All in all, Mayfield perhaps, could also be had about 50 photographs in his first 40 hours along with his new crew earlier than taking the sector within the first quarter on Thursday evening.
“I’ve never seen anything like Baker,” stated proper deal with and crew captain Rob Havenstein. “He got here, huh, Tuesday? Just unbelievable. The work and dedication and mindset of the guys, the offense and defense and special teams, who actually end up doing a complete performance there. … Couldn’t be happier for my boys. No matter what happened, everyone stood by each other.”
Most of the game was ugly. The end was pure madness. But in the fourth quarter, the Rams played a brand of supplementary football they’ve barely seen this season.
The Rams defense allowed touchdowns throughout, which was pretty much helped by an explosive 32-yard pass on that drive. Receiver Davante Adams made one of two 30-yard catches against cornerback Jalen Ramsey, the first being a notable one-handed effort. Outside of those two games, Adams (three catches, 71 yards, no touchdowns) failed to break up the game. Technically, Josh Jacobs, who has ran all teams for the past few weeks, wasn’t a running back either. On Thursday, Jacobs had 99 yards — but on 27 carries, he averaged 3.7 yards per carry. Inside linebacker Bobby Wagner said the Rams defense didn’t want to concede quite as many total yards (302) but was stingy in the red zone and even took the ball away after a sophomore linebacker intercepted Ernst Jones in the end zone.
After a touchdown run by Cam Akers with 3:25 left, the Rams defense forced a three-and-out at the other end. Wagner finished the run in third and 1st place, finishing the race with a team high of 14 tackles. That prepared Mayfield and the offensive effort.
“To find a way to name (the) protection, it got here down to that third and a cease — the protection did a hell of a job of creating that cease and getting the ball again to us,” Mayfield said.
Then mayhem. In a historically turbulent Rams season, it was finally the good variety.
Playing 1:37 in third and second, receiver Van Jefferson drew a pass interference flag on a ball that would have otherwise been intercepted. Still alive. Mayfield was then sacked on a 9-yard loss, but Raiders defensive tackle Jerry Tillery pulled out an unsportsmanlike penalty and the Rams edged forward. Then Mayfield hit sophomore Ben Skowronek with a 32-yard ball down the middle, which Skowronek stretched and (mostly) held as the other 11 players charged for the new line of scrimmage with the clock running down. Mayfield once again hit Malcolm Brown (lifted from the practice team) and Skowronek for 17 yards combined and then goaded the ball to stop the clock with 16 seconds left.
On the next snap, Mayfield unfolded a beautiful throw to Jefferson, whose husband was closely associated with him in press coverage. Jefferson hauled in the touchdown catch, which had just a 30.4 percent chance of completion, according to Next Gen Stats — making it Mayfield’s lowest-likelihood finisher of the night.
Mayfield’s throw against Jefferson was also the first game-winning touchdown of his career for the third-year receiver at any level. The 98-yard drive was the longest go-ahead touchdown drive in a two-minute situation in the past 45 years, according to Elias Sports.
Why the hell not?
The Rams made a “Why the hell not?” moved when they took over Mayfield this week and they played a kind of why the hell not game. They let go, leaned in. They conducted an informal tour of Thousand Oaks, Calif., just before loading onto the team buses in the early afternoon specifically to survive a two-minute situation just in case they might need it. They had a short – Mayfield laughed, very short – list of calls for him that they knew he would be OK with should he get in the game (he wasn’t quite sure he would until it had started). They threw it out (“we dived off that record and received into another stuff,” Mayfield said, chuckling). Center Brian Allen kept barking in Mayfield’s ear — reminders of the language, the rules of offense in that language. McVay chattered at hyper speed into Mayfield’s headset, snapshot after snapshot. When I asked Havenstein how the communication was involved, he just laughed.
“We form of realized a few of that on the facet,” he said. “We gave him slightly synopsis, and he stated, ‘All proper, rattling it.'”
But in the long run, throughout a rush scenario with no timeouts remaining, at a clock-the-ball cadence he’d solely been taught earlier than at a coaching camp he wasn’t current at, when he actually had nothing left to lose Mayfield it most alive.
“Ball is ball,” Mayfield added. Of course, it did not harm that the Raiders had been referred to as out for 2 penalties on the drive, or that they lined up in tight cowl at crunch time when a defensive shell containing the Rams inbounds would have killed the remainder of their watch and perhaps stifled a landing look.
“I was really shocked that they kept the pressure on for like 15 seconds because they knew we didn’t have any more time-outs,” Mayfield stated. Add it to the record for him this week.
As Mayfield exited his press convention and headed again via the locker room, he turned to the PR rep subsequent to him.
“All right,” he stated, grinning. “Where the hell am I going?”
Next: Learn all of the names, a couple of extra pages within the playbook. A espresso spot on the way in which to work, the precise route to flip when exiting the elevator, and what’s arising for the remainder of the 12 months.
Mayfield nonetheless has 4 weeks to launch one of the best tape potential as he shall be on the lookout for a job in 2023. The Rams signed him within the hope that he would do sufficient to flip himself right into a compensatory alternative for them – he received a brand new contract elsewhere. They gave little to no thought to what sort of future With Mayfield could be on the lookout for them as a possible backup quarterback, a number of individuals with data of their discussions stated. They wished to keep away from being additional humiliated on the sector till the top of their season, and it solely price him $1.3 million to purchase. After that, who is aware of?
“To be honest, I’m just trying to be the best possible version of myself,” Mayfield stated. “Learn, improve in this system, try to learn from a great group of people who have had a lot of success… Just try to learn from everyone here. Record as much as I can and drop the pieces where they will. I can’t control the future. I know I have the next four games here. I try to build on that and just be the best version of myself.”
Mayfield would not want to have answered that query now, and neither do the Rams. They should stay right here, at this very unlikely second in an in any other case misplaced season on Thursday evening. Let her.
“I don’t know if you could spell it better,” Mayfield stated in a single breath. “Obviously we’d like to be a little less stressful, but it’s a damn good story, I’ll be honest with you. It’s something special.”
So I will not attempt to write it higher and so they will not attempt to inform it higher. It’s time to discover out the remainder later. We all depart this second right here the place it is – frozen in all its absurdly fantastical chaos, preserved for the gamers who by no means gave up on one another, who wanted it most, to dwell in it just a bit longer.
(Top Photo of Baker Mayfield and Brian Allen: Brian Rothmuller / Icon Sportswire by way of Getty Images)