Why more touches for Todd Gurley? 'Me not being an idiot,' Rams coach Sean McVay says
As the Los Angeles Rams' offense has surprisingly sputtered at times this season — a stark contrast to their attack against the league on their way to a NFC Championship last year — one of the permeating questions has been: Where's Todd Gurley?
The All-Pro running back was largely absent from coach Sean McVay's gameplans and rotations in certain contests. Although questions lingered about a mysterious knee injury, the coach always maintained Gurley was healthy.
In two of the last three games, though, Gurley touched the ball more than 20 times and eclipsed the 100-yard marker (between rushing and receiving yards) — both wins. While searching for an explanation for the turnaround, McVay turned inward.
"Me not being an idiot," the coach told reporters Wednesday.
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Gurley still has yet to rush for 100 yards in a game, but he's touched the ball at least 19 times in three of the Rams' last four wins. In their two most recent losses, however, Gurley has hardly been a factor. He ran the ball 12 times for 73 yards but never found the end zone and didn't get a fourth-quarter carry in a 17-12 loss to the Pittsburgh Steelers on Nov. 10. Two weeks later, he had 19 total yards on nine touches (six rushes, three catches) in a 45-6 defeat to the Baltimore Ravens.
“You’re just kind of working through the best way to utilize all of our players and figuring out what our best identity is,” McVay said. “I think we’re still working through it, but (load management) didn’t have anything to do with that.
“I think the Steelers game stands out in terms of where we were running the football well and didn’t really give (Gurley) a chance to get back going based on how that thing played out. So you always try to learn from your previous experiences. ... I think we’ve been able to, in the games that he’s gotten more touches, be efficient when we’ve been able to give him the ball. That’s a reflection of him, but also the guys blocking.”
When told of McVay's self-assessment, quarterback Jared Goff insisted that his coach was simply being hard on himself.
"I think we all want to get Todd involved as much as possible," Goff said. "I think these last couple of weeks we’ve seen that, and good things tend to happen."
Contributing: Associated Press