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Rams DeskThe Lab Report

Rams are 5-4, but the snaps say they have played like a 6.6-win team

Los Angeles sits eighth in the conference by record and third by deserved wins, and Sean McVay's clock work leads the league.

MilestoneThe Lab Report6.6Deserved wins · The Lab
By Rams Desk, Pigskin NightlyNov 12, 3:00 PM ET2 min read

The most surprising number on the Rams desk is 6.6. That is how many wins Los Angeles has earned on the snaps through Week 9, against a real record of 5-4. The gap changes which side of the playoff line the Rams sit on.

6.6: the wins the snaps say Los Angeles earned

The Deserved Standings tool grades every game on what happened play by play instead of the final score. It gives the Rams 6.6 deserved wins and 2.4 deserved losses. The real table shows 5-4, which leaves them 1.6 wins short of what the snaps support.

That shortfall moves them from eighth in the conference on the real table to third on the deserved one. In the real standings they are outside the playoff field. On the snaps they are inside it.

The Arizona Cardinals are the next test of whether the margin shows up on the scoreboard. Deserved Standings

87% and 44%: how Los Angeles sets its pass rate by formation

The Scheme DNA tool tags the Rams offense with the most early-down passing and the lowest RPO rate in the league. The formation split is stark. Out of shotgun, the Rams pass 87% of the time. Under center, they pass 44% of the time.

That makes the alignment a clue to the call. Even so, the Rams rank 15th of 32 in the formation tell, squarely in the middle of the league for predictability.

The McVay offense can show the same pre-snap picture and still vary what follows. For the Cardinals, the first read is whether the quarterback lines up in the gun on early downs. Scheme DNA

72: the clock belongs to Sean McVay

The Clock IQ tool scores Sean McVay at 72 out of 99, first among the 32 head coaches. The two-minute work backs it up. In 8 two-minute drives, the Rams have scored 17 points. The expected figure for those drives is 6.9.

There is one blemish. The Rams burn 1 timeout per game, against a league average of 0.75. They spend timeouts at a higher rate than most teams and still come out well ahead on points.

A close game in Arizona would put that edge to work. Clock IQ

4.6 points: the gap between the snaps and the market

The Market vs Snaps tool compares three margins per game over nine games. The market expected the Rams to win by 4.7 points a game. The snaps say 9.3. The real margin is 3.7.

The 4.6-point gap between the snaps and the market ranks third of 32 among the teams the market has underrated most. Against the closing spread, the Rams are 5-4-0.

For context only, the Week 10 line has Los Angeles favored by 9.5 with a total of 39.5. The snaps-based margin of 9.3 sits close to that number.

The Rams visit the Arizona Cardinals on Sunday, Nov. 15, at 4:05 PM ET on CBS. Market vs Snaps

How this was reported. Every number in this piece comes from the play-by-play, drive, injury and snap data Pigskin Nightly collects for every game. EPA (expected points added) is from the open nflverse model. We do not use anonymous sources or invent quotes. Read how we write; spotted an error? Tell us and we will correct it in the open.