Studs and duds from Rams’ 19-16 loss to Bengals
The Los Angeles Rams fell short in Week 3 against the Cincinnati Bengals, losing the game 19-16. The Rams have now lost two games in a row after a double-digit win on the road against the Seattle Seahawks to begin the season.
In the loss to the Bengals on Monday night, the Rams made plenty of costly mistakes and converted only one of their 11 third downs. It was a forgettable game all around for Los Angeles and the team will need to regroup ahead of a road matchup against a surprising 2-1 Indianapolis Colts squad in Week 4.
With the Rams suffering another defeat, here are our studs and duds from Monday’s matchup with the Bengals.
Stud: Aaron Donald
Aaron Donald has gotten off to a slow start this season — at least for his standards — but he was single-handedly making life difficult for Joe Burrow on Monday night. The All-Pro interior defender would live in Cincinnati’s backfield, tallying six tackles, two tackles for loss, and one sack.
Donald is still playing at an elite level, but it’s going to be up to the other members of the defensive front to take advantage of having one-on-one opportunities. For anyone who had doubts that Donald can still wreck a game, he proved on Monday night he’s still among the best defenders in the NFL.
Stud: Kobie Turner
Kobie Turner has been another bright spot for the Rams to begin the season. The rookie defensive lineman recorded only half a sack and one tackle versus the Bengals, but he was close to getting home a handful of times.
Outside of Young, the Rams are still having issues getting production from their edge rushers early in the season. While Turner is benefitting from playing alongside Donald, he is still showing plenty of flashes that should excite fans moving forward.
Dud: Zachary Thomas
Alaric Jackson has been a major bright spot for the Rams this season and is a large reason why the offensive line has exceeded expectations. But in the first half of Monday’s game, Jackson exited with a thigh injury and was replaced by Zachary Thomas at left tackle.
Upon entering the game, Thomas looked out of sorts and the Bengals suddenly began generating consistent pressure on Stafford’s blindside. The Rams can’t afford to have Jackson miss time with how well he was playing and the dropoff at left tackle behind him.
Dud: Michael Hoecht
The Rams had Michael Hoecht make the full transition from interior defender to edge rusher, and the experiment hasn’t yielded many positive results thus far. Hoecht is one of the main beneficiaries of Donald getting double-teamed on nearly every play, but he’s failed to incite pressure at a consistent rate.
Along with not getting pressure on the quarterback often, Hoecht made multiple mistakes in giving up the edge on play-action plays against the Bengals. The fact that Hoecht continues to start is more of an indictment on the edge rushers on the Rams not named Byron Young.
Dud: Matthew Stafford
Losing Jackson at the left tackle position undoubtedly didn’t help Stafford and the passing game on Monday night. At the same time, Stafford never seemed to find a rhythm once the game began, and he finished by completing only 18 of his 33 throws for 269 yards, one touchdown, and two interceptions.
The veteran signal-caller missed some easy throws and forced a pass over the middle in the first half to Van Jefferson, which resulted in an interception. Stafford was playing extremely well in the first two weeks, and Sean McVay didn’t do a fantastic job putting the offense in advantageous positions, but his performance in Week 4 is one he’ll want to put behind him quickly.
Dud: Sean McVay
There were a ton of issues that led to the Rams losing to the Bengals on Monday night. Besides the players on the field, McVay had his worst game of in a long time in multiple areas.
Wasting precious timeouts has always been a weakness for McVay and the Rams abandoned the ground game early despite Kyren Williams having some success. And once Jackson left the game due to an injury, McVay failed to give Thomas more help off the edge to prevent constant pressure from crowding Stafford. If the Rams want to get back on track, McVay has to simply be better than he was against the Bengals.
