Breaking: Los Angeles Rams moves to add 12 more new personnel

Should the Rams think about adding another 12 personnel?

The Los Angeles Rams have predominantly been an 11-man squad under Sean McVay. 83 percent of the Rams’ offensive snaps in 2017 were played with 11 personnel. Since then, it has only gotten worse—in 2023, the Rams played with 11 players 93% of the time.

Given the abundance of 11 personnel, there’s good reason to think that McVay and the Rams should vary the offense more and use more 12 personnel sets. However, the Rams’ utilization of its wide receivers allows them to get away with using so many 11 players.

Robert Woods, Cooper Kupp, and Brandin Cooks were their wide receivers early in McVay’s coaching career. Given that Woods and Kupp were two of the NFL’s top wide receivers for blocking, it didn’t make sense to take any of those three off the field. According to Pro Football Focus, Woods ranked 11th among wide receivers in the NFL in 2018 and 12th the following year at run blocking. Woods placed second and Kupp ranked tenth in run blocking during the Rams’ 2021 Super Bowl run.

That has only become worse as the Rams have made progress with Puka Nacua and Kupp. Nacua was the NFL’s fourth-best wide receiver at blocking runs last season. The Rams’ run game was drastically altered by Nacua’s crucial blocking.

In the run game, wide receivers like Nacua and Kupp are practically used as de facto tight ends because of how well they can block. The Rams are now able to stick with 11 personnel looks. Everything has the same appearance, making it impossible for the defense to determine a play-call depending on who is on the field at any particular time. Although the Rams have 11 players on the field, their wide receivers block so well that it feels more like 11.5. Twelve personnel rarely has the same adaptability that the Rams do with their guys. It no longer stresses a defense to just stick a tight end in the slot as a changeup.

The percentages are merely a number in the end. The background of the Rams’ 11 personnel groupings and the effectiveness of their wide receivers in the run game is absent from those percentages. Why should Nacua be removed off the field if he is a more effective blocker and a greater receiving threat than the second tight end? Eleven players makes the most sense if the objective is to always have the best players on the pitch and for everything to look the same while functioning as a cohesive unit.

This is also supported by the data. The Rams offense ranked eighth in the NFL last season with an average of.06 EPA per play on 998 offensive plays with 11 different players. On the other hand, they ranked 28th when they averaged -0.18 EPA per play with 12 personnel.

Is efficiency truly worth paying for variance and percentages if the offensive is that much less effective? Naturally, the tiny sample size of 52 plays in 12 personnel in 2023 should also be taken into consideration. Having stated that, the league is observing this lack of output among the 12 personnel. Dan Pizzuta of the 33rd Team observed this in a recent analysis,

“The issue lies in the fact that output from 12 employees has drastically decreased from its maximum during the 2017–2019 season, mostly due to remarkable effectiveness in the passing game…The main problem is that there isn’t much of a conflict for contemporary defenders with the persons that conflict assaults aim to insert. Just 40.5 percent of defenses in 2023 used a stacked box, meaning eight or more defenders against 12 personnel, while 21.4 percent used a light box, meaning six or fewer defenders. In a sense, this has conflicted the offense. Either make the defense pay by running the ball against the lighter personnel, or trust the receiving tight end to prevail against a slot corner. Criminals still don’t fully understand this. Tight ends were only targeted on 29% of passes out of 12 personnel in 2023—a ten-year low—because of that coverage.