The key play in Sunday’s NFC Championship happened with 4:59 to play, the Rams trailing by four, and L.A. facing fourth and four from the Seattle six. The Rams went for it, and quarterback Matthew Stafford’s pass to the end zone fell incomplete.
After the game, Rams coach Sean McVay explained that the Seahawks basically got lucky.
“They kind of lucked into having two guys peel on Kyren right there,” McVay said at the time. “I know that that can’t be part of their design, so . . . fortuitous bust by them. . . . I can’t imagine that’s what they were really trying to do.”
While that may not have been the plan, Seahawks linebacker DeMarcus Lawrence improvised in the moment.
“The back was too fast,” Lawrence told reporters on Thursday, via Brian Nemhauser. “You know, if it was a regular design and the back wasn’t [Stafford’s] ‘hot’ [route], the back would have, you know, waited to see if [safety] Julian [Love] was going to rush first and then flare it out. But he didn’t wait, you know, so that was definitely an indicator, like, a ‘oh shit’ moment, you know? The back is flaring out that fast, that means that’s his ‘hot.’ So he’s going to the back first and, you know, playing football as long as I’ve played, I ‘ve seen so many formations and schemes. Like, you know, you start to pick up on those things.”
We broke down the play on PFT Live, in the attached video. Williams runs past Love, who abandoned his blitz, grabbed at Williams, and retreated along with Lawrence.
As Simms noted, however, Williams still looked to be open, even with two men covering him, or at least trying to. But they did enough to get Stafford to move to his next read — and to ultimately thwart what could have been a go-ahead touchdown pass.
