A herculean effort from Rams quarterback Matthew Stafford wasn't enough to lift the Rams over the Seahawks in the NFC Championship Game. Stafford's 374 passing yards and three touchdowns, not to mention 16 rushing yards for the 37-year-old, helped Los Angeles gain 479 yards of total offense.
Defensive lapses and special teams miscues put the Rams in a difficult spot in the second half. After the offense came up short on a 4th-and-4 late in the game, Seattle bled most of the remaining clock, and the Rams' hopes of a Super Bowl were squashed. Seattle stormed their home field in triumph.
Here are five interesting stats from the Rams' 31-27 loss to the Seahawks in the NFC Championship Game.
Stafford's 208 play-action passing yards were an NFL season-high across the regular season and playoffs, according to Next Gen Stats
He did it on just 10 attempts, too, completing eight. That's an average of 20.8 yards per attempt. The Rams' success in the run game set them up to hit downfield shots off play-action fakes, and Stafford didn't miss on many.
Stafford threw for 226 deep passing yards (20-plus yards downfield), the third-highest mark allowed by a defense in any game in the last decade, according to Next Gen Stats
He went seven of 11 on deep balls, and threw one touchdown. Those throws accounted for 60.4% of the Rams' passing yards, but just 31.4% of his pass attempts. His longest throw of the day was a 44-yard dart to wide receiver Puka Nacua (nine catches for 165 yards and a touchdown).
Stafford completed seven passes with a completion probability under 50%, according to Next Gen Stats
Nacua was on the receiving end of four of those throws, and that those didn't even include the touchdown. Wide receiver Davante Adams had two, a 29-yarder that got the Rams down to the two-yard line and set up a touchdown to Adams on the next play, and a 35-yarder. The final one went to tight end Colby Parkinson on a 40-yard catch.
A season-high 25.9% of the Rams' offensive plays were explosives (run of 10-plus or pass of 20-plus), according to Next Gen Stats, which is also the highest rate Seattle has allowed this season
The Rams created 15 explosives on Sunday, and their explosive play rate was the fourth-highest of any team in a game this season. Four of those plays came on the ground, while 11 came through the air.
The Rams' 0.07 expected points added (EPA) per rush was the highest allowed by the Seahawks' defense all season, according to Next Gen Stats
That means the Rams added an average of 0.07 expected points to their total on each carry, compared to what the average team would achieve on run plays in similar contexts. Seattle's second-highest EPA allowed was also to the Rams (0.04) in Week 11, and those were the only two positive figures yielded by the Seahawks' defense all year.
As Rams players cleared out their lockers on Monday, offensive lineman Steve Avila said they had a good game plan, and their previous experiences against Seattle allowed them to create more push in the run game than they had previously.
