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Goff Displays Chemistry with Woods, Watkins in Win over Giants

EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. — Heading into Week 9 after their bye, the Rams had lost their hold as the league's top scoring team.

After Sunday's game, they're back on top.

Los Angeles scored 51 points in a rout of the Giants on Sunday, with the Rams' offense accounting for 473 yards — a new season high. The club averaged 7.8 yards on its 61 plays en route to scoring six touchdowns and three field goals.

"Man, a lot of stuff was working — the run, the pass, everything," said quarterback Jared Goff, who finished with a new career high in both yards passing (311) and touchdown passes (four). He also had a passer rating of 146.8 and ended the day at 14.1 yards per attempt. "I thought offensively we had a really good plan coming in and executed it."

One element of the scheme that worked was Goff's connection with wide receivers Sammy Watkins and Robert Woods.

Woods broke through for his first touchdown of the season in a highly improbable way. After a L.A. takeaway, the Rams moved backwards with a pair of offensive penalties. And so on 3rd-and-33, head coach Sean McVay called a wide receiver screen. At that point, the idea was to maybe pick up enough yards to get back into field-goal range.

But Woods did a whole lot more.

"When you get the ball in a player like Robert's hands — or any of our receivers, really — anything can happen," Goff said postgame. "But you know I threw it to him and kind of saw the seam he saw and I was like, 'Oh we might have a chance here.' And sure enough, he hit it like he did and got himself his first touchdown the hard way."

"I think it is great for him when you look at the contributions he's made to our team, not only in the pass game but in the run game, and also what he represents week in and week out with the way he leads in the receiving room," McVay said. "But certainly that first touchdown play was all him. He had great blocks and then you see the speed to be able to finish a long screen pass[.]"

Woods credited left tackle Andrew Whitworth for making a block that initially sprung him.

"The floodgates were wide open," Woods said. "'Whit' had the big block and just followed him inside, then just ran and did the rest."

With four catches for 70 yards, Woods continues to lead Los Angeles in receptions and yards receiving. He said his chemistry with Goff is continuing to improve.

"It starts at practice and we try to practice like it's a game — we compete, we run hard. So when we come here on Sunday it's similar to practice — it's just catch and throw," Woods said. "I think that helps. When we're out here on the field, he sees us and he knows our timing. He sees us open and he delivers."

That was certainly the case on Goff's 67-yard touchdown pass to Watkins in the second quarter. On 2nd-and-6 from the L.A. 33, Goff dropped back and fired a deep bomb over the middle of the field to a wide open Watkins.

Goff revealed postgame that Watkins had only practiced that particular play in walk-thru, and therefore hadn't actually run the route full speed until that play. But the receiver and quarterback were nevertheless able to connect for a scoring strike.

"I thought I may have overthrown it, but he's so freaking fast he tracked it down and made a tremendous catch on that," Goff said. "It was full extension and a really good catch. He was able to obviously walk in after that so it was a fun one.

"I came to the sidelines and asked, 'Was that the first time you've ever really truly ran that,?' And he was like 'Yeah,'" Goff added. "So, pretty good for the first time."

McVay called the play encouraging for both players, who have clearly been working to improve their connection.

"But I don't think they ever didn't have confidence in it," McVay said. "There are a lot of different things that come into play when you're talking about those things down the field, whether it be quarterback and receiver or your protection. Everything kind of came together and the players made it work there."

And overall, McVay seemed impressed by the way Goff handled everything on Sunday as the offense's signal-caller.

"[A] lot of encouraging things, but, you know, Jared was the one running the show today," Mcvay said. "And he showed great command and great poise in a road atmosphere against a tough opponent."

Check out in-game photos from the Rams' Week 9 matchup versus the Giants at MetLife Stadium.

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