The Rams didn’t pay in Week 11, giving them more time to get receiver Odell Beckham Jr. up to speed in the offense.
Rams coach Sean McVay was asked earlier this week to explain the effort to further incorporate Beckham into the offense.
“I think that’s a work in progress,” McVay told reporters. “I think it was important for everybody to be able to get away. Odell was doing a great job of kind of working on his own, getting himself physically ready to go, because there was still some stuff that he was working through just physically to get his body feeling overall the way that he wants to play at the level that we all know he’s capable of. And so, there’s some moving parts to that.
“What I didn’t want to do is immerse him in some information and then you end up adjusting and changing. So, I think you want to be able to foundationally build it the right way, formations, all those kinds of things, and then you do need to be specific with the way that we implement the game plan. What does that look like, what positions will he play in, who does that also affect as a result of just some of the moving pieces, different personnel groupings, and things of that nature. So that’s something that we started to really dive into [on Monday]. I know he was doing some stuff behind the scenes. But he’s a smart, conscientious guy. I think the goal for us is making sure that we get a plan in alignment that provides clarity for all of our players, in particular Odell, just because he is new to the system. But there’s a lot of similarities in terms of the verbiage and the vernacular that they were utilizing in Cleveland. And so that will help and it’ll force us to be even that much more air tight with our game plan, which I think is a good, positive thing for us as coaches as well.”
Cutting through McVay’s word salad, it sounds as if OBJ didn’t get the crash course that maybe we thought he would. It should like he’s getting it now, as a date with the Packers approaches.
For his debut in Week 10, the ESPN broadcasters explained that the Rams had to huddle when Beckham played because he doesn’t know the offense well enough to have the plays called at the line of scrimmage. As the Rams fell behind and time became a precious commodity, that forced Beckham to the sidelines.
He ultimately was on the field in his first game with the Rams for 15 snaps, 27 percent of the total offensive plays. He had two catches for 18 yards.