Rams are now the top-ranked passing offense and defense at the same time

It was two weeks ago that I wrote about how the LA Rams were top-five in both passing offense and passing defense by one measure. Despite having their second worst offensive and second worst defensive performances of the season in Sunday’s loss to the San Francisco 49ers, the Rams actually improved since then.

After six weeks, the LA Rams rank first in net yards per pass attempt on offense and first in net yards per pass attempt on defense.

The Rams average 7.7 NY/A offensively ((passing yards - sack yards) / (attempts - times sacked)), edging out the Houston Texans, Seattle Seahawks and Indianapolis Colts. Jared Goff is averaging 8.3 yards per attempt but more importantly has only been sacked seven times, including zero times against the 49ers.

Defensively, LA is allowing 5.4 NY/A, beating out the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Baltimore Ravens and Pittsburgh Steelers in that category. The Rams are the only team in the top-five of both categories and the Colts are the only other team in the top-eight of both categories. It isn’t difficult to see which moves on that side of the ball are probably the ones that Les Snead has printed on the back of his business card:

Jalen Ramsey has been as good as hoped for and Aaron Donald has 7.5 sacks and 14 QB hits for the best six-game start of his career.

The Rams next face the Chicago Bears, a team ranked 28th in NY/A on offense and fifth on defense.

The number one team in NY/A on defense in 2019 was the 49ers. The Kansas City Chiefs ranked fifth. The number two team in NY/A on offense in 2018 was the Chiefs and the 49ers ranked third.