1984 Rams Passing Offense

[sheajets]

Most of their teams in the middle 80s seemed to be like this, but this one in particular was pretty extreme

The year Dickerson ran for 2,105. I had not realized just how absurdly few passing attempts they attempted all year. Even compared to a lot of other good teams throughout history that were run first and were very careful and restrained with putting the ball in the air...the 1984 Rams were just in a class by themselves. Granted how much faith could you have in Jeff Kemp and a fading Ferragamo...but in addition to Dickerson they got nice complimentary years from Redden and Crutchfield who combined for 100+ carries and close to 600 yards themselves, so if he needed a breather they likely didn't feel compelled to throw a few passes

For a 10-6 team, they had a very paltry 2,382 yards passing and had only 176 completions all year. Even the not quite there yet Bears had 220+ completions and threw for around 2,700 yards as a team in 84. The Rams basically averaged out to a meager 11 completed passes a game. Henry Ellard led the team with only 34 receptions (622 yards, 6 td's) After that it was veteran TE David Hill with 31, then Ron Brown with 23 (he was an outstanding kick returner). They also had Drew Hill down the depth chart just one year before he became a late blooming star with Houston. 1984 with the Rams he was pretty much another once in a while deep threat, catching 14 balls for 390 yards and 4 td's

Incredibly they had 11 games that year with 150 or fewer yards passing. 4 games with under 100 yards! They had the lowest completion percentage in the league at 49.2. But they also interestingly had the 5th highest yards gained per pass completion. Seems like they did like to go deep with Ellard/Brown/Hill when they did decide to throw it

[Bryan]

Jeff Kemp was fairly terrible at Dartmouth...two years as a starter, 2385 yards, 13 TDs, 17 INTs, 49%, 6.0 YPA. And that is against Ivy League competition. It's amazing that he had any NFL career at all. Its interesting that Kemp threw a lot of deep balls with the Rams in 1984 and he actually won a lot of games with only a 78.7 rating. A couple years later he is the starter for the Niners in Walsh's offense...he is more efficient (higher % and QB rating) but only wins half his games. But the QB rating would have you believe that Kemp was 'better' with the Niners. I think it shows the QB rating stat can be manipulated by a system (so to speak).

I always liked Drew Hill. He seemed to do well with the Rams whenever he got to play. They probably should not have traded him. Henry Ellard is kind of similar to Kemp...he was always a great player (great punt returner early on), but he had like three times the amount of receiving yards in 1988 than he did in 1984. Put him in the right system, and Ellard explodes.

[Brian wolf]

Thats why Ellard should be in the HOF ... Other than the back-foot throwing Everitt, he played with nobody QB's ... Makes you wonder how Flutie might have developed if the Rams gave him a chance ?

[RRMarshall]

With those sterling 1984 passing results in mind I now understand why the Rams brought in Dieter Brock to play QB in 1985. Isn't he still the oldest rookie (age 34) to start at QB in an NFL game?

[JohnTurney]

The 84 Rams passing game was very inefficient. Jeff Kemp threw a flat ball that is not suited to short passing.

However, ever so often he could hit a long one. Ellard 18 and Drew Hill averaged 27--they were the starters and third wide receiver (though he played outside when he came intothe game) averaged 20. Every three or four weeks they'd gat behind a defender and Kemp (who did have a strong arm) would hit one of them

But it was bad passing game. Very bad.

[Todd Pence]

I thought this was going to be a gag blank thread.