With the San Francisco 49ers coming to town for the home opener and a very real chance they could fall to 0-3 before fans can say Super Bowl LVI, who is responsible for the Rams’ issues, and can they hope to recover before the season comes to a premature end? Unfortunately, the Rams’ issues are a whole lot deeper than a few coaching adjustments, as their offense specifically is functionally flawed due to a mounting list of injuries.

In Week 1, the Rams were able to overcome suspensions, injuries, illnesses, and ill decisions to make it a game against one of the best teams in the NFC, taking it to overtime before taking a bow to go 0-1 right out of the gates.

Why were the Rams so effective in that game? Well, it wasn’t because of their pass rush, their offensive line, or their run game but instead the masterful efforts of Matthew Stafford, who looked cool under pressure against in former team while shooting daggers into tight holes to the likes of Demarcus Robinson, Tyler Johnson, and Cooper Kupp.

In Week 2? Well, Stafford still looked like an elite point guard, distributing the ball where it needed to go efficiently, but goodness, he sure didn’t have much time to do it, as he was sacked five times and pressured on an astounding 40.6 percent of his snaps.

Needless to say, the Rams aren’t winning many games when Stafford has that unfortunate stat line.

Asked about why the Rams had so much trouble keeping the pocket clean for Stafford in Week 2, Sean McVay broke down the team’s issues, noting that while Stafford “kept battling,” his team simply let him down.

“Some of those were just fast beats. It is tough. You can’t really get anything going if you don’t have the opportunity to let stuff develop, and we have a lot of guys in some different spots, but it wasn’t good enough,” Stafford told reporters. “I try not to reflect on some negative things from the past. He kept battling. Today was, like I said, not a positive day. I am not going to have a lot of answers because I need to be able to figure some (things) out myself. Today was not good. You can’t get Matthew hit that quickly. We have to be able to do a good job. Like I said, it always starts with me. We will look at the film, and then we are going.”

Sure, the Rams had two backups starting in Week 1 in Warren McClendon Jr. and Beaux Limmer, and sure, Jonah Jackson was technically playing out of position too, but Los Angeles simply can’t expect Stafford to run two-minute drills the entire game, especially when he’s throwing to new targets every darn game now that his top-two wide receivers, Nacua and Kupp, are both on IR.

While the Rams’ offensive line has severely limited Stafford’s effectiveness as a passer, as he can’t cleanly execute some of the deep vertical concepts McVay would like to call without being taken down with the ball in his hands, the uncertainty up front hasn’t just limited his production but also taken away his best friend in the business: the run game.