Forget the jet lag: What happened to the NFL’s best offense?

The Los Angeles Rams’ ambitious travel experiment turned a 16-hour flight across the Pacific into a 20-point humiliation at the hands of their rivals.

Yes, Aaron Donald stayed home.

Yes, Puka Nacua had more tackles than Myles Garrett.

Yes, the defense was carved apart underneath and safety Quentin Lake was left alone on an island.

All of that deserves scrutiny after a 27-7 loss to the San Francisco 49ers in their season opener in Melbourne, Australia last Thursday.

But amid the autopsy of Chris Shula’s defense and Sean McVay’s ill-fated decision to drop his team into Australia roughly a day before kickoff, one glaring issue has been buried somewhere over the Pacific:

What happened to the best offense in football?

The Rams didn’t merely struggle at the Melbourne Cricket Ground. They looked stale, disjointed and remarkably predictable for an offense with the fingerprints of McVay, Kliff Kingsbury, Nate Scheelhaase and Dave Ragone all over it.

Matthew Stafford played his worst game since joining the Rams in 2021. The reigning NFL MVP, who piloted the league’s No. 1 offense last season, finished without a touchdown pass, snapping his streak of games with at least one at 17, and never seemed comfortable deciphering San Francisco’s defense.

But this wasn’t all on Stafford. There’s plenty of blame to go around.

Start with McVay.

For all the discussion about jet lag, travel didn’t call a quarterback sneak on fourth-and-goal from the 1-yard line early in the third quarter.

Trailing 17-7 and desperately needing a touchdown, McVay put the ball in the hands of his 38-year-old quarterback, who has hardly made sneaks a defining feature of his 18-year career. Stafford hasn’t scored a rushing touchdown in 1,411 days, dating to Oct. 30, 2022, when he ironically scored one against the 49ers in another blowout loss.

San Francisco stuffed him.

The 49ers then marched 99 yards for a touchdown that made it 24-7 and effectively ended the game. What could have been a momentum-changing Rams score instead became the sequence that broke them.

That isn’t jet lag. That’s coaching.

Neither was the disappearance of Davante Adams, who finished with three catches for 26 yards, all in the second half. Why did so much of his involvement require developing routes downfield instead of manufactured touches and quick completions designed to get Stafford comfortable?

Where was McVay’s innovative evolution of 13 personnel? Rams tight ends combined for four catches and 31 yards. Where was a reliable third receiver? Why was Nacua still being asked to serve as a lead blocker against a defense featuring Fred Warner and Dre Greenlaw?

And why, after months to prepare, did an offense overflowing with accomplished coaches have so few answers?

Warner said afterward he felt the Rams “withered away” offensively in the second half.

He wasn’t wrong.

Credit former Rams defensive coordinator Raheem Morris, who won a Super Bowl alongside McVay and knows this offense intimately. Just as he did late last season as Atlanta’s head coach, Morris frustrated Stafford and kept the Rams off balance without needing a dominant pass rush.

The 49ers didn’t record a sack.

They didn’t need one.

Los Angeles managed just 290 total yards and committed two turnovers. Nacua and Blake Corum showed occasional signs of life, but an offense billed as the NFL’s most dangerous spent most of the night sputtering.

McVay’s preseason philosophy deserves examination, too.

The Rams protected their starters throughout August, limiting meaningful snaps and giving veterans additional rest. That may pay dividends in December and January. In Melbourne, they looked like a team still playing preseason football.

Across town, Chargers coach Jim Harbaugh reached a similar conclusion after his own ugly Week 1 loss.

“We made some preseason type of mistakes,” Harbaugh said. “Now in retrospect, I wish we’d played our guys a little bit more in the preseason and given them those reps.”

McVay should at least consider whether the Rams made the same miscalculation.

Stafford isn’t using the preseason or travel plans as an excuse.

“We had plenty of opportunities to go out there and make this game a better game for us,” he told Jim Gray on SiriusXM’s “Let’s Go.” “We all just have to play a little bit better.”

The Rams can debate whether arriving roughly 28 hours before kickoff was sports science or stubbornness, but the flight didn’t make Stafford miss throws. It didn’t make the offense predictable. It didn’t keep Adams invisible or call a quarterback sneak at the goal line.

The offense can get back on track on Monday night against the New York Giants by simplifying things: establish Kyren Williams and Corum, manufacture early touches for Adams, involve the tight ends, let Nacua catch footballs instead of constantly asking him to block linebackers and give Stafford quicker answers before hunting explosive plays.

Most importantly, McVay needs to rediscover the unpredictability that made this offense No. 1 last season.

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