Ferragamo's one of my favorite Rams ever but I think much of his early success came due to defenses focusing on the Rams running game. Which was legendary. The more Vince threw the ball, the more he turned it over. Of course, I still remember the beginning of the end of his career when he broke his thumb against Pittsburgh in 1984. He was criticized for not coming back as soon as possible and then when he did come back, he just wasn't the same. Of course, that was his last game as a Ram and he finished his career with Buffalo and Green Bay.
He was so popular that they actually showed Bills games on local tv(Bakersfield, CA) when he first got there.
But all of his troubles with the Rams started much earlier than that. For whatever reason, the team just wouldn't commit to him for most of his time with Rams. Early on, it was Haden vs. Ferragamo. They kept giving the job back to Haden. Ferragamo had a great playoff run in '79 and great season in '80 and wanted to be the starter and get a new contract and the Rams wouldn't do it. They forced him to take a contract with the Montreal Allouettes of the CFL. At the time, the CFL was competing with the NFL and signing players to good contracts.
Vince was a bust in Canada though. Lucky for him, so were Haden, Pastorini and Rutledge who combined to throw for 14TD/32INT and a 6-10 record. So, Vince got another shot with the Rams but he still wasn't THE starter. In '82 they also brought in Bert Jones who was all used up from his time in Baltimore(Colts). But the Rams did everything they could to give Jones the job. '82 was also the strike year and the end of the Malavasi era.
USC's John Robinson came in as the new coach in '83 and Ferragamo, along with rookie Eric Dickerson, finally got the starter's job all to himself. He proceeded to put up 23 interceptions and weaken his grasp on the starter's job. He got off to an even worse start in '84 before he broke his thumb and that was it for his Rams career.
I wish I was older and knew more about the game and got to see him play more back then. I don't really know all the details of what was going on back then on and off the field. Vince played some really good ball at times early in his career but he was always prone to the interception. I just don't know if that was because he had trouble reading defenses or because of the Rams predictability on offense. They were often a run, run, I guess we have to pass since it's 3rd down type of offense so that may have been part of his problem.