RamView, December 6, 2009
From The Couch
(Report and opinions on the game.)
Game #12: Bears 17, Rams 9
One day the Rams' growing pains will give way to growth, but not today. In their loss at Chicago, the offense even appeared to shrink, if that's possible. It's a team in need of a dose of Miracle-Gro. And players. Maybe even coaches.
* QB: I hope Kyle Boller (17-32-113, 48.0 rating) didn't waste a lot of time warming up before today's game. The game plan barely asked him to make any throws exceeding ten yards. But Boller couldn't avoid a disaster of a game even with the strategic safety belt locked tightly around the Ram offense. He looked a lot like Marc Bulger did early in the season, a man in desperate need of an open receiver but getting little help downfield. Boller and the Ram offense were not exactly clutch on 3rd downs, which they converted successfully only twice in 14 tries. I have Boller for 3-of-7 on 3rd down for 11 yards, with 3 sacks. Putrid. And like Bulger early this season, Boller didn't get a lot of help from his offensive line. The Bears took away Boller's mobility, giving him nowhere to scramble and sniffing out the Rams' bootleg plays like they were with him in the huddle. So just about any time Boller dropped back, he could expect pressure from the Bears but not much of anyone to throw to or anywhere to scramble. Nope, not a formula for raging success for Kyle (or any other QB). He did help put together a successful FG drive before halftime with a couple of completions to Brandon Gibson for 30 yards, but Boller was never going to have enough to beat the Bears today. He wasn't going to beat them with accuracy. He missed some open opportunities, most notably a rare long pass for Donnie Avery late in the first that he put too much air under, allowing the safety to come in late and nudge it away with his fingertips. Boller wasn't going to outsmart Chicago, either. The game plan didn't give him the material. No pump fakes; Hunter Hillenmeyer just read his eyes to pick him off late in the game. And very little play-action, which Boller didn't really sell well the few times it was tried, except on one successful Avery end-around. You know something? Keith Null showed he has a pretty sweet play-fake back in August. Just saying.
* RB: Whatever way you personally define what a hero is, Steven Jackson's (28-112) performing acts of athletic heroism, isn't he? Defenses put 8 and 9 in the box to stop him, his coaches make him easier to stop by making it obvious that he's getting the ball, and still he carried the Ram offense on his aching back. Jackson was still difficult to stop in the first half, in which he ran for 75 yards, slamming the Bear line over and over for 5 yards, 6 yards, 8 yards. His change of direction looked good this week, whether slaloming through the middle or bouncing a run outside. Sometimes he didn't need to change directions. He helped set up the Rams' first score with 11- and 13-yard runs off strong right-side blocks. The Bears shut the run down inside the 5 to force a FG, though. Still hanging around down 10-3, the Rams once again saw their running game bog down after halftime. Jackson found no room to run behind missed blocks and physically-dominated blockers before powering up the middle for 9 in the 4th to fuel a short FG drive, a FG Jackson was visibly unhappy to have settled for on the sidelines. It's obvious he wants to win. He yelled at the Ram sideline during the game. He didn't quit in the 4th, bouncing a run outside Billy Bajema's block for 23, efforts the offense eventually wasted with a punt. The Rams wasted Jackson as a resource today, pulling him off the field on most third downs, and ultimately would waste his game effort with another loss. Jackson's giving a lot this season to a team that looks like it's going 1-15. Let's hope that doesn't turn out to have been a wasted effort, too.
* Receivers: As much as one can tell from TV, the Ram receivers weren't open very often today. Jackson had the most catches, with 4; Brandon Gibson (3-38) and Donnie Avery (3-30) just 3 apiece. Danny Amendola had one catch for no gain and a drop. Two of Gibson's catches were key to the Rams' first FG drive; the longest was a 21-yarder he caught while kneeling, getting up and scrambling for 12 yards after the catch. Gotta like that YAC ability and his ability to improvise, but where was he the rest of the day? Where was Avery? His longest catch, for 18, came in garbage time. His best play was actually a run, a 15-yard end-around off the best, though never close to duplicated, play fake of the day. The Rams are trying to use his speed on plays like that and on smoke routes, but where was he the rest of the day? Receivers are easier to cover kept in a small box, and Charles Tillman is a good CB, but I wasn't expecting Zach Bowman to shut down the Rams all day, were you? Instead it's his helmet right on a ball caught, then fumbled, by Gibson in the 2nd, with safety Al Afalava returning it all the way back to the Ram 15. Randy McMichael (3-18) doesn't have the initial burst to get open on the bootleg plays the Rams were trying to him. So is it the talent that's being used, or how the talent's being used? Feels like some of both this week.
* Offensive line: Run-blocking was usually there for Jackson today, but pass-blocking usually wasn't for Boller. The Bears got to Boller the Rams' first drive with just a 4-man rush, with Adewale Ogunleye whipping Adam Goldberg right off the snap and Alex Barron getting beaten nearly as badly on the left side. Goldberg was rarely a match for Ogunleye's speed. The Bears DE just missed out on a couple more sacks, and the worst play I can think of with that speed mismatch going on is a naked bootleg in that direction. Which the Rams of course ran several times, and Ogunleye blew up several times. Ogunleye helped create the other two Bears sacks as well, though one has to be called a coverage sack, with the line giving Boller forever to throw. Barron was little better. Big pressure came on his side on Boller's INT, and Barron had to commit a brutal hold in the first after getting ripped but good by Alex Brown's rip move. Goldberg fared a lot better run-blocking, and Jacob Bell also had a good-looking game with a lot of good pull blocks. Jason Brown got pushed around a lot, though. Jackson's not going to get far on plays where the center just gets shoved backward into him. Randy McMichael started slowly, failing on a couple of blocks that would have sprung Jackson for big gains. But on the Rams' first FG drive, he sprung Avery on a smoke route, then, along with Ruvell Martin (!), sprung Jackson for 13 down to the Chicago 5 and got FIRED UP. The right side got dominated on 1st-and-goal, though, and Billy Bajema had a rare fail at fullback on 2nd-and-goal, to lead to just a FG there. Bajema was probably the Rams' best blocker today. He and Richie Incognito helped Jackson get 11 in the 2nd (Incognito came off injured later, replaced by Mark Setterstrom). Bajema had a block on the 13-yard run and picked off a run-blitz and sealed the edge tight for Jackson's longest run, a bounce outside RT for 23 in the 3rd. Too bad the run-blocking success they had didn't carry over to pass pro's side of the ledger.
* Defensive line / LB: Holding Matt Forte to 91 yards and the Bears to 120 total looks almost respectable compared to the last few weeks. James Laurinaitis got 12 tackles and was in on a bunch of stuffed runs early on. James Hall was very active early. He and Larry Grant stuffed Forte on back-to-back goal line plays in the 1st, but the stand ended on 3rd down when Chris Williams (in place of Orlando Pace) took care of Hall and Chris Long couldn't budge the tight end. Long whipped Williams to score one of the Rams' two sacks of Jay Cutler in the 3rd, but got stopped way too often by solo run-blocking by the TE. Pressure on Cutler was pretty good, even on the Bears' big plays, though not at all on the 71-yard pass to Bennett. Long and Hall got into the backfield enough to make Cutler nervous and flush him. It didn't equal sacks – Leonard Little got the only other one, a gift for touching Cutler down after a fumbled shotgun snap – but after the early huge coverage breakdowns, they got the Bears off the field. Good back pressure from Long helped force a three-and-out in the 2nd, Little's “sack” forced another, then Long's sack forced another in the 3rd. Then, though, the Bears got more serious about running and put the Rams back on their heels. Forte went right at a TE-dominated Long on 3rd-and-1 for 7. Hall was dominated on a 9-yard sweep. Cliff Ryan stopped a goal line run, getting off the ground to beat Olin Kreutz, but the Rams still couldn't stop that last Bears TD. They did keep the Bears within mathematical reach. Victor Adeyanju blew up a smoke pass to force a 3-and-out. James Butler atoned a little for an atrocious game by stuffing a couple of Kahlil Bell runs the next drive. But they failed to pin the Bears inside their 5 late. Forte went up the middle for 15, with Long getting spun completely around and Leger Douzable getting about blocked into Lake Michigan. Forte went up the middle for 8 more after Ryan got flattened. It took a great open-field tackle by Justin King, covering up for horrible overpursuit by Long, to shut that drive down, but Boller restarted it with a quick INT. And Forte went through David Vobora's arm tackle for 12. But the Rams bowed up before the 2:00 warning. Paris Lenon made a nice play to force Forte back into Ryan. And when Ron Bartell stopped Forte on 3rd-and-6, the D had gotten the offense the ball back a second time in the last 4:00 with a chance to tie the game. The Ram front seven may not have been great, but they were pretty good, a far cry ahead of where they've been lately. Hall and Ryan set a good early tone. Adeyanju's improving with playing time. Laurinaitis is still everywhere. Grant was clutch at the goal line and Lenon and Vobora weren't getting abused. I'm really concerned about his run defense after today, but Long was a decent factor in pass rush. Again, nothing great, but enough to win if the team shows up in some other areas. Which it didn't.
* Secondary: Oshiomogho Atogwe got the secondary off to a hot start by stripping the ball from Matt Forte to force a turnover on the game's second play. The rest of the secondary, though, only followed his lead in terms of being THE POLAR OPPOSITE. Devin Hester burned them for 48 on Chicago's very next play as disappointing Ron Bartell bit on his second stop fake and bitterly disappointing James Butler lost track of the ball, spinning right round like a record, baby. Quincy Butler then gave up a 36-yard end zone DPI, running Johnny Knox over without looking for the ball. The next possession unbelievably went even worse. Tasked with stopping the Bears on 3rd-and-9, the Rams instead let Earl Bennett get loose for 71. Laurinaitis' drop wasn't deep enough, and Bennett split Atogwe, who slipped, and useless SS Butler, who barely even ran in pursuit, to the point I assumed he was injured. No, he was back on the field the next possession, I guess with the invisible piano still on his back. Bartell got lucky at the end of that drive, never turning to find an end zone pass to Hester, but Hester's failure to keep both feet in bounds seemed to change the Rams' luck. They went on a string of five three-and-outs, with Dahl forcing one with a tackle-for-loss and Bartell nicely breaking up a slant pass for another. Bartell's illegal use of hands helped out a 3rd-quarter drive, though, which ended when Justin King misread a play, broke back a step in the Ram end zone, and got run over by crossing receiver Devin Aromashadu. Bennett curled in front of that mess at the goal line for a 3-yard catch and Chicago's 2nd TD. It's been a brutal season for the Ram secondary. Bartell's been a disappointment. Quincy Butler and King aren't physical and are still trying to figure out the game. Jonathan Who? Somebody Wade? James Butler is awful though I still assume he's playing hurt. Atogwe's been the only bright spot. And he had to leave the game right before halftime with a shoulder injury. I can't believe this team's damn luck sometimes.
* Special teams: After Chicago returned an ill-fated pop-up kickoff to midfield to open the game, it was a superb day for Ram special teams. Josh Brown actually hit some clutch kicks, banging FGs from 28, 48 and 50 to help the Rams stay in it. Danny Amendola was very frisky on returns, with a 43-yard kick return and a 30-yard punt return. David Roach (!) made one of the key plays of the day by sniffing out, and stopping, a fake FG flip to Greg Olsen in the 2nd. He and Kenneth Darby had key blocks on the long punt return; credit Daniel Fells, Bajema, Grant and Samkon Gado for great blocks on the long kick return. Coverage of Chicago's lethal return game was excellent. Newcomer Jordan Kent was terrific all game; his and long snapper Ryan Neill's efforts on one return shut Devin Hester down for about a 10-yard loss. And Donnie Jones, with nice help from Kent at the other end, was amazing punting, killing FOUR punts inside the 6 and a couple of others inside the 20. Thanks to Jones and company, the Rams actually dominated the field position battle for the majority of the game. They won the day on special teams with an effort that better teams typically turn into wins. Tom McMahon keeps this up, he'll be running a whole team one of these days.
* Coaching: I used to have goldfish. Once when I moved them to a larger tank, they were too stupid to realize it for a long time. They stayed in the area of the small tank and swam around in circles, without the will to do anything different. They only figured out they had more room by accident. There's my insight into the mind of Pat Shurmur, who again this week was apparently unable to even conceive the idea of stretching the field, or trying anything different, keeping the passing game in the small tank for pretty much the first 58 minutes. Shurmur is Jerry Rhome all over again. It's little surprise the Rams were a woeful 2-for-14 on 3rd down; nearly every 3rd-down pass was thrown short of the needed yardage. (Please take the naked bootleg out back and shoot it, huh?) The Rams especially weren't going to get away with that with Jackson off the field for almost every 3rd down, about the most knuckleheaded way possible to manage his injury. So Shurmur was darn sure to use Jackson when he had him on the field, handing off on 1st down about 75% of the time. Jackson was a respectable, though highly unofficial, 18-95 on 1st down, despite the Ram offense's high predictability making him easier to stop. If only there were a way to fake the other team into thinking Jackson was going to run. You could loosen up the defense. Make the safeties worry about more than the Rams' in-over-their-heads receivers. You could keep him on the field on 3rd down and make the defense account for him, with minimum additional injury risk! Great Amos Alonzo Stagg's ghost, how could a football team pull off such a miraculous deception?
Why don't the Rams use more play-action? You, I, Trent Green, Dick Stockton, were all begging for it. Steven Jackson was begging for something; you could see him yelling at the sideline at one point. Richie Incognito got in a shouting match with Shurmur. The players don't believe in the game plan; is that enough for everybody? The Rams have the ideal person in the NFL to set up a lot of play-action and appear to run it very little, which baffles me. Its benefits would have seemed obvious by Week Freaking Thirteen. No, Shurmur would rather hand off on 2nd-and-22, throw useless 7-yard slants on 3rd-and-19 (that one turned into the fumble returned to the Ram 15), or hand off on 3rd-and-11 inside the opposing 40 to preserve the field goal opportunity. Yeah, the Rams have bad receivers, bad tackles and a bad second-string QB. But none of them are helped by the near-absences of balance and deception in the offensive play-calling. Are the Rams that much worse than Oakland? They've beaten Philadelphia, Cincinnati and Pittsburgh this year. The Rams have to abandon all hope against 4-7 Chicago?
Defensive coaching is way ahead of the offense, though I fail to comprehend why the Rams have NO defensive back capable of turning and finding the ball. I swear I saw some run blitzing this week after pleading for it last week, like the 3rd-and-2 where Dahl dropped Forte for a loss early in the 2nd. Ironically, as Trent Green pointed out, they got burned big on plays actually designed to fake Cutler into checking down, but unlike the offense, the defense appeared to quit trying what wasn't working. As far as game-management, I don't disagree with the FG on 4th-and-goal late in the half. You would hate to come away without a score after your first good long drive, and the Rams were getting the ball back after halftime. I wanted Spagnuolo to fire off some timeouts after Cutler's fumble after the FG. Not sure if that's too much killer instinct on my part or not enough on the Rams'.
But Steve Spagnuolo'd better change something here, quickly. The apparent player revolt at the revolting offensive game plan isn't good for anyone. What this coaching staff has done best is to keep everyone on the same page and playing hard despite the record. You'd like to write off other issues as rookie hiccups. Well, we're deep into the season now. Nobody's a rookie any more. The coaching staff's free pass is running out and it's time to start earning some trust. A competent offensive game plan, and Shurmur's capable of making one, would be a good start. Give the offense the reins or show it the whip; whatever it takes to get this horse moving.
* Upon further review: Peter Morelli and crew might have called the best game of the year. They called DPI well other than the one King got away with on 3rd-and-9 in the 4th. They made the correct call on Hester's non-TD catch in the 1st, not right away, but quickly enough to give Spagnuolo a refund on his challenge flag. Excellent call on the hold that produced Knox's long kickoff return. Those get missed far too often. And a correct call on Lenon's horse-collar of Forte a little later, though way after the play. My main complaint was going to be Devin Aromashadu's pick of King on the TD pass to Bennett, but the contact looking incidental and King not having position probably make it a legitimate non-call. Damn, I may have to break out the Golden Whistle for Morelli today. A-minus.
* Cheers: Dick Stockton and Trent Green got the call for Fox, were Ron Pitts and John Lynch sick this week? Stockton's been around long enough to have called Decatur Staleys games but wasn't too bad. He didn't blow near as many spots as he usually does. Both he and Green were all over the Rams' poor offensive game plan (any chance you're available, Trent?). Green was good on color, though he's still got a little Rams bias to kick. He broke down replays well and made many correct calls before the referees did. I don't know if Stockton's been demoted or Green's been promoted, (I don't think they're usually a team) but the two work well together and are worth another listen.
* Who’s next?: One of the Rams' worst seasons ever will next pay a warped tribute to their greatest season, as they travel to Tennessee for a Super Bowl XXXIV rematch, unfortunately without Kurt Warner, Marshall Faulk, Isaac Bruce, Torry Holt, Az Hakim, Rickey Proehl, Orlando Pace, Adam Timmerman, Tom Nutten, Fred Miller, Kevin Carter, Ray Agnew, Grant Wistrom, D'Marco Farr, Keith Lyle, Todd Lyght, Jeff Wilkins, and certainly Mike Jones, not to mention Dick Vermeil and that one offensive coordinator. Sigh. (Leonard Little's still around, though.)
If that's not the main media angle for next week, then it's sure to be the faceoff between the league's top two RBs, Chris Johnson and Steven Jackson, though that may ultimately prove an unfortunate one for the Rams. Remember Johnson exploding all over the Ram defense last preseason? (And Quinton Ganther? And Omar Cuff?) He went into today leading the league not just in rushing yards, but also yards after contact. The Rams played the run well enough today, but are they ready for the option? The college play has become a dangerous weapon for the Titans now that Vince Young has taken over at QB and rallied Tennessee to a 5-1 run after an 0-6 start. The Rams will be severely tested to keep those two in check on the ground and force Young to throw, which seems the most reliable path to leaving Tennessee with a win.
The Ram offense doesn't really raise much hope of that happening, though. Tennessee's respectably in the top 10 in run defense, led by all-pro LB Keith Bulluck. The Rams have had trouble blocking Kyle Vanden Bosch since he was in pee-wee football. They're not afraid to blitz, getting to Peyton Manning three times with safety blitzes today. The 5-1 run has also coincided with the return of their top two corners, Nick Harper and huge hitter/dirty player Cortland Finnegan, to full health. The Rams' best hope could be to pick on Chris Hope, a(nother) strong safety very beatable with the deep ball. Of course, that'd mean hitting Tennessee with play action. As if.
Six weeks ago, this looked like a winnable game for the Rams, but now, both teams are a lot closer to their form of last year. That's a moment the Titans want to return to; they went 13-3. But it threatens to become an event horizon for the Rams, impending doom they're being helplessly pulled back into. This week will inspire a lot of living in the past in Rams Nation. It may take a lot of luck for the team to relive the right time.
--Mike
Game stats from nfl.com
Monday, December 7, 2009
Monday, November 30, 2009
RamView, November 29, 2009
From Row HH
(Report and opinions on and from the game.)
Game #11: Seahawks 27, Rams 17
Bland, play-it-safe, joyless, unentertaining football ruled on the Rams sideline again today as they dropped their TENTH straight to the mediocre-long-ago Seahawks. The Rams are the German food of the NFL. Ach.
* QB: Kyle Boller's numbers, (28-46-282), especially the JeMarcusian 67.5 passer rating, may look better than they were in context, the context being he was running for his life all day. He kept the Rams in it for a while. The big difference between Boller and Marc Bulger is Boller's mobility, of course. With Seattle blitzing almost every play, Bulger would have left this game in worse shape than Tiger Woods' SUV. Boller was able to escape some of the rush, and his mobility helped get the Ram offense into a good rhythm at times. He started the game hitting Randy McMichael for 12 on a rollout and the Rams rolled right into scoring position early. (And didn't score.) His TD pass to Donnie Avery was off a bootleg. Boller made some good reads, especially in finding Ruvell Martin (!) wide open a couple of times for big gains. He didn't make enough, though, and might fairly have avoided three of the four sacks he took. Jordan Babineaux and Patrick Kerney got to him to kill a drive in the 1st because he held the ball too long. Babineaux was a delayed blitzer; you can't let that guy get to you. He scrambled for no gain late in the 2nd after missing Danny Amendola open on a shallow cross, though that drive still ended in a FG. The Rams' initial drive of the 2nd half ended in a huge loss on a rollout where Boller couldn't find a man, though he could have had McMichael breaking open late with a pretty tough throw. Boller's accuracy wasn't consistent; he missed some open opportunities with high balls or one-hoppers. But the worst part of Boller's game continues to be the crushing turnovers. Seattle took a 14-7 lead late in the 1st half on Justin Wilson's 65-yard return of a pass tipped by Kelly Jennings. Boller really couldn't win on this play. He forced an outside pass for Donnie Avery into double-coverage, but what was he going to do? It was fourth down. Jennings made a fine play (as long as it wasn't a penalty) on the ball and Wilson cashed in a lucky bounce. Boller's 2nd INT seemed a lot more preventable, though just as painful, coming in the end zone with the Rams still down 14-10. He rushed and back-footed a throw for Amendola that's a TD if he leads the receiver, but the pass was woefully underthrown and almost fair-caught by (again) Babineaux. Seattle turned that into a FG and eventually surged into a 17-point lead, called off the dogs and let Boller rack up some cosmetic yards, including a 16-yard near-TD scramble late in the game. Boller's a gamer, for sure, and seems to give the offense a shot of energy when he's in there. And he had to overcome some regression from the rest of the offense in pass protection and receivers getting open. But he just can't seem to avoid those really big, negative, game-killer plays. In the end I'm not sure Kyle Boller will reach a level here any higher than just good enough to get you beat.
* RB: Steven Jackson, (23-89) about the only fire this team has, was cooled a little today by his back injury and a lot by lack of running room. He got off to a fast start, with 25 yards on his first touch, running between fine blocks by Daniel Fells and Jacob Bell. That drive broke down, though, with Jackson getting stuffed on 3rd-and-1, and though he ran hard and still ran through some tackles at times, it was a struggle for Jackson to find anywhere to go, and he averaged less than 3 yards a carry after that big run. He still scored the Rams' 2nd TD with a 1-yard dive late in the 4th, and he's still an exemplary leader on this team, calling the offense to gather around him during one break in the action and trying to ignite it with some fiery motivation. I'm not sure how much Jackson's injury actually slowed him down, probably the most in his ability to change direction and get off his first read. Too bad nobody else has got his back. Samkon Gado (1-minus 1) and Kenneth Darby (also 1-minus 1) have been almost complete jokes this season and I'd swear neither one can walk and chew gum at the same time. They run like their shoelaces are tied together. I shouldn't have been, but I was agape this morning hearing that Jackson was on a pace for over 400 carries this season. He richly deserves far better backup than the Keystone Kops he has now.
* Receivers: Donnie Avery (4-48) scored the Rams' first TD but his inability to get open consistently ultimately hindered the passing game. Boller was looking for him at least a couple of the times he was sacked. None of the Ram receivers do a particularly good job of coming back to fight for a contested ball, which we saw in spades when Jennings beat Avery to a 4th-and-4 pass in the 2nd and tipped it to Wilson for a TD. Boller tried several throws along those lines – here comes the ball, now beat your man – but Avery and Brandon Gibson (3-18) weren't winning many of those one-on-one matchups. Danny Amendola (7-55) led in receptions and his sharp cutback after a catch inside the 10 got the Rams a big first down and set up Avery's TD. Ruvell Martin (2-60) got wide open in the Seahawk secondary for a couple of big gains. You can't stop Ruvell Martin; you can only hope to contain him. Well, you at least have to cover him, which Seattle really didn't either time. They made progress the last 2-3 weeks, but we saw again today that the Rams receivers can certainly stand to gain physical and mental toughness.
* Offensive line: The injury bug continues to bite the Ram offensive line hard. They were minus three starters after Jason Brown went down with a sprained knee in the 2nd. The makeshift lineup now had Mark Setterstrom at center, John Greco at RG and Adam Goldberg at RT. And seeing this lineup, Seattle blitzed practically every play after Brown left the game and got a blitzer through to Boller untouched practically every time. Goldberg looked really outmatched outside this week. Patrick Kerney really smoked him on Boller's first sack, though Babineaux also came in untouched. Hard to blame Gado there; he did pick up the blitzing LB inside. Setterstrom got beaten badly at center by a stunt and got beaten badly at RG by Brandon Mebane on a tackle-for-loss. Some of the sacks are fair to call coverage sacks, though Boller's scrambling would have saved them the second one had Alex Barron not quit blocking Cory Redding on the back side. PLAY TO THE WHISTLE! The fourth sack was a complete cluster, um, bomb, with every Ram lineman, and Daniel Fells, and Brandon Gibson apparently motioned across as an additional blocker, beaten soundly, leaving Boller looking like an unlucky Wal-Mart clerk on Black Friday. The best blocker today was Jacob Bell, who made a solid inside block that paired with Fells' big outside block to give Jackson a big lane on his 25-yard run. It feels pretty safe to say the running game missed Brown's and Richie Incognito's presence in the middle, where there was very little running room. It's definitely safe to say that by clogging up the middle and blitzing the Rams senseless, Seattle decisively won the game at the line of scrimmage.
* Defensive line / LB: Once again the Ram defense let one of the league's worst rushing offenses look like Eric Dickerson's Rams, as the 32nd-ranked running team romped for 170 behind Justin Forsett's 22-130. The front seven has more holes than players. It's basically James Laurinaitis plus an occasional play from one of the other six. Laurinaitis led the D with nine tackles, and started the Rams off the right way by dragging Matt Hasselbeck down for a sack on the game's very first play. Guess how many sacks the Rams collected after the first play of the game. That's right, none. Leonard Little got some pressures, but I don't remember Chris Long doing much of anything despite getting a lot of work at both DE positions. That failure spread over to the run, where if Laurinaitis gets blocked, he's not getting much help. Like these plays. Forsett broke loose for 25 right after Josh Brown's missed FG after Laurinaitis was practically blocked into Seattle's bench, Cliff Ryan got wiped out at the line and Justin King stumbled trying to fill the gap. Little tried to jump into the backfield on Forsett's first TD run but instead got pushed back across center and gave Forsett the hole. Given a chance to stop Seattle on 4th-and-1 to start the 4th, the Rams instead got steamrolled by Forsett for an embarrassing 11 yards. Nobody attacked his gap; Laurinaitis attacked the next gap over. Forsett's 2nd TD, two plays later, was an equally easy run after his fullback stoned Paris Lenon in the hole. Dorsett, um, I mean Forsett, humbled the Rams one last time with a 26-yard run right to set up their last FG. Long was pushed WAY outside and Oshiomogho Atogwe missed him in the hole. You'd think one of those would be Long's, or the Rams', most humiliating play of the day, but that had to come when Matt Hasselbeck naked bootlegged left for 19 to set up a FG in the 3rd. The whole Ram defense bought the run fake right, leaving the other side of the field empty as the void of space. If Hasselbeck wasn't slower than me trying to get up from the Thanksgiving dinner table, he would have had a TD. Long was so faked out on that play that he was getting up from being knocked down to continue pursuing the play left even as Hasselbeck was running right by him the other direction. And so the Ram defense hits December an utter failure. They're getting physically dominated by bad offensive lines. Tackling is slipping. Atogwe and James Butler are getting paid a lot better than they're stopping runners. Rookie Darell Scott (!) made some nice plays in the middle of the line but the rest of the DTs look like the guys off the waiver wire and 2nd-day draft picks that they are. So do the OLBs, despite Lenon forcing a Louis Rankin fumble in the 1st. They don't pass rush very well and they're as easily fooled by misdirection as my cat. This defense won't be any good this year. I'm not sure it'll be any good in TWO years. How do they get there?
* Secondary: Hey, a rare short section, made possible by the Rams' gawdawful run defense. Not really needing to throw, Hasselbeck only threw for 102 yards. And the Rams still found ways to get beat by Nate Burleson (4-46) on third-and-long three times. One thing the defense did get right was their emphasis on Seattle's screen pass game, which they essentially took away. Atogwe was one of the Rams' more effective defensive players, batting down a pass on a blitz to end a drive and stopping Burleson short on 3rd down to force a 3-and-out in the 2nd. Atogwe also chipped in 9 tackles, which is where James Butler's become a major disappointment of this season as far as I'm concerned. I expected him to show up much more against the run than he does, and he was guilty of some bad arm tackles today, too. He's been hurt, true, but Butler's still looming as another poor Rams free agent investment.
* Special teams: The punting teams were the stars of the day. Donnie Jones averaged over 52 yards a try. K.C. Asiodu partially blocked a punt and gave the offense a golden opportunity to squander in the 3rd. Coverage was fine until the last punt, returned 29 by Nate Burleson. The Rams could have started off on the right foot with a 46-yard FG to finish their opening drive, but instead, Josh Brown hooks it right, Seattle immediately drives for a TD, and thanks for yet another momentum-killer, Mr. Highest Paid Kicker in the League. Radio said the snap was high, but didn't blame it for the miss, and I don't care anyway. Make the freaking field goal. I could give a crap that he hit from 55 to bring the Rams within 4 at halftime, either. The ones you don't think he'll make, he will. The makeable ones his team needs him to make sail wide right. 36-year-old Olindo Mare put nearly every kickoff deep into the end zone. His last one went through the back. He had the Rams in mediocre field position all game. Amendola didn't really have a chance to do anything significant. Touchbacks or clutch kicks from Brown, though, are few and far between. Mare's a weapon for his team. Brown, the 25th-most-accurate kicker in the league though drawing, make that stealing, the biggest paycheck at the position, is a liability to his.
* Coaching: If not now, when? The Seattle Seahawks had not won a road game all year (0-5). They came in with a 3-7 record and were playing their third straight road game. They ran for four yards the week before. Not four yards a carry. Four total yards. The schedule-maker was handing the Rams a gift here. (About time, by the way.) And while the Rams drove downfield successfully in the 1st quarter, in the stands, you could sense the Seahawks packing it in. They were ripe. All the Rams needed was some killer instinct. NOT a milquetoast FG attempt on 4th-and-1 inside the opponent 30. I begged Steve Spagnuolo last week to show he gets it, and he doesn't, not yet. We are sick of the Rams losing home games (11 straight now). We are sick of losing EVERY game we play in the division (14 straight now). And it's sure getting tiring losing EVERY TIME to a Seattle team that hasn't even been any good the last two years. But it's 10 straight to them now, with no sign it will EVER let up, because the head coach of a 1-9 team wants to play it safe in scoring territory at the start of the game. How did that work out, by the way?
I'll buy some reasons Spagnuolo didn't want to go for it on 4th-and-1. Jackson had just been stuffed on 3rd-and-1, and maybe he didn't have a read on Steven's health yet and was reluctant to slam him in there again. And you're certainly not going to rely on Frick Gado or Frack Darby on 4th-and-1. So why not sneak Boller? He's 6'3”, all he has to do is fall down. Or bootleg him. Or keep Jackson in as a decoy, play-action and throw a seam route to the TE. For Christ's sake, I don't care if you want to go Mike Martz on their ass and run the dreaded end-around, do something! I know much of anything creative scares this coaching staff, especially on offense, but show us you're mad as hell at all these pathetic losing streaks and you're not going to take it any more! I also suspect Brown missing the 4th-and-1 FG led Spagnuolo to go for it on 4th-and-4. Can't trust him to hit from 46, you're not going to trust him from 52. So that just compounded the decision to kick on 4th-and-1 when 4th-and-4 failed as miserably as it can fail, with a pick-six. Sure, I'm an irrational fan, but good luck convincing me Spagnuolo didn't cost his team 17 points today. Could have taken ten, gave up seven instead. Rams football: it's fan-tastic!
You could tell Boller was back in the lineup today, huh? Very first play Pat Shurmur calls is a rollout. I thought he was smart to use a lot of play-action, though the Rams could sell it a lot better. The Avery TD, where they sold it perfectly, could have been the Sweet Play of the Week had everything else about the Rams not sucked. Avery motioned left, and while the whole offense faked a Jackson handoff left, Avery doubled back right and was open pretty handily for the toss from Boller rolling right. Now, if he'd just started using blitz-beating plays like the Avery smoke route BEFORE getting blitzed by Seattle for three quarters. That adjustment was like the Titanic hanging a left after hitting the iceberg. Defensively, I thought the Rams had a good blitz mix working, getting pressure with it without getting burned by it. Seattle is extremely potent with screen passes and the outside players made a very successful effort to take that away from them, though you wonder how much that took away from the run defense, which simply cannot continue to be this wretchedly awful. A last question, I really don't know the answer: does this team ever run blitz? Do our DBs ever slash in and stop a back in the backfield? Does a team this bad against the run have anything to lose by gambling like that more? OK, that was three questions.
* Upon further review: Scott Green and crew were mostly on top of things. They got the call right when it briefly looked like the Rams had muffed away the blocked punt in the 3rd, but the Ram player, I believe Dominic Douglas, had been blocked into the ball. Patrick Kerney took Boller out flagrantly late on a play in the 4th and got a deserved flag for it. Jackson's late TD came about because they reviewed and reversed an apparent Boller TD scramble, which bordered on cruel and unusual punishment to Rams fans. By far the least popular call was the tripping penalty on Amendola in the end zone after Boller's 2nd INT, which looked much more incidental than intentional from the stands. How sure are we Avery wasn't interfered with on the pick-six? Jennings sure grabbed and spun him, though the ball was right there, too. B-minus for the crew assuming that call was OK.
* Cheers: It was just as well the game wasn't on TV locally. If the quality of the play on the field didn't turn St. Louisans off of watching Rams football forever, the embarrassingly sparse crowd would have. The Dome wasn't even half-filled this week, though the hardy few present generated solid noise in bursts and even got Sean Locklear to false-start in the 3rd to help force a FG. Too bad the defense was consistently quick to kibosh any momentum we could muster. People started getting up to leave after Boller's 2nd INT – that was with EIGHT minutes left. In the THIRD quarter! Needless to say, post-game traffic was pretty smooth today. Pee-wee, or youth (there were some mighty big kids out there) football got the halftime show, with the annual Punt, Pass and Kick demoted to a brief pre-game announcement. Sad to see that long-time tradition getting short shrift.
* Who’s next?: Ah, to have been a Chicagoan this summer. The city had the sports world by the tail. The White Sox and Cubs were in the middle of pennant races. With the hometown President and the mighty Oprah lobbying on the city's behalf, their 2016 Summer Olympic bid was in the bag. And Da Bears were on their way to the Super Bowl after trading for rifle-armed Broncos QB Jay Cutler. It was Chicago's world; the rest of us were just living in it.
None of it lasted long, and faster than you can say “Rio de Janeiro,” the Bears' season headed downhill with the rest. Instead of leading the Bears to the playoffs, Cutler's led them to the league lead in interceptions. The team's returned the favor in not supporting Cutler very well. Matt Forte's rookie magic appears gone this season, and the Bears – the franchise of Red Grange, Bronko Nagurski, Gale Sayers and Walter Payton – are 28th in the NFL in rushing. 28th! The Bears! The problem starts in Chicago where it starts for a lot of teams, the offensive line. Orlando Pace may not play next week due to a groin injury; just as well for his long-time Rams fans. His play this year has only proven that the Rams made the right move to let him go. Pace can throw the occasional dominating run block but has been a liability in pass pro. Any Bears game I watch, there are guys just pouring in past Olin Kreutz, who I'd have to call a shell of his former self at center, and Roberto Garza looks awful at RG. Cutler gets hit a lot, and hears even more footsteps. He's jumpier in the pocket than Jim Carrey after a Red Bull, doesn't throw accurately enough under pressure to make defenses pay for blitzing, and locks in almost exclusively on TE Greg Olson when he does. I'll just say a capable defense, capably coached, would find ways to take advantage of these tendencies.
It's a bad time for Steven Jackson to be hurting; even with head coach Lovie Smith taking over as defensive coordinator, the Bears – the franchise of Dick Butkus, Richard Dent, Mike Singletary, Brian Urlacher (not this season; he's missed all of it with a broken wrist) – are only 23rd in the league against the run. The Bears can't run or defend the run? The Bears? But their only defensive playmaker lately's been CB Charles Tillman, the only guy in their secondary who can cover anybody, and he took a blow to the head in Minnesota. Avery's in trouble if Tillman plays, because Tillman, like Atogwe for the Rams, has a sixth sense for forcing fumbles. Two hands on the ball, wideouts. Still, you can throw away from Tillman, and if Chicago doesn't toughen up against the run, the Rams can feel really free to uncork their offense against them next week. Yeah, buddy. Let's just say a capable offense, capably coached, would find ways to take advantage of their weak spots.
God I love writing previews. The Rams haven't proven week-to-week that they've got any ability, other than Jackson's guts, that makes them suited to attack any other team's weaknesses. Why note that Forte's having an off year when two of the league's worst running teams just ripped the Rams on the ground? Why imagine ways for the Ram offense to attack defenses when its goal in life is to be boring? Why preview opponents in a vacuum that excludes the Rams' injuries, inexperience and outright lack of talent?
A capable team, capably coached, would find the Chicago Bears very beatable next week, even in Soldier Field. The Rams aren't there, unless Steven Jackson carries them there, which is possible.
There's your preview.
--Mike
Game stats from nfl.com
From Row HH
(Report and opinions on and from the game.)
Game #11: Seahawks 27, Rams 17
Bland, play-it-safe, joyless, unentertaining football ruled on the Rams sideline again today as they dropped their TENTH straight to the mediocre-long-ago Seahawks. The Rams are the German food of the NFL. Ach.
* QB: Kyle Boller's numbers, (28-46-282), especially the JeMarcusian 67.5 passer rating, may look better than they were in context, the context being he was running for his life all day. He kept the Rams in it for a while. The big difference between Boller and Marc Bulger is Boller's mobility, of course. With Seattle blitzing almost every play, Bulger would have left this game in worse shape than Tiger Woods' SUV. Boller was able to escape some of the rush, and his mobility helped get the Ram offense into a good rhythm at times. He started the game hitting Randy McMichael for 12 on a rollout and the Rams rolled right into scoring position early. (And didn't score.) His TD pass to Donnie Avery was off a bootleg. Boller made some good reads, especially in finding Ruvell Martin (!) wide open a couple of times for big gains. He didn't make enough, though, and might fairly have avoided three of the four sacks he took. Jordan Babineaux and Patrick Kerney got to him to kill a drive in the 1st because he held the ball too long. Babineaux was a delayed blitzer; you can't let that guy get to you. He scrambled for no gain late in the 2nd after missing Danny Amendola open on a shallow cross, though that drive still ended in a FG. The Rams' initial drive of the 2nd half ended in a huge loss on a rollout where Boller couldn't find a man, though he could have had McMichael breaking open late with a pretty tough throw. Boller's accuracy wasn't consistent; he missed some open opportunities with high balls or one-hoppers. But the worst part of Boller's game continues to be the crushing turnovers. Seattle took a 14-7 lead late in the 1st half on Justin Wilson's 65-yard return of a pass tipped by Kelly Jennings. Boller really couldn't win on this play. He forced an outside pass for Donnie Avery into double-coverage, but what was he going to do? It was fourth down. Jennings made a fine play (as long as it wasn't a penalty) on the ball and Wilson cashed in a lucky bounce. Boller's 2nd INT seemed a lot more preventable, though just as painful, coming in the end zone with the Rams still down 14-10. He rushed and back-footed a throw for Amendola that's a TD if he leads the receiver, but the pass was woefully underthrown and almost fair-caught by (again) Babineaux. Seattle turned that into a FG and eventually surged into a 17-point lead, called off the dogs and let Boller rack up some cosmetic yards, including a 16-yard near-TD scramble late in the game. Boller's a gamer, for sure, and seems to give the offense a shot of energy when he's in there. And he had to overcome some regression from the rest of the offense in pass protection and receivers getting open. But he just can't seem to avoid those really big, negative, game-killer plays. In the end I'm not sure Kyle Boller will reach a level here any higher than just good enough to get you beat.
* RB: Steven Jackson, (23-89) about the only fire this team has, was cooled a little today by his back injury and a lot by lack of running room. He got off to a fast start, with 25 yards on his first touch, running between fine blocks by Daniel Fells and Jacob Bell. That drive broke down, though, with Jackson getting stuffed on 3rd-and-1, and though he ran hard and still ran through some tackles at times, it was a struggle for Jackson to find anywhere to go, and he averaged less than 3 yards a carry after that big run. He still scored the Rams' 2nd TD with a 1-yard dive late in the 4th, and he's still an exemplary leader on this team, calling the offense to gather around him during one break in the action and trying to ignite it with some fiery motivation. I'm not sure how much Jackson's injury actually slowed him down, probably the most in his ability to change direction and get off his first read. Too bad nobody else has got his back. Samkon Gado (1-minus 1) and Kenneth Darby (also 1-minus 1) have been almost complete jokes this season and I'd swear neither one can walk and chew gum at the same time. They run like their shoelaces are tied together. I shouldn't have been, but I was agape this morning hearing that Jackson was on a pace for over 400 carries this season. He richly deserves far better backup than the Keystone Kops he has now.
* Receivers: Donnie Avery (4-48) scored the Rams' first TD but his inability to get open consistently ultimately hindered the passing game. Boller was looking for him at least a couple of the times he was sacked. None of the Ram receivers do a particularly good job of coming back to fight for a contested ball, which we saw in spades when Jennings beat Avery to a 4th-and-4 pass in the 2nd and tipped it to Wilson for a TD. Boller tried several throws along those lines – here comes the ball, now beat your man – but Avery and Brandon Gibson (3-18) weren't winning many of those one-on-one matchups. Danny Amendola (7-55) led in receptions and his sharp cutback after a catch inside the 10 got the Rams a big first down and set up Avery's TD. Ruvell Martin (2-60) got wide open in the Seahawk secondary for a couple of big gains. You can't stop Ruvell Martin; you can only hope to contain him. Well, you at least have to cover him, which Seattle really didn't either time. They made progress the last 2-3 weeks, but we saw again today that the Rams receivers can certainly stand to gain physical and mental toughness.
* Offensive line: The injury bug continues to bite the Ram offensive line hard. They were minus three starters after Jason Brown went down with a sprained knee in the 2nd. The makeshift lineup now had Mark Setterstrom at center, John Greco at RG and Adam Goldberg at RT. And seeing this lineup, Seattle blitzed practically every play after Brown left the game and got a blitzer through to Boller untouched practically every time. Goldberg looked really outmatched outside this week. Patrick Kerney really smoked him on Boller's first sack, though Babineaux also came in untouched. Hard to blame Gado there; he did pick up the blitzing LB inside. Setterstrom got beaten badly at center by a stunt and got beaten badly at RG by Brandon Mebane on a tackle-for-loss. Some of the sacks are fair to call coverage sacks, though Boller's scrambling would have saved them the second one had Alex Barron not quit blocking Cory Redding on the back side. PLAY TO THE WHISTLE! The fourth sack was a complete cluster, um, bomb, with every Ram lineman, and Daniel Fells, and Brandon Gibson apparently motioned across as an additional blocker, beaten soundly, leaving Boller looking like an unlucky Wal-Mart clerk on Black Friday. The best blocker today was Jacob Bell, who made a solid inside block that paired with Fells' big outside block to give Jackson a big lane on his 25-yard run. It feels pretty safe to say the running game missed Brown's and Richie Incognito's presence in the middle, where there was very little running room. It's definitely safe to say that by clogging up the middle and blitzing the Rams senseless, Seattle decisively won the game at the line of scrimmage.
* Defensive line / LB: Once again the Ram defense let one of the league's worst rushing offenses look like Eric Dickerson's Rams, as the 32nd-ranked running team romped for 170 behind Justin Forsett's 22-130. The front seven has more holes than players. It's basically James Laurinaitis plus an occasional play from one of the other six. Laurinaitis led the D with nine tackles, and started the Rams off the right way by dragging Matt Hasselbeck down for a sack on the game's very first play. Guess how many sacks the Rams collected after the first play of the game. That's right, none. Leonard Little got some pressures, but I don't remember Chris Long doing much of anything despite getting a lot of work at both DE positions. That failure spread over to the run, where if Laurinaitis gets blocked, he's not getting much help. Like these plays. Forsett broke loose for 25 right after Josh Brown's missed FG after Laurinaitis was practically blocked into Seattle's bench, Cliff Ryan got wiped out at the line and Justin King stumbled trying to fill the gap. Little tried to jump into the backfield on Forsett's first TD run but instead got pushed back across center and gave Forsett the hole. Given a chance to stop Seattle on 4th-and-1 to start the 4th, the Rams instead got steamrolled by Forsett for an embarrassing 11 yards. Nobody attacked his gap; Laurinaitis attacked the next gap over. Forsett's 2nd TD, two plays later, was an equally easy run after his fullback stoned Paris Lenon in the hole. Dorsett, um, I mean Forsett, humbled the Rams one last time with a 26-yard run right to set up their last FG. Long was pushed WAY outside and Oshiomogho Atogwe missed him in the hole. You'd think one of those would be Long's, or the Rams', most humiliating play of the day, but that had to come when Matt Hasselbeck naked bootlegged left for 19 to set up a FG in the 3rd. The whole Ram defense bought the run fake right, leaving the other side of the field empty as the void of space. If Hasselbeck wasn't slower than me trying to get up from the Thanksgiving dinner table, he would have had a TD. Long was so faked out on that play that he was getting up from being knocked down to continue pursuing the play left even as Hasselbeck was running right by him the other direction. And so the Ram defense hits December an utter failure. They're getting physically dominated by bad offensive lines. Tackling is slipping. Atogwe and James Butler are getting paid a lot better than they're stopping runners. Rookie Darell Scott (!) made some nice plays in the middle of the line but the rest of the DTs look like the guys off the waiver wire and 2nd-day draft picks that they are. So do the OLBs, despite Lenon forcing a Louis Rankin fumble in the 1st. They don't pass rush very well and they're as easily fooled by misdirection as my cat. This defense won't be any good this year. I'm not sure it'll be any good in TWO years. How do they get there?
* Secondary: Hey, a rare short section, made possible by the Rams' gawdawful run defense. Not really needing to throw, Hasselbeck only threw for 102 yards. And the Rams still found ways to get beat by Nate Burleson (4-46) on third-and-long three times. One thing the defense did get right was their emphasis on Seattle's screen pass game, which they essentially took away. Atogwe was one of the Rams' more effective defensive players, batting down a pass on a blitz to end a drive and stopping Burleson short on 3rd down to force a 3-and-out in the 2nd. Atogwe also chipped in 9 tackles, which is where James Butler's become a major disappointment of this season as far as I'm concerned. I expected him to show up much more against the run than he does, and he was guilty of some bad arm tackles today, too. He's been hurt, true, but Butler's still looming as another poor Rams free agent investment.
* Special teams: The punting teams were the stars of the day. Donnie Jones averaged over 52 yards a try. K.C. Asiodu partially blocked a punt and gave the offense a golden opportunity to squander in the 3rd. Coverage was fine until the last punt, returned 29 by Nate Burleson. The Rams could have started off on the right foot with a 46-yard FG to finish their opening drive, but instead, Josh Brown hooks it right, Seattle immediately drives for a TD, and thanks for yet another momentum-killer, Mr. Highest Paid Kicker in the League. Radio said the snap was high, but didn't blame it for the miss, and I don't care anyway. Make the freaking field goal. I could give a crap that he hit from 55 to bring the Rams within 4 at halftime, either. The ones you don't think he'll make, he will. The makeable ones his team needs him to make sail wide right. 36-year-old Olindo Mare put nearly every kickoff deep into the end zone. His last one went through the back. He had the Rams in mediocre field position all game. Amendola didn't really have a chance to do anything significant. Touchbacks or clutch kicks from Brown, though, are few and far between. Mare's a weapon for his team. Brown, the 25th-most-accurate kicker in the league though drawing, make that stealing, the biggest paycheck at the position, is a liability to his.
* Coaching: If not now, when? The Seattle Seahawks had not won a road game all year (0-5). They came in with a 3-7 record and were playing their third straight road game. They ran for four yards the week before. Not four yards a carry. Four total yards. The schedule-maker was handing the Rams a gift here. (About time, by the way.) And while the Rams drove downfield successfully in the 1st quarter, in the stands, you could sense the Seahawks packing it in. They were ripe. All the Rams needed was some killer instinct. NOT a milquetoast FG attempt on 4th-and-1 inside the opponent 30. I begged Steve Spagnuolo last week to show he gets it, and he doesn't, not yet. We are sick of the Rams losing home games (11 straight now). We are sick of losing EVERY game we play in the division (14 straight now). And it's sure getting tiring losing EVERY TIME to a Seattle team that hasn't even been any good the last two years. But it's 10 straight to them now, with no sign it will EVER let up, because the head coach of a 1-9 team wants to play it safe in scoring territory at the start of the game. How did that work out, by the way?
I'll buy some reasons Spagnuolo didn't want to go for it on 4th-and-1. Jackson had just been stuffed on 3rd-and-1, and maybe he didn't have a read on Steven's health yet and was reluctant to slam him in there again. And you're certainly not going to rely on Frick Gado or Frack Darby on 4th-and-1. So why not sneak Boller? He's 6'3”, all he has to do is fall down. Or bootleg him. Or keep Jackson in as a decoy, play-action and throw a seam route to the TE. For Christ's sake, I don't care if you want to go Mike Martz on their ass and run the dreaded end-around, do something! I know much of anything creative scares this coaching staff, especially on offense, but show us you're mad as hell at all these pathetic losing streaks and you're not going to take it any more! I also suspect Brown missing the 4th-and-1 FG led Spagnuolo to go for it on 4th-and-4. Can't trust him to hit from 46, you're not going to trust him from 52. So that just compounded the decision to kick on 4th-and-1 when 4th-and-4 failed as miserably as it can fail, with a pick-six. Sure, I'm an irrational fan, but good luck convincing me Spagnuolo didn't cost his team 17 points today. Could have taken ten, gave up seven instead. Rams football: it's fan-tastic!
You could tell Boller was back in the lineup today, huh? Very first play Pat Shurmur calls is a rollout. I thought he was smart to use a lot of play-action, though the Rams could sell it a lot better. The Avery TD, where they sold it perfectly, could have been the Sweet Play of the Week had everything else about the Rams not sucked. Avery motioned left, and while the whole offense faked a Jackson handoff left, Avery doubled back right and was open pretty handily for the toss from Boller rolling right. Now, if he'd just started using blitz-beating plays like the Avery smoke route BEFORE getting blitzed by Seattle for three quarters. That adjustment was like the Titanic hanging a left after hitting the iceberg. Defensively, I thought the Rams had a good blitz mix working, getting pressure with it without getting burned by it. Seattle is extremely potent with screen passes and the outside players made a very successful effort to take that away from them, though you wonder how much that took away from the run defense, which simply cannot continue to be this wretchedly awful. A last question, I really don't know the answer: does this team ever run blitz? Do our DBs ever slash in and stop a back in the backfield? Does a team this bad against the run have anything to lose by gambling like that more? OK, that was three questions.
* Upon further review: Scott Green and crew were mostly on top of things. They got the call right when it briefly looked like the Rams had muffed away the blocked punt in the 3rd, but the Ram player, I believe Dominic Douglas, had been blocked into the ball. Patrick Kerney took Boller out flagrantly late on a play in the 4th and got a deserved flag for it. Jackson's late TD came about because they reviewed and reversed an apparent Boller TD scramble, which bordered on cruel and unusual punishment to Rams fans. By far the least popular call was the tripping penalty on Amendola in the end zone after Boller's 2nd INT, which looked much more incidental than intentional from the stands. How sure are we Avery wasn't interfered with on the pick-six? Jennings sure grabbed and spun him, though the ball was right there, too. B-minus for the crew assuming that call was OK.
* Cheers: It was just as well the game wasn't on TV locally. If the quality of the play on the field didn't turn St. Louisans off of watching Rams football forever, the embarrassingly sparse crowd would have. The Dome wasn't even half-filled this week, though the hardy few present generated solid noise in bursts and even got Sean Locklear to false-start in the 3rd to help force a FG. Too bad the defense was consistently quick to kibosh any momentum we could muster. People started getting up to leave after Boller's 2nd INT – that was with EIGHT minutes left. In the THIRD quarter! Needless to say, post-game traffic was pretty smooth today. Pee-wee, or youth (there were some mighty big kids out there) football got the halftime show, with the annual Punt, Pass and Kick demoted to a brief pre-game announcement. Sad to see that long-time tradition getting short shrift.
* Who’s next?: Ah, to have been a Chicagoan this summer. The city had the sports world by the tail. The White Sox and Cubs were in the middle of pennant races. With the hometown President and the mighty Oprah lobbying on the city's behalf, their 2016 Summer Olympic bid was in the bag. And Da Bears were on their way to the Super Bowl after trading for rifle-armed Broncos QB Jay Cutler. It was Chicago's world; the rest of us were just living in it.
None of it lasted long, and faster than you can say “Rio de Janeiro,” the Bears' season headed downhill with the rest. Instead of leading the Bears to the playoffs, Cutler's led them to the league lead in interceptions. The team's returned the favor in not supporting Cutler very well. Matt Forte's rookie magic appears gone this season, and the Bears – the franchise of Red Grange, Bronko Nagurski, Gale Sayers and Walter Payton – are 28th in the NFL in rushing. 28th! The Bears! The problem starts in Chicago where it starts for a lot of teams, the offensive line. Orlando Pace may not play next week due to a groin injury; just as well for his long-time Rams fans. His play this year has only proven that the Rams made the right move to let him go. Pace can throw the occasional dominating run block but has been a liability in pass pro. Any Bears game I watch, there are guys just pouring in past Olin Kreutz, who I'd have to call a shell of his former self at center, and Roberto Garza looks awful at RG. Cutler gets hit a lot, and hears even more footsteps. He's jumpier in the pocket than Jim Carrey after a Red Bull, doesn't throw accurately enough under pressure to make defenses pay for blitzing, and locks in almost exclusively on TE Greg Olson when he does. I'll just say a capable defense, capably coached, would find ways to take advantage of these tendencies.
It's a bad time for Steven Jackson to be hurting; even with head coach Lovie Smith taking over as defensive coordinator, the Bears – the franchise of Dick Butkus, Richard Dent, Mike Singletary, Brian Urlacher (not this season; he's missed all of it with a broken wrist) – are only 23rd in the league against the run. The Bears can't run or defend the run? The Bears? But their only defensive playmaker lately's been CB Charles Tillman, the only guy in their secondary who can cover anybody, and he took a blow to the head in Minnesota. Avery's in trouble if Tillman plays, because Tillman, like Atogwe for the Rams, has a sixth sense for forcing fumbles. Two hands on the ball, wideouts. Still, you can throw away from Tillman, and if Chicago doesn't toughen up against the run, the Rams can feel really free to uncork their offense against them next week. Yeah, buddy. Let's just say a capable offense, capably coached, would find ways to take advantage of their weak spots.
God I love writing previews. The Rams haven't proven week-to-week that they've got any ability, other than Jackson's guts, that makes them suited to attack any other team's weaknesses. Why note that Forte's having an off year when two of the league's worst running teams just ripped the Rams on the ground? Why imagine ways for the Ram offense to attack defenses when its goal in life is to be boring? Why preview opponents in a vacuum that excludes the Rams' injuries, inexperience and outright lack of talent?
A capable team, capably coached, would find the Chicago Bears very beatable next week, even in Soldier Field. The Rams aren't there, unless Steven Jackson carries them there, which is possible.
There's your preview.
--Mike
Game stats from nfl.com
Monday, November 23, 2009
RamView, November 22, 2009
From Row HH
(Report and opinions on and from the game.)
Game #10: Arizona 21, Rams 13
A disappointing letdown in St. Louis, as the Rams start out flat as a doormat and fall too far behind Arizona early to catch back up. And a doormat's all they'll be – 13 straight losses in the NFC West – with games like today's.
* RB: Steven Jackson (24-116) made franchise history by recording his fifth straight 1,000-yard season , in just 10 games this year to boot, but had very tough sledding along the way today. Arizona had the middle of the field clogged up like mall parking lots will be this Friday. Jackson got early running room from Alex Barron and Brandon Gibson (!) on an 11-yard gallop around right end in the 1st, but a lot of his day was short slams up the middle, some of which didn't go well. Near the Arizona 20 in the 2nd, Jackson couldn't eke out a yard in two tries. LB Gerald Hayes appeared to win a big collision on 3rd down and Jackson couldn't get much of a launch on a 4th-down dive attempt with Jacob Bell in his way. Karlos Dansby swallowed him up to get Arizona the ball back. Jackson's 48-yard explosion late in the 3rd appeared to get the Rams back in the game. He worked around a double-team block at right end, really turned on the jets, and was almost gone for the TD. Too bad Arizona tracked him down inside the 5, because later on 3rd-and-goal, they did it again, with Antrell Rolle denying Jackson the left corner on a screen pass that had TD written all over it. Jackson kept a TD drive alive later with a twisting, backwards 4th-and-1 dive, and scored with a plunge off left tackle, but was a limited factor down the stretch. The numbers may not quite say it but Arizona did a good job limiting Jackson. They took the middle of the field away and won some key confrontations.
* QB: It was a very tough day to be a QB in the Dome. Kurt Warner got knocked out of the game by Oshiomogho Atogwe before halftime, and Marc Bulger got knocked out by Darnell Dockett at the end of another frustrating performance (19-37-215, 57.8 rating). Like the rest of this season, there's plenty of blame to go around, but plenty of limitations on Bulger's part to ponder. Even at age 38, Warner's at least twice as mobile as Bulger, who transitions to a runner about as effectively as any Hanna-Barbera character. Bulger killed a drive in the first trying to scramble and then clanging the ball off Daniel Fells' hip. Dockett ended the next drive by smacking a Bulger sidearm pass backwards. Why is a QB's height a big deal to NFL GMs again? Bulger ended the first half on a sour note, throwing an INT right to Adrian Wilson. Fells was open, but with Dockett bearing down, Bulger rushed a just-awful throw that would have fallen two yards short if Wilson hadn't been there. So no, Bulger did not get the Rams off to a strong start, with 77 yards at halftime, only 12 in the first quarter. The offense continued to melt down after halftime, with drives ending on a Donnie Avery drop and a coverage sack. Bulger found Danny Amendola on 3rd-and-9 to prolong the next drive, which would have ended in a TD had Brandon Gibson not lost track of a perfectly good fade pass. He set up a TD in the 4th by just uncorking a throw to Amendola between 2 defenders inside the 5. The Rams finally gathered some rhythm and momentum. They got the ball back down 8 and Bulger hit Avery a couple of times for 50 yards, the second for 21 by pump-faking the crap out of Dominique Rogers-Cromartie, getting him to squat on the short route. But then from the Arizona 7, another failed connection with Gibson, despite Bulger putting the ball right in his breadbasket. The TV broadcast blamed Bulger for underthrowing the pass, not an invalid point, but that ball practically caught itself. C'mon, rook. Failure there left the Rams in desperation mode with 1:01 left, and who knows where that's left Bulger. Dockett jacked him up on first down, leaving Bulger so woozy he could barely stay on his feet. Little surprise he missed Randy McMichael by a mile on 2nd down, crossed wires with Gibson again on 3rd down and ended the game with a goofy, failed scramble. And a concussion. The surprise was that he finished the game, a testament to his toughness, though not necessarily the alertness of the Rams' sideline. Other than his tenacity there wasn't much to like about Bulger's game while he was conscious. He looked unsteady in the pocket, locked in on receivers, didn't appear to read the field well. You understand what's going on because of Marc's sack and injury history and his inexperienced group of receivers. He is a legitimately tough player. That should never be questioned. But nothing's getting better here, either.
* Receivers: Brandon Gibson's (5-61) impressive game last week kind of made us forget he's still raw as sushi, and he certainly looked it today. He was confused whether or not to be on the field a couple of times, including the first play of the game, starting the Rams off with a penalty. Gibson fought about every part of his game. He fought his timing with his QB. He must have zagged when Bulger zigged half a dozen times. He fought the ball in the air, appearing to lose the ball in the lights on an end zone fade late in the 3rd that landed harmlessly a yard in bounds. He fought the ball in his hands, with a couple of critical drops, including another pass in the end zone in the 4th that was right in his breadbasket. He fought the referees, seemingly (and immaturely) pleading for a penalty flag almost every time he didn't make a catch. All that said, the kid still made some good plays. He's an aware and strong blocker. He's a good YAC receiver and makes nice moves after the catch. The Rams have just been so desperate at WR that they've thrown too much at Gibson too soon. Donnie Avery's (4-65) resurgence, and Danny Amendola's (4-61) reckless abandon, will help there. Avery set up a chance to tie the game in the 4th with 29- and 21-yard receptions. The first was a smoke route where he took off like a Maserati after excellent blocks by Amendola and Randy McMichael (2-17). Avery couldn't out-wrestle Rogers-Cromartie in the end zone on 4th down for that tying score, though. Amendola made the 2nd FG possible by spinning out of a tackle to gain 15 on a smoke route and with a 3rd-and-9 downfield catch. He made the Rams' TD possible with an impressive catch, snagging the ball over his head with Velcro-like hands in a crowd at the 1-yard line, a 25-yard gain on 4th-and-11. Receiver mistakes were a big problem in today's loss, but this unit is still gelling despite its inexperience and injuries. There's a good future here.
* Offensive line: Offensive line mistakes really botched the ending of the game. Dockett clubbed his way around RG Mark Setterstrom like he wasn't even there on the play that concussed Bulger. Alex Barron got whipped right off the snap on the Rams' last play. Setterstrom was at RG because Jason Smith appeared to suffer a concussion and Adam Goldberg, who'd already played RG and a little LT in the game, bounced out to RT. Where he committed a critical penalty, a 15-yard unsportsmanlike conduct very few living humans actually saw, to throw up a big roadblock in the Rams' 4th-quarter comeback attempt. Pass protection was good enough. Arizona had a strong outside rush but the Rams kept it behind Bulger and gave him room to step up. Jackson hasn't been getting enough credit for his improvement picking up the blitz. The other two Cardinal sacks were coverage sacks; Bulger got plenty of time to unload. Run-blocking was the problem today, with Arizona controlling the middle of the field. Jackson got stuffed several times running into Jacob Bell or Jason Brown getting knocked backward. Bell ended up on the ground on the failed 4th-and-1 run in the 2nd, and I think that messed up the plant for Jackson's leap. I'm not sure Jackson had a middle run over 3 yards all game. His success was bouncing outside. Barron helped him get 11 in the 1st. Smith and McMichael's double-team was the linchpin to Jackson's 48-yard run. Bell sat on his man and Barron cleared out the left side on Jackson's TD run in the 4th. They're faring decently despite injuries and shuffling around, but the late mistakes and losing out to Arizona up the middle were critical factors this week.
* Defensive line / LB: Despite Chris Long's third sack of the season and a mind-blowing 16 tackles by James Laurinaitis, the Ram front seven was woeful and bears the brunt of the blame for today's loss. Arizona gashed them for 183 yards rushing and the Rams mounted little pressure with their 4-man rush. They started out fast, with a fumble, then a sack, to kill Arizona drives. Leonard Little whipped Levi Jones and James Hall split a double-team to drop Warner for a big early play, but they were little heard-from the rest of the day, as Arizona commenced with the ground gashing. For all his tackles, Laurinaitis got erased from a lot of plays, too. Deuce Lutui knocked him back five yards on a 12-yard Tim Hightower run. Hightower (14-110) took off for 50 the next play, as Laurinaitis tripped over the feet of LaJuan Ramsey, getting thrown around like a nobody. Arizona went on to a TD, got the ball back quickly and scored again. Beanie Wells (14-74) got 16 on a pitchout Paris Lenon never saw coming. Hightower beat a nickel package for 11 more, with the center knocking Laurinaitis back. Then TE Ben Patrick beat the rookie MLB for 27 to set up the TD. More of the same the next drive. Hightower counter left for 10. You know it's a bad day when your defense is getting blocked by Dan Kreider and Anthony Becht, who couldn't block to save their lives as Rams. The Rams burn themselves with a zone blitz a couple of plays later, leaving Little on Anquan Boldin downfield. Yeah, not a good matchup. Boldin gained 38 down to the 1, and Wells ran through Larry Grant for the Cardinals' third straight TD, and even though the Rams had unknowingly knocked Kurt Warner out of the game that drive, game over. The bashing continued for another drive in the 3rd before the Rams realized that Matt Leinart is such an awful QB they could sell out against the run. Victor Adeyanju stuffed a run to start a 3-and-out. David Vobora stripped Becht to force a turnover. Long's tenacious sack – he got knocked backwards at the start but never quit, re-collecting himself and making a beeline for Leinart – forced another 3-and-out. Only two sacks for the game, though, with Adeyanju, Hall and Long blowing golden chances. They couldn't do anything against quick passes, usually just getting stood up. Warner got enough time on some deep drops to start another charity. The Rams didn't get anything going without blitzing. Granted they're banged-up, but the tackles were useless for the second straight week. Little was a liability against the run again. OLB play was awful, with Grant blowing tackles and Lenon getting blocked out of plays. Vobora provided spark while he was in, and should have played more; the other OLBs sucked. Laurinaitis can't do it all. Think they win this game with Will Witherspoon and Chris Draft? Or if they're not playing flat for at least a half? Even Long said after the game that they came out too flat today. If the Rams are supposed to have a defensive identity right now, I can only assume it's been stolen.
* Secondary: The Rams again laid back in coverage this week to limit deep damage by Arizona's stud WRs but ultimately still got damaged, 8-103 for Anquan Boldin, 8-87 for Larry Fitzgerald, a TD apiece. Boldin beat Ron Bartell with an inside move at the goal line for the first Cardinal TD. Justin King'll get blamed for Fitzgerald's TD the next drive. Let's see, Fitzgerald charges downfield ten yards with his arms up, his elbows out and gives King a big shove at the goal line to get open. Yeah, that's not offensive pass interference. The Rams' problems against the run started opening even bigger holes in the zone, and Warner (15-19-203, 146.3 rating) completed passes, mostly to the two big WRs, at will. Atogwe was one defender who kept the Rams in the game. He recovered a pitchout Wells dropped to set up the Rams' opening FG. He delivered big hits to Warner on the blitz and knocked him out of the game, keeping the Rams in the game by forcing future Draft-Bust-Hall-of-Famer Leinart off the bench. James Butler recovered a fumble to set up the Rams' TD drive in the 4th. The DBs aren't the main culprits today, but with 2 TDs allowed and a couple of big coverage breakdowns, at least one more big play would have been welcome.
* Special teams: Special teams got back on track today and will hopefully stay there. Amendola was the big story, nearly breaking a couple of kick returns big-time, setting the Rams up near the 40 a couple of times. Donnie Jones blasted three 60-yard-plus punts and averaged over 56 a kick. Josh Brown's kickoffs were strong and he hit both FG attempts, unpopular as the second one may have been. Chris Chamberlain's really making his mark on kick coverage the last couple of weeks. Even Kenneth Darby contributed a good stop on a kick return. Keep it up.
* Coaching: Little bugs me more than the Rams coming out flat for a game, which is exactly what I believe happened today. Whatever Steve Spagnuolo says Monday, the crowd, half the radio booth and at least one of your players thinks you came out flat. To the team's credit, that's the first time it's happened in a very difficult year, and they worked hard in the second half and made the game respectable. But this is a home game. This is a division opponent. It's surely your fans' most hated opponent. Throw us a bone here and make us believe you're putting urgency into divisional games instead of losing 13 in a row or losing 6 in a row to freaking Bill Bidwill and losing this game AT HOME FOR THE FIFTH STRAIGHT YEAR. I cannot think of a more unacceptable losing streak to have to live with as a St. Louis sports fan. Somebody at Rams Park show that you get that.
Sending in the FG unit on 4th-and-goal from the 2 in the 3rd quarter was EXTREMELY unpopular. Spagnuolo wanted to cut it to a 2-score game, but what's the downside of going for it? I'd happily have taken my chances with Matt Leinart backed up on his own goal line. The spot on Jackson's third-and-1 run in the 2nd should have been challenged. It's a critical play, you're trailing, you're in scoring position; it's worth the risk of losing a timeout. Speaking of risk, what the hell was Bulger doing in the game the last minute when you could see from 100 feet away that he could barely stay upright? The excuse I heard was that the clock was running so they couldn't get Kyle Boller in the game. Has anyone on this staff ever heard of the play where you spike the ball to stop the clock? It's legal, you know! They had as much a chance of a comeback with a cold, off-the-bench Boller as they did with an off-his-pins Bulger, without putting anyone's long-term well-being at risk.
Ken Flajole's X's and O's seemed fine this week; execution was the problem. Blitzing Warner up the middle was effective strategy, and the blitz knocked him out of the game. The Rams didn't blitz willy-nilly, either; Flajole generally picked the right times. The Rams got their first sack on a zone blitz – Long was dropped back in coverage – but the zone blitz also got torched; see, Little v. Boldin in the 2nd. The Rams smartly ran away from Adrian Wilson at times but could have rushed more effectively. More outside running could have unclogged the middle, though some of the smoke routes were probably meant to loosen the field. It's been noted the Rams didn't have Mike Karney on the field in many short-yardage situations, pretty dumb unless he was injured. Jackson runs well behind him, and the Rams got him because of past failures on short-yardage downs. John Lynch on Fox lobbied for some play-action in those situations, with Arizona stacking 9 in the box. If nothing else, it would have loosened up future short-yardage downs. Simple is best, but Pat Shurmur still does things too simply sometimes.
* Upon further review: Bill Leavy's crew left plenty to complain about. I've seen nothing to convince me the spot wasn't off by at least half a yard on Jackson's 3rd-and-1 run in the 2nd. It's spotted as no gain, and the Rams don't convert on 4th down, either. Fitzgerald always gets away with pass interference, but what he did to Justin King on his TD bordered on cartoonish. The crowd really, really wanted DPI on DRC on the 4th-down end zone pass to Avery, but seeing it on TiVo, it looks like a fair call. I sure hope the 15-yard penalty on Goldberg, whatever it was, was worth calling at that juncture of a close contest, though I rather doubt it. I'll levy Leavy a C-minus.
* Cheers: Even in a loss to the hated Cardinals, this game had one of my favorite Dome moments. The stadium was eerily, nervously quiet waiting for the Rams to start their potential game-tying drive in the 4th. What should happen to pop up on the video board to break the silence? John Belushi rallying the Deltas. Over? Did someone say, Over? NOTHING IS OVER UNTIL WE DECIDE IT IS! Was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor? Hell no! The crowd went nuts. When Bluto asked, “Because when the going gets tough?” we all yelled back, “The tough get going!” Avery started making plays a minute later and the crowd stayed bonkers. We had our moment, until the Rams failed to convert at the end. Still, more Bluto rallies, please. Who's with me? Let's gooooo.... Up until then, there was little mistaking the crowd's dissatisfaction. The Rams were pretty much booed off the field at halftime, and Spagnuolo's decision to kick the second FG was booed as hard as I've ever heard that booed here. The halftime show was by the stylish Willard (S.W. Mo.) High School Band. The Rams generously bought up 4,000 tickets to put the game on TV, but I doubt three poor quarters and a belated rally will spark much walk-up traffic for Seattle next week. Expect a blackout Sunday and a much-less-detailed-than-usual RamView on Monday.
* Who’s next?: When we last left the Seattle Seahawks, they had just crushed the Rams 35-0 for their NINTH straight win in that series. They looked like they were back on their way to the top of the NFC West after that resounding Opening Day victory. Well, that didn't last long. They've only won twice since, and one of those was pretty much handed to them by the Lions. Seattle's Exhibit A against judging a football team based on one week.
The injury bug's more contagious in Seattle this year than H1N1. The offensive line has struggled all year with injuries and consistency, especially at left tackle, which has been manned by four different players, now by Sean Locklear, just back from a week 2 ankle injury. So Matt Hasselbeck's been taking a real beating. He's played this year with broken ribs and played against Minnesota today despite a dirty shot to the throat from Darnell Dockett last week. Hasselbeck deserves tribute for putting up decent numbers despite that, but he was also a big part of Seattle's red zone problems in their loss to Arizona. Seattle's running game has been mostly terrible. Julius Jones only averages 3.7 a carry because he got to play the Rams once. Really. He's averaged just 3.1 since week 1. The problem for the Rams next week is more likely to be Justin Forsett, a Maurice Jones-Drew-lite averaging 7 yards a touch, hard to find as a rusher and dangerous on screen passes. Seattle's veteran receivers have kept Hasselbeck's season from looking a lot more like Marc Bulger's. T.J. Houshmandzadeh has had big games recently after a slow start. And the Rams know firsthand the damage Nate Burleson and TE John Carlson can do. Seattle is one of just three teams that throws over 40 times a game, and with their ragtag o-line, Hasselbeck should see plenty of pressure if any Ram up front wants to step up and provide some. The ultimate difference-maker, though, may be the Rams keeping coverage breakdowns to an acceptable minimum, which Seattle's deep receiving squad will make difficult.
Injuries haven't left Seattle's defense alone, either. MLB Lofa Tatupu's season ended very early. Both starting corners suffered concussions in Arizona. Marcus Trufant got his concussion in just his third week back from a back injury inflicted in July. Without their shutdown corner, Seattle's defensive stats bear the hallmark of a team playing to take away the deep ball. Their 66.1% completion rate against is one of the worst in the league. But before today, they'd allowed only one completion over 40 yards and were tied for 6th in the league for completions allowed over 20 yards. They can leave their safeties back because, unlike the Rams, they're good up front against the run: 10th in the league at 105 yards per game. Brandon Mebane is a solid anchor at DT. David Hawthorne has filled in capably for Tatupu and is flanked by a lot of LB talent in rookie Aaron Curry (42 tkl) and Ram-killer Leroy Hill. The good news for whoever's QBing next week is that Seattle hasn't been creating much pass pressure with their 4-man rush lately, either. Another Ram-killer, Darryl Tapp, has just one sack this season. If the Rams control the edge rush, they'll force Seattle to blitz, and big plays may result, as long as they execute and pick those blitzes up.
On October 10, 1999, the Ram franchise got a huge monkey off its back with a victory over the 49ers, their first win over San Francisco in nine years, ending a colossal, demoralizing losing streak. With the great weight lifted, the Rams charged ahead to the greatest season in team history. The Rams aren't going to the Super Bowl if they beat Seattle Sunday. But Seahawks are the albatross around the Rams' necks now. They can kill three birds with one stone with a win: the Seattle losing streak, the NFC West losing streak, the home stadium losing streak. Birds, albatrosses, or seahawks, Steve Spagnuolo better be sure his team knows next week is hunting season.
--Mike
Game stats from nfl.com
From Row HH
(Report and opinions on and from the game.)
Game #10: Arizona 21, Rams 13
A disappointing letdown in St. Louis, as the Rams start out flat as a doormat and fall too far behind Arizona early to catch back up. And a doormat's all they'll be – 13 straight losses in the NFC West – with games like today's.
* RB: Steven Jackson (24-116) made franchise history by recording his fifth straight 1,000-yard season , in just 10 games this year to boot, but had very tough sledding along the way today. Arizona had the middle of the field clogged up like mall parking lots will be this Friday. Jackson got early running room from Alex Barron and Brandon Gibson (!) on an 11-yard gallop around right end in the 1st, but a lot of his day was short slams up the middle, some of which didn't go well. Near the Arizona 20 in the 2nd, Jackson couldn't eke out a yard in two tries. LB Gerald Hayes appeared to win a big collision on 3rd down and Jackson couldn't get much of a launch on a 4th-down dive attempt with Jacob Bell in his way. Karlos Dansby swallowed him up to get Arizona the ball back. Jackson's 48-yard explosion late in the 3rd appeared to get the Rams back in the game. He worked around a double-team block at right end, really turned on the jets, and was almost gone for the TD. Too bad Arizona tracked him down inside the 5, because later on 3rd-and-goal, they did it again, with Antrell Rolle denying Jackson the left corner on a screen pass that had TD written all over it. Jackson kept a TD drive alive later with a twisting, backwards 4th-and-1 dive, and scored with a plunge off left tackle, but was a limited factor down the stretch. The numbers may not quite say it but Arizona did a good job limiting Jackson. They took the middle of the field away and won some key confrontations.
* QB: It was a very tough day to be a QB in the Dome. Kurt Warner got knocked out of the game by Oshiomogho Atogwe before halftime, and Marc Bulger got knocked out by Darnell Dockett at the end of another frustrating performance (19-37-215, 57.8 rating). Like the rest of this season, there's plenty of blame to go around, but plenty of limitations on Bulger's part to ponder. Even at age 38, Warner's at least twice as mobile as Bulger, who transitions to a runner about as effectively as any Hanna-Barbera character. Bulger killed a drive in the first trying to scramble and then clanging the ball off Daniel Fells' hip. Dockett ended the next drive by smacking a Bulger sidearm pass backwards. Why is a QB's height a big deal to NFL GMs again? Bulger ended the first half on a sour note, throwing an INT right to Adrian Wilson. Fells was open, but with Dockett bearing down, Bulger rushed a just-awful throw that would have fallen two yards short if Wilson hadn't been there. So no, Bulger did not get the Rams off to a strong start, with 77 yards at halftime, only 12 in the first quarter. The offense continued to melt down after halftime, with drives ending on a Donnie Avery drop and a coverage sack. Bulger found Danny Amendola on 3rd-and-9 to prolong the next drive, which would have ended in a TD had Brandon Gibson not lost track of a perfectly good fade pass. He set up a TD in the 4th by just uncorking a throw to Amendola between 2 defenders inside the 5. The Rams finally gathered some rhythm and momentum. They got the ball back down 8 and Bulger hit Avery a couple of times for 50 yards, the second for 21 by pump-faking the crap out of Dominique Rogers-Cromartie, getting him to squat on the short route. But then from the Arizona 7, another failed connection with Gibson, despite Bulger putting the ball right in his breadbasket. The TV broadcast blamed Bulger for underthrowing the pass, not an invalid point, but that ball practically caught itself. C'mon, rook. Failure there left the Rams in desperation mode with 1:01 left, and who knows where that's left Bulger. Dockett jacked him up on first down, leaving Bulger so woozy he could barely stay on his feet. Little surprise he missed Randy McMichael by a mile on 2nd down, crossed wires with Gibson again on 3rd down and ended the game with a goofy, failed scramble. And a concussion. The surprise was that he finished the game, a testament to his toughness, though not necessarily the alertness of the Rams' sideline. Other than his tenacity there wasn't much to like about Bulger's game while he was conscious. He looked unsteady in the pocket, locked in on receivers, didn't appear to read the field well. You understand what's going on because of Marc's sack and injury history and his inexperienced group of receivers. He is a legitimately tough player. That should never be questioned. But nothing's getting better here, either.
* Receivers: Brandon Gibson's (5-61) impressive game last week kind of made us forget he's still raw as sushi, and he certainly looked it today. He was confused whether or not to be on the field a couple of times, including the first play of the game, starting the Rams off with a penalty. Gibson fought about every part of his game. He fought his timing with his QB. He must have zagged when Bulger zigged half a dozen times. He fought the ball in the air, appearing to lose the ball in the lights on an end zone fade late in the 3rd that landed harmlessly a yard in bounds. He fought the ball in his hands, with a couple of critical drops, including another pass in the end zone in the 4th that was right in his breadbasket. He fought the referees, seemingly (and immaturely) pleading for a penalty flag almost every time he didn't make a catch. All that said, the kid still made some good plays. He's an aware and strong blocker. He's a good YAC receiver and makes nice moves after the catch. The Rams have just been so desperate at WR that they've thrown too much at Gibson too soon. Donnie Avery's (4-65) resurgence, and Danny Amendola's (4-61) reckless abandon, will help there. Avery set up a chance to tie the game in the 4th with 29- and 21-yard receptions. The first was a smoke route where he took off like a Maserati after excellent blocks by Amendola and Randy McMichael (2-17). Avery couldn't out-wrestle Rogers-Cromartie in the end zone on 4th down for that tying score, though. Amendola made the 2nd FG possible by spinning out of a tackle to gain 15 on a smoke route and with a 3rd-and-9 downfield catch. He made the Rams' TD possible with an impressive catch, snagging the ball over his head with Velcro-like hands in a crowd at the 1-yard line, a 25-yard gain on 4th-and-11. Receiver mistakes were a big problem in today's loss, but this unit is still gelling despite its inexperience and injuries. There's a good future here.
* Offensive line: Offensive line mistakes really botched the ending of the game. Dockett clubbed his way around RG Mark Setterstrom like he wasn't even there on the play that concussed Bulger. Alex Barron got whipped right off the snap on the Rams' last play. Setterstrom was at RG because Jason Smith appeared to suffer a concussion and Adam Goldberg, who'd already played RG and a little LT in the game, bounced out to RT. Where he committed a critical penalty, a 15-yard unsportsmanlike conduct very few living humans actually saw, to throw up a big roadblock in the Rams' 4th-quarter comeback attempt. Pass protection was good enough. Arizona had a strong outside rush but the Rams kept it behind Bulger and gave him room to step up. Jackson hasn't been getting enough credit for his improvement picking up the blitz. The other two Cardinal sacks were coverage sacks; Bulger got plenty of time to unload. Run-blocking was the problem today, with Arizona controlling the middle of the field. Jackson got stuffed several times running into Jacob Bell or Jason Brown getting knocked backward. Bell ended up on the ground on the failed 4th-and-1 run in the 2nd, and I think that messed up the plant for Jackson's leap. I'm not sure Jackson had a middle run over 3 yards all game. His success was bouncing outside. Barron helped him get 11 in the 1st. Smith and McMichael's double-team was the linchpin to Jackson's 48-yard run. Bell sat on his man and Barron cleared out the left side on Jackson's TD run in the 4th. They're faring decently despite injuries and shuffling around, but the late mistakes and losing out to Arizona up the middle were critical factors this week.
* Defensive line / LB: Despite Chris Long's third sack of the season and a mind-blowing 16 tackles by James Laurinaitis, the Ram front seven was woeful and bears the brunt of the blame for today's loss. Arizona gashed them for 183 yards rushing and the Rams mounted little pressure with their 4-man rush. They started out fast, with a fumble, then a sack, to kill Arizona drives. Leonard Little whipped Levi Jones and James Hall split a double-team to drop Warner for a big early play, but they were little heard-from the rest of the day, as Arizona commenced with the ground gashing. For all his tackles, Laurinaitis got erased from a lot of plays, too. Deuce Lutui knocked him back five yards on a 12-yard Tim Hightower run. Hightower (14-110) took off for 50 the next play, as Laurinaitis tripped over the feet of LaJuan Ramsey, getting thrown around like a nobody. Arizona went on to a TD, got the ball back quickly and scored again. Beanie Wells (14-74) got 16 on a pitchout Paris Lenon never saw coming. Hightower beat a nickel package for 11 more, with the center knocking Laurinaitis back. Then TE Ben Patrick beat the rookie MLB for 27 to set up the TD. More of the same the next drive. Hightower counter left for 10. You know it's a bad day when your defense is getting blocked by Dan Kreider and Anthony Becht, who couldn't block to save their lives as Rams. The Rams burn themselves with a zone blitz a couple of plays later, leaving Little on Anquan Boldin downfield. Yeah, not a good matchup. Boldin gained 38 down to the 1, and Wells ran through Larry Grant for the Cardinals' third straight TD, and even though the Rams had unknowingly knocked Kurt Warner out of the game that drive, game over. The bashing continued for another drive in the 3rd before the Rams realized that Matt Leinart is such an awful QB they could sell out against the run. Victor Adeyanju stuffed a run to start a 3-and-out. David Vobora stripped Becht to force a turnover. Long's tenacious sack – he got knocked backwards at the start but never quit, re-collecting himself and making a beeline for Leinart – forced another 3-and-out. Only two sacks for the game, though, with Adeyanju, Hall and Long blowing golden chances. They couldn't do anything against quick passes, usually just getting stood up. Warner got enough time on some deep drops to start another charity. The Rams didn't get anything going without blitzing. Granted they're banged-up, but the tackles were useless for the second straight week. Little was a liability against the run again. OLB play was awful, with Grant blowing tackles and Lenon getting blocked out of plays. Vobora provided spark while he was in, and should have played more; the other OLBs sucked. Laurinaitis can't do it all. Think they win this game with Will Witherspoon and Chris Draft? Or if they're not playing flat for at least a half? Even Long said after the game that they came out too flat today. If the Rams are supposed to have a defensive identity right now, I can only assume it's been stolen.
* Secondary: The Rams again laid back in coverage this week to limit deep damage by Arizona's stud WRs but ultimately still got damaged, 8-103 for Anquan Boldin, 8-87 for Larry Fitzgerald, a TD apiece. Boldin beat Ron Bartell with an inside move at the goal line for the first Cardinal TD. Justin King'll get blamed for Fitzgerald's TD the next drive. Let's see, Fitzgerald charges downfield ten yards with his arms up, his elbows out and gives King a big shove at the goal line to get open. Yeah, that's not offensive pass interference. The Rams' problems against the run started opening even bigger holes in the zone, and Warner (15-19-203, 146.3 rating) completed passes, mostly to the two big WRs, at will. Atogwe was one defender who kept the Rams in the game. He recovered a pitchout Wells dropped to set up the Rams' opening FG. He delivered big hits to Warner on the blitz and knocked him out of the game, keeping the Rams in the game by forcing future Draft-Bust-Hall-of-Famer Leinart off the bench. James Butler recovered a fumble to set up the Rams' TD drive in the 4th. The DBs aren't the main culprits today, but with 2 TDs allowed and a couple of big coverage breakdowns, at least one more big play would have been welcome.
* Special teams: Special teams got back on track today and will hopefully stay there. Amendola was the big story, nearly breaking a couple of kick returns big-time, setting the Rams up near the 40 a couple of times. Donnie Jones blasted three 60-yard-plus punts and averaged over 56 a kick. Josh Brown's kickoffs were strong and he hit both FG attempts, unpopular as the second one may have been. Chris Chamberlain's really making his mark on kick coverage the last couple of weeks. Even Kenneth Darby contributed a good stop on a kick return. Keep it up.
* Coaching: Little bugs me more than the Rams coming out flat for a game, which is exactly what I believe happened today. Whatever Steve Spagnuolo says Monday, the crowd, half the radio booth and at least one of your players thinks you came out flat. To the team's credit, that's the first time it's happened in a very difficult year, and they worked hard in the second half and made the game respectable. But this is a home game. This is a division opponent. It's surely your fans' most hated opponent. Throw us a bone here and make us believe you're putting urgency into divisional games instead of losing 13 in a row or losing 6 in a row to freaking Bill Bidwill and losing this game AT HOME FOR THE FIFTH STRAIGHT YEAR. I cannot think of a more unacceptable losing streak to have to live with as a St. Louis sports fan. Somebody at Rams Park show that you get that.
Sending in the FG unit on 4th-and-goal from the 2 in the 3rd quarter was EXTREMELY unpopular. Spagnuolo wanted to cut it to a 2-score game, but what's the downside of going for it? I'd happily have taken my chances with Matt Leinart backed up on his own goal line. The spot on Jackson's third-and-1 run in the 2nd should have been challenged. It's a critical play, you're trailing, you're in scoring position; it's worth the risk of losing a timeout. Speaking of risk, what the hell was Bulger doing in the game the last minute when you could see from 100 feet away that he could barely stay upright? The excuse I heard was that the clock was running so they couldn't get Kyle Boller in the game. Has anyone on this staff ever heard of the play where you spike the ball to stop the clock? It's legal, you know! They had as much a chance of a comeback with a cold, off-the-bench Boller as they did with an off-his-pins Bulger, without putting anyone's long-term well-being at risk.
Ken Flajole's X's and O's seemed fine this week; execution was the problem. Blitzing Warner up the middle was effective strategy, and the blitz knocked him out of the game. The Rams didn't blitz willy-nilly, either; Flajole generally picked the right times. The Rams got their first sack on a zone blitz – Long was dropped back in coverage – but the zone blitz also got torched; see, Little v. Boldin in the 2nd. The Rams smartly ran away from Adrian Wilson at times but could have rushed more effectively. More outside running could have unclogged the middle, though some of the smoke routes were probably meant to loosen the field. It's been noted the Rams didn't have Mike Karney on the field in many short-yardage situations, pretty dumb unless he was injured. Jackson runs well behind him, and the Rams got him because of past failures on short-yardage downs. John Lynch on Fox lobbied for some play-action in those situations, with Arizona stacking 9 in the box. If nothing else, it would have loosened up future short-yardage downs. Simple is best, but Pat Shurmur still does things too simply sometimes.
* Upon further review: Bill Leavy's crew left plenty to complain about. I've seen nothing to convince me the spot wasn't off by at least half a yard on Jackson's 3rd-and-1 run in the 2nd. It's spotted as no gain, and the Rams don't convert on 4th down, either. Fitzgerald always gets away with pass interference, but what he did to Justin King on his TD bordered on cartoonish. The crowd really, really wanted DPI on DRC on the 4th-down end zone pass to Avery, but seeing it on TiVo, it looks like a fair call. I sure hope the 15-yard penalty on Goldberg, whatever it was, was worth calling at that juncture of a close contest, though I rather doubt it. I'll levy Leavy a C-minus.
* Cheers: Even in a loss to the hated Cardinals, this game had one of my favorite Dome moments. The stadium was eerily, nervously quiet waiting for the Rams to start their potential game-tying drive in the 4th. What should happen to pop up on the video board to break the silence? John Belushi rallying the Deltas. Over? Did someone say, Over? NOTHING IS OVER UNTIL WE DECIDE IT IS! Was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor? Hell no! The crowd went nuts. When Bluto asked, “Because when the going gets tough?” we all yelled back, “The tough get going!” Avery started making plays a minute later and the crowd stayed bonkers. We had our moment, until the Rams failed to convert at the end. Still, more Bluto rallies, please. Who's with me? Let's gooooo.... Up until then, there was little mistaking the crowd's dissatisfaction. The Rams were pretty much booed off the field at halftime, and Spagnuolo's decision to kick the second FG was booed as hard as I've ever heard that booed here. The halftime show was by the stylish Willard (S.W. Mo.) High School Band. The Rams generously bought up 4,000 tickets to put the game on TV, but I doubt three poor quarters and a belated rally will spark much walk-up traffic for Seattle next week. Expect a blackout Sunday and a much-less-detailed-than-usual RamView on Monday.
* Who’s next?: When we last left the Seattle Seahawks, they had just crushed the Rams 35-0 for their NINTH straight win in that series. They looked like they were back on their way to the top of the NFC West after that resounding Opening Day victory. Well, that didn't last long. They've only won twice since, and one of those was pretty much handed to them by the Lions. Seattle's Exhibit A against judging a football team based on one week.
The injury bug's more contagious in Seattle this year than H1N1. The offensive line has struggled all year with injuries and consistency, especially at left tackle, which has been manned by four different players, now by Sean Locklear, just back from a week 2 ankle injury. So Matt Hasselbeck's been taking a real beating. He's played this year with broken ribs and played against Minnesota today despite a dirty shot to the throat from Darnell Dockett last week. Hasselbeck deserves tribute for putting up decent numbers despite that, but he was also a big part of Seattle's red zone problems in their loss to Arizona. Seattle's running game has been mostly terrible. Julius Jones only averages 3.7 a carry because he got to play the Rams once. Really. He's averaged just 3.1 since week 1. The problem for the Rams next week is more likely to be Justin Forsett, a Maurice Jones-Drew-lite averaging 7 yards a touch, hard to find as a rusher and dangerous on screen passes. Seattle's veteran receivers have kept Hasselbeck's season from looking a lot more like Marc Bulger's. T.J. Houshmandzadeh has had big games recently after a slow start. And the Rams know firsthand the damage Nate Burleson and TE John Carlson can do. Seattle is one of just three teams that throws over 40 times a game, and with their ragtag o-line, Hasselbeck should see plenty of pressure if any Ram up front wants to step up and provide some. The ultimate difference-maker, though, may be the Rams keeping coverage breakdowns to an acceptable minimum, which Seattle's deep receiving squad will make difficult.
Injuries haven't left Seattle's defense alone, either. MLB Lofa Tatupu's season ended very early. Both starting corners suffered concussions in Arizona. Marcus Trufant got his concussion in just his third week back from a back injury inflicted in July. Without their shutdown corner, Seattle's defensive stats bear the hallmark of a team playing to take away the deep ball. Their 66.1% completion rate against is one of the worst in the league. But before today, they'd allowed only one completion over 40 yards and were tied for 6th in the league for completions allowed over 20 yards. They can leave their safeties back because, unlike the Rams, they're good up front against the run: 10th in the league at 105 yards per game. Brandon Mebane is a solid anchor at DT. David Hawthorne has filled in capably for Tatupu and is flanked by a lot of LB talent in rookie Aaron Curry (42 tkl) and Ram-killer Leroy Hill. The good news for whoever's QBing next week is that Seattle hasn't been creating much pass pressure with their 4-man rush lately, either. Another Ram-killer, Darryl Tapp, has just one sack this season. If the Rams control the edge rush, they'll force Seattle to blitz, and big plays may result, as long as they execute and pick those blitzes up.
On October 10, 1999, the Ram franchise got a huge monkey off its back with a victory over the 49ers, their first win over San Francisco in nine years, ending a colossal, demoralizing losing streak. With the great weight lifted, the Rams charged ahead to the greatest season in team history. The Rams aren't going to the Super Bowl if they beat Seattle Sunday. But Seahawks are the albatross around the Rams' necks now. They can kill three birds with one stone with a win: the Seattle losing streak, the NFC West losing streak, the home stadium losing streak. Birds, albatrosses, or seahawks, Steve Spagnuolo better be sure his team knows next week is hunting season.
--Mike
Game stats from nfl.com
Monday, November 16, 2009
RamView, November 15, 2009
From Row HH
(Report and opinions from the game.)
Game #9: Saints 28, Rams 23
The winning streak may be over, but after coming within a play of pulling off the biggest upset of the season, the Rams can still hold their heads high. They're on course to winning this kind of game before too long.
* RB: Steven Jackson (26-131 rushing, 9-45 receiving) is that friend you'd call if you get your car stuck in a ditch, except I think Steven would just pick the car up with his bare hands and carry it back up to the road on his back. What a dominating performance today. 30 yards on his first official touch, knifing through the hole, faking out Tracy Porter, spinning off Usama Young's shoulder tackle. Steven had some moves today. He took a play-action pass for 13 after faking Scott Fujita out of his jock. Steven also had some POWER today. It took eight Saints to bring him down at the end of that play. Jackson was everywhere on the Rams' first TD drive: left for 14, up the middle for 8, right for 8... and then he had to save the drive single-handedly. Will Smith's sack of an indecisive Marc Bulger left the ball on the Saint 29 for the whole world to grab, but Jackson swooped in from ten yards away to secure it for the Rams, and Bulger threw a pretty TD pass the next play. Jackson ground out 26 yards up the middle on 3 carries before scoring his 2nd TD of the year from the 2 late in the half. An 8-yard run in the 3rd where he ran over poor teammate Brandon Gibson helped set up a FG, but the Saints successfully limited Jackson most of the 2nd half, holding him to 55 total yards. Bulger tried him a couple of times in the Rams' last attempt to win the game, but Jackson was drawing crowds and was held to short gains. We're seeing the height of what Steven Jackson can do. He can beat a bad team (Detroit) practically by himself. He can keep the Rams in the game with one of the league's best teams for at least a half. 39 is a rock-solid foundation. The Rams need to get enough good pieces around him.
* QB: Marc Bulger (26-40-298, 93.5 rating) had a blockbuster movie type of a game. Very good numbers, a few thrills, but you're left just a little wanting at the end. No doubt some were thinking of disaster movies after Usama Young, making it sound like the terrorists won, picked Bulger off in the end zone in the first. Keenan Burton (who blew out a knee on the play) was open for a split second, but Young played it perfectly and ultimately, Bulger tried to force a throw there he shouldn't have. The Rams drive into scoring position again in the 2nd, and aagh, it looks like another disaster when Bulger fails about three times to unload to Steven Jackson, gets sacked and fumbles. But after Jackson bails him out, Bulger steps up with a dead-perfect 29-yard pass to Donnie Avery, running a corner route to the left pylon, for a game-tying TD. Bulger scrambled around forever in the 3rd before finding Daniel Fells in the middle for 19 to set up a FG. No thanks to dropped passes, the offense stalled several times after that. But with 4:25 left to play, Bulger drove the Rams 80 yards in 1:41 to pull them close. He hit Brandon Gibson (!) and Daniel Fells for 23 apiece before hitting Avery, this time at the right pylon, for a 19-yard TD. Again, it's a pretty pass only Avery could catch, thrown to his back shoulder so he could come back for it. With about 2:00 left, Bulger got a rare-lately chance to win the Rams a game. He made up for his infamous lapse of judgment in Detroit by scrambling for a first down on 2nd-and-4, heading out-of-bounds upright. That and a clutch 4th-down catch by Gibson looked like rallying points. But lacking timeouts, the Rams didn't manage the clock well. They followed an 11-yard pass to Randy McMichael over the middle not with a spike, but with a screen to Jackson for 4 yards, expending a costly 20 seconds. And on third down with 19 seconds left, another middle dumpoff to Jackson comes up short. The Rams rush a Hail Mary play with time expiring, and with Gibson STANDING ALL ALONE on the far sideline, Bulger's bomb into the opposite corner of the end zone is barely even in bounds, and the Rams settle for close-but-no-cigar. Bulger did a lot of good today. He threw well, did a pretty good job of avoiding pressure, and the passing game had good rhythm even after the loss of another receiver. At the same time, the Young INT's on him. The late passes to Jackson, though maybe not all on him, were still questionable. And it really stood out today that Bulger didn't put Jackson in good position to run after the catch. Bulger did put up better numbers today than certain Pro Bowler Drew Brees did. But there were still enough mistakes to keep him from leading the team to a win.
* Receivers: Billy Devaney can find receivers, huh? Brandon Gibson (7-93) stepped off the bench and into the spotlight with an impressive game. The Saints became afraid to line up within even ten yards of him most of the 4th. He juked the safety to turn a short catch into 20 yards in the 3rd. A little later on 3rd-and-9, he twisted out of a tackle and lunged for the first, a veteran-like play. Gibson started the Rams' late TD drive by slipping a tackle and sprinting upfield for 23. Then there was the impressive falling catch he made on 4th-and-4 on the final drive. Good hands, great ability after the catch; quite the coming-out party, though unfortunately, it had to come at the cost of losing Keenan Burton for the season with a knee injury. Donnie Avery (4-67) may have broken out today, pwning Randall Gay on 29- and 19-yard TDs. Good routes by Avery, with impressive footwork and hands on the 2nd one. But hands would be a big problem for the receivers today. The Rams settled for a FG in the 3rd after drops by Avery and Randy McMichael (2-30), his millionth this season. Danny Amendola had a soul-crushing drop on 3rd-and-1 in the 4th. He was open on a shallow cross, and the field opened up for him like the Red Sea for Moses, and then, doink! Daniel Fells (3-51) had big catches on each of the 2nd-half scoring drives but dropped the 2-point attempt after the Rams' last TD. It's true the Saints had three starters out much of the game, but Ram receivers are (finally) getting open and playing with some confidence. Positive steps, but they'd better get a lot closer to Six Sigma certification handswise.
* Offensive line: Even with the starting RG out injured and a rookie manning RT, the Ram offensive line is jelling into a capable unit. Bulger was sacked just twice and Jackson had running room on almost every handoff. Both sacks came in the 2nd quarter. Will Smith stripped Bulger for a fumble early in the quarter after eluding Alex Barron, but Bulger had a couple of chances that play to unload to Jackson. The other sack came late in the half with the pocket breaking down after Jacob Bell appeared to miss his assignment. Not to worry, both drives where Bulger was sacked ended in Ram TDs. Protection was good enough most of the game; the time it needed to be better was the Rams' very last drive, where Bulger was flushed once and hit as he threw a couple of times. That wasn't the line's only difficulty down the stretch, as a series of 3-and-outs threatened to drop the Rams out of contention. Barron false started to kill a late 3rd-quarter drive. Charles Grant punked Jason Smith a couple of times to stuff Jackson and slow up drives. Though timely for New Orleans, those were anomalies. Jackson started the game busting off for 30 off blocks by Karney, Avery and Barron, on the right side in a “heavy” alignment. (That drive ended when Kenneth Darby couldn't handle a Jonathan Vilma blitz.) A big block by Barron got Jackson 14 to start the 2nd. More strong blocking by Barron, and McMichael, helped Jackson convert a 3rd-and-9 late in the half. Jason Brown had a strong game. Anthony Hargrove was not a factor, and Brown threw some good blocks on the Rams' 2nd TD drive. His and Adam Goldberg's surge was key to Jackson's TD plunge. The Ram linemen all blocked well. Bell and Smith had some good moments. Brown and Goldberg impressed in the middle. And Barron is starting to scare me, because his run-blocking has been so eye-opening lately, chances are improving that he'll be back in a Ram uniform next year. Let's also not overlook very solid supporting efforts by McMichael, Karney and Fells. The Ram offensive line is improving to the point now where they can dictate the tempo of the game, and that can only lead to good things.
* Defensive line / LB: You may have noticed the Ram defensive line on Chris Long's MANLY sack of Drew Brees in the 4th quarter. Long drove LT Jermon Bushrod backward right into Brees and took both Saints down in what might have been his most impressive play so far as a pro. If you didn't notice the d-line any other play today, I can't blame you. That was the only sack, Brees was rarely pressured otherwise, and the Saints gouged the Rams for 201 on the ground. Reggie Bush took a 90-flip for 16 on the Saints' first play, as they caught Leonard Little stunting inside. The Saints converted four straight third downs on their first TD drive. The rare times Little even made Brees step up, the QB still had a very solid pocket to step up into, as the Ram DTs were anonymous and invisible today. Saint misdirection killed the Rams again in the 2nd as Robert Meacham took an end-around for 41. Chris Long didn't stay home and Chris Chamberlain ate an inside handoff fake. NO-body out there for the Rams. Bush exploded for 55 off the left side late in the 3rd. Little got blocked, and the RG went right through the gap in the Rams' over formation and picked off James Laurinaitis. That run was right at C.J. Ah You, a big liability against the run when they line him up inside as a pass rusher. Laurinaitis looked good in coverage but only had 4 tackles. The Saints went up 28-17 in the 4th on Brees' TD pass to Meacham where there was no Ram WITHIN FIVE YARDS of Brees when he threw. Brees is a tougher sack target because he throws a lot off half-rolls, but this was ridiculous. The Rams weren't even getting close enough to Brees to violate a restraining order. Except for Long's sack, the best they could do was make him step up, sometimes. Pressure from Little did help force Brees' 2nd INT, and the D did turn up the dial late in the game. After Little batted down a pass in the 4th, a special teams penalty on Dahl emboldened the Saints to go for it on 4th-and-2. But LaJuan (WHO?) Ramsey and Paris Lenon stuffed a fullback handoff that had worked for 8 earlier in the game. Long's sack got the Rams the ball back for a TD drive. And after an onside kick failed, Cliff Ryan's run stuff on 2nd down helped get the Rams the ball back one last time. The Rams didn't seem to commit extra people to the box; you almost want to cut them some slack for the 201 rushing yards, a decent chunk of which didn't lead to scores. But the front four has to be far more solid than they looked today. When the Saints do lose a game, Brees will be sacked more than once and pressured more than a handful of times.
* Secondary: I wouldn't have picked Jeremy Shockey as the focal point of the Saint passing game, but the Rams appeared determined to keep him in check today, and succeeded. He was just 3-42, and with Marques Colston just a shocking 2-17, the Rams were able to limit Drew Brees to just 223 yards despite the lack of pass pressure. David Vobora set the tone at LB in the 1st by lighting up Shockey as a pass arrived, with Oshiomogho Atogwe collecting the rebound for an INT. Brees' 2nd INT was also intended for Shockey, in the 3rd, but James Laurinaitis had the TE blanketed and James Butler fielded the overthrow, returned to the Ram 40 and humorously went into the fetal position he should have stayed in in the Ford Field end zone two weeks ago. Atogwe saved a TD the next possession by headbutting the ball out of Colston's hands at the goal line; it rolled out of bounds in the end zone for a Rams touchback. For all that, the Rams hurt themselves by forgetting about H-back David Thomas (5-45). Despite getting drilled by Atogwe for a near fumble, he converted two of the four third downs on the Saints' first TD drive, helped by terrible tackling by Justin King. He came out of the backfield completely uncovered (again) for 16 during the Saints' 4th TD drive, capped by a perfect Brees throw to Robert Meacham, beating both James and Quincy Butler. Playing the role of goal-line hurdle, Atogwe got flattened by Colston on Bush's TD run. Craig Dahl got burned by Bush on his TD catch. Bush faked right then ran a drag left, and Dahl was never, ever, ever going to catch him. I'd say the Rams achieved a lot of their goals against New Orleans. They limited Shockey and Colston and kept Brees' yardage down. But this game was a matter of the Saints having just too many weapons.
* Special teams: Just when you think special teams have turned a corner – bang! they played a pivotal negative role today. The turning point of the game was the start of the second half, when Courtney Roby – seriously, Courtney Roby? - returned the kickoff 97 yards to put the Saints up 21-14. He got a run at the ball falling short of the goal line, good Saint blocking negated two Rams rightside defenders to give him a lane, K.C. Asiodu got decleated, opening the lane wider, Josh Brown ain't Jeff Wilkins in the tackling department, and Roby's gone and the Saints are back in charge. Brown's next kickoff was deep into the end zone for a touchback, and thanks for thinking of doing that a touchdown late, geniuses. The week off appeared to hurt Donnie Jones more than it helped. None of his punts had anything on them and he averaged just 36 yards per boot. His first punt, from just across midfield, came down at the Saints' 25. Yay, you pinned them inside their 30! Big advantage to the Saints today on special teams.
* Coaching: End-of-game time management looms large today. The Rams expended a timeout at the 2:50 mark after a 23-yard pass to Fells. My guess is Steve Spagnuolo was concerned about the offense getting lined back up for the next play in time. The timeout was followed immediately by a TD, so it was successful, if costly, because they spent only two timeouts getting the ball back from the Saints. And with no TO's left the last 2:00, they did almost nothing but throw over the middle. After the completion to McMichael with 0:42 left, the best move is a spike. But you can't spike out of shotgun formation, which is where they kept Bulger, and a screen pass will NEVER be worth TWENTY seconds in this situation, but away it goes, for four whole yards. Bulger didn't get out of shotgun the entire drive. There was no way he was going to improvise a spike play. Pat Shurmur's supposed to watch the clock, too; he needed to order up a spike, but I guess he got too caught up getting Bulger multiple play calls and/or trying to bleed time off the clock so the Saints couldn't have any if the Rams scored. Bulger probably should have thrown it away instead of hitting Jackson the second time. Either way, the Rams tried to cut the endgame way too fine, and they're much too wet behind the ears to try that. Hell, look at how big an idiot Belichick made out of himself in Indianapolis last night trying it. Right now the Rams need to worry about scoring, period, in late-game situations before they move on to more advanced material. Another problem for Shurmur today was the offense again failing to get back out of the blocks after halftime. Both Jackson after the game and D'Marco Farr during the game mentioned alignment and stunting changes the Saints made after halftime. A rookie coordinator's going to get outschemed by Gregg Williams, and there was a lot right with today's offense, in balance, distribution and catching the Saints in defenses they wanted to catch them in. But the halftime letdown is still a Shurmur trend.
I believe Ken Flajole's strategy today was to keep men back in coverage and blitz very little. It's an understandable strategy against that passing attack, and the Rams held the Saints to a season “low” 28 points, and Brees to a very modest 223 yards. But they got gashed on the ground for 201, put very little pressure on the QB, and still lost. Spagnuolo and Flajole have to realize by now that their front four guys aren't going to get it done without help. The conservatism of the Ram offense has chafed at a lot of Rams Nation this year, but I'm not sure that the conservatism on defense hasn't been worse. Was this the defense you expected? Bailing out at the snap? Playing pass prevent on 1st-and-goal at the 3? Maybe I'm just too impatient to wait out a talent upgrade, but the best this defensive approach was going to achieve today was to slow the Saints down. It was never going to beat them.
* Upon further review: The home crowd wanted a lot of calls today we didn't get. Unfortunately for us, Gene Steratore and crew got the calls right. We wanted a fumble when David Thomas got flipped and lost the ball. His arm hit the ground first, though. Wanted DPI on that weird cross-field throw to McMichael that Roman Harper broke up. Well, Harper was playing the ball. Wanted roughing when Tracy Porter fell on a prone Jackson after a good run. Nope, Jason Brown blocked him into Jackson. I don't know why the call on Jackson's TD run took so long, but they got it right, and they also called Gibson's 4th-down scoop on the final drive correctly without replay. Probably the best-officiated Rams game of the season. They sure out-reffed the crowd, at least. A-minus.
* Cheers: It took an extra day extension from the league and an infusion of, um, shall we say exuberant Saints fans, but the game did sell out, and the crowd was very good. St. Louis has got nothing to be embarrassed about when they've got 50,000-plus showing up for a 1-7 team. The crowd was great, too, at least until special teams killed the mood right after halftime. From my sampling, Saint fans can pride themselves on making today's the drunkest, fightingest crowd of the year. Who dat, indeed. Military was the theme of the day, from the dog tag giveaway to Navy officer / gospel singer Generald Wilson nailing the National Anthem, to the traditional parade pass at halftime. Guess I can't complain about that, though it sure couldn't have cost the Rams much to put on.
* Who’s next?: Of all the streaks in all the football joints in all the towns in all the world, this one has to come back into mine. The bane of my football existence, Bill Bidwill's Big Dead, return to St. Louis next week not only having beaten the Rams five times in a row, they've won four straight in the Dome. So worthless Bidwill has more success with his franchise as the visitors in St. Louis than he ever did in 28 incompetent years here as the home team!
One trend in this series the Rams have to break is their proclivity to give up touchdowns to the Big Dead defense. Arizona has scored 6 defensive TDs in the last five games against the Rams, 5 of them on INT returns. But instead of arguing that the Rams' receivers and offensive linemen need to become better tacklers, let's take the tack that facing Arizona puts extra emphasis on the Rams to try to win with their usual offensive M.O. There's just one problem. Arizona's pretty much shut Steven Jackson down the last three meetings, and they entered this past week with the #3 run defense in the league, and their now 3-4 D under new coordinator Bill Davis has gone from the bottom of the league to the top in points allowed and third down conversions. And they lead the league in runs stuffed (per Football Outsiders), led by super safety Adrian Wilson. Carolina, though, gashed them for about 250 by lining a slot receiver up on one side, to take a defender out of the box, and running behind the tight end to the other side. NFL.com sure makes it sound easy, anyway, and seeing Billy Bajema or Mike Karney picking off Wilson all day would be a sight for sore eyes as far as this rivalry goes. Jackson should be a dangerous receiver next week either way. Arizona's aggression makes them vulnerable to screens and short passes, and a great way to defuse Wilson and Arizona's aggressive LB corps is to make them cover people downfield. The Rams'll enter this showdown at least with some outs; will they hit one this time or get flushed down the river they way they have been?
Speaking of things the Rams need to hit, another crushing trend of this series has been their inability to pressure Kurt Warner. They've sacked Kurt three times in the last four meetings and given Larry Fitzgerald and Anquan Boldin more time than they'll ever need to get open. Opponents have slowed Arizona down a little by dropping their safeties back to take away the Warner-to-Fitzgerald deep game and daring the Big Dead, with their typically bottom-of-the-league rushing game, to run on them. For the Rams to make that work, they'd better defend the run a LOT better than the last time Arizona was here, when Tim Hightower and J.J. Arrington rolled them for 170 yards. The Rams did hold that same pair to 54 yards in Arizona last December, so there's reason for hope, though rookie Beanie Wells is emerging as a big upgrade to the out-of-the-league Arrington. But that won't be enough reason for hope if the Rams don't put serious pressure on Warner for a change. More than even Jackson this week, the Rams have to get a winning effort from their defensive front. Not a very promising prospect after today.
I've said before the Rams would be improved over last year just because they changed coaches. Jim Haslett's defenses failed for three years to put much pressure on Warner. Steve Spagnuolo's here because of past brilliance pressuring the QB. Unleash the hounds, coach. This is the perfect week for an underdog playing with more intensity to knock off a talented, yet inconsistent, favorite. If Spagnuolo combines a good defensive game plan with 53 players rockin' right out of the locker room next Sunday, he can certainly catch Arizona by surprise. It's time to draw a line in the sand in this rivalry. The Rams need to let Bidwill's boys know that when they step off the plane in St. Louis, they're not stepping on a doormat any more – they're stepping into a snakepit.
--Mike
Game stats from nfl.com
From Row HH
(Report and opinions from the game.)
Game #9: Saints 28, Rams 23
The winning streak may be over, but after coming within a play of pulling off the biggest upset of the season, the Rams can still hold their heads high. They're on course to winning this kind of game before too long.
* RB: Steven Jackson (26-131 rushing, 9-45 receiving) is that friend you'd call if you get your car stuck in a ditch, except I think Steven would just pick the car up with his bare hands and carry it back up to the road on his back. What a dominating performance today. 30 yards on his first official touch, knifing through the hole, faking out Tracy Porter, spinning off Usama Young's shoulder tackle. Steven had some moves today. He took a play-action pass for 13 after faking Scott Fujita out of his jock. Steven also had some POWER today. It took eight Saints to bring him down at the end of that play. Jackson was everywhere on the Rams' first TD drive: left for 14, up the middle for 8, right for 8... and then he had to save the drive single-handedly. Will Smith's sack of an indecisive Marc Bulger left the ball on the Saint 29 for the whole world to grab, but Jackson swooped in from ten yards away to secure it for the Rams, and Bulger threw a pretty TD pass the next play. Jackson ground out 26 yards up the middle on 3 carries before scoring his 2nd TD of the year from the 2 late in the half. An 8-yard run in the 3rd where he ran over poor teammate Brandon Gibson helped set up a FG, but the Saints successfully limited Jackson most of the 2nd half, holding him to 55 total yards. Bulger tried him a couple of times in the Rams' last attempt to win the game, but Jackson was drawing crowds and was held to short gains. We're seeing the height of what Steven Jackson can do. He can beat a bad team (Detroit) practically by himself. He can keep the Rams in the game with one of the league's best teams for at least a half. 39 is a rock-solid foundation. The Rams need to get enough good pieces around him.
* QB: Marc Bulger (26-40-298, 93.5 rating) had a blockbuster movie type of a game. Very good numbers, a few thrills, but you're left just a little wanting at the end. No doubt some were thinking of disaster movies after Usama Young, making it sound like the terrorists won, picked Bulger off in the end zone in the first. Keenan Burton (who blew out a knee on the play) was open for a split second, but Young played it perfectly and ultimately, Bulger tried to force a throw there he shouldn't have. The Rams drive into scoring position again in the 2nd, and aagh, it looks like another disaster when Bulger fails about three times to unload to Steven Jackson, gets sacked and fumbles. But after Jackson bails him out, Bulger steps up with a dead-perfect 29-yard pass to Donnie Avery, running a corner route to the left pylon, for a game-tying TD. Bulger scrambled around forever in the 3rd before finding Daniel Fells in the middle for 19 to set up a FG. No thanks to dropped passes, the offense stalled several times after that. But with 4:25 left to play, Bulger drove the Rams 80 yards in 1:41 to pull them close. He hit Brandon Gibson (!) and Daniel Fells for 23 apiece before hitting Avery, this time at the right pylon, for a 19-yard TD. Again, it's a pretty pass only Avery could catch, thrown to his back shoulder so he could come back for it. With about 2:00 left, Bulger got a rare-lately chance to win the Rams a game. He made up for his infamous lapse of judgment in Detroit by scrambling for a first down on 2nd-and-4, heading out-of-bounds upright. That and a clutch 4th-down catch by Gibson looked like rallying points. But lacking timeouts, the Rams didn't manage the clock well. They followed an 11-yard pass to Randy McMichael over the middle not with a spike, but with a screen to Jackson for 4 yards, expending a costly 20 seconds. And on third down with 19 seconds left, another middle dumpoff to Jackson comes up short. The Rams rush a Hail Mary play with time expiring, and with Gibson STANDING ALL ALONE on the far sideline, Bulger's bomb into the opposite corner of the end zone is barely even in bounds, and the Rams settle for close-but-no-cigar. Bulger did a lot of good today. He threw well, did a pretty good job of avoiding pressure, and the passing game had good rhythm even after the loss of another receiver. At the same time, the Young INT's on him. The late passes to Jackson, though maybe not all on him, were still questionable. And it really stood out today that Bulger didn't put Jackson in good position to run after the catch. Bulger did put up better numbers today than certain Pro Bowler Drew Brees did. But there were still enough mistakes to keep him from leading the team to a win.
* Receivers: Billy Devaney can find receivers, huh? Brandon Gibson (7-93) stepped off the bench and into the spotlight with an impressive game. The Saints became afraid to line up within even ten yards of him most of the 4th. He juked the safety to turn a short catch into 20 yards in the 3rd. A little later on 3rd-and-9, he twisted out of a tackle and lunged for the first, a veteran-like play. Gibson started the Rams' late TD drive by slipping a tackle and sprinting upfield for 23. Then there was the impressive falling catch he made on 4th-and-4 on the final drive. Good hands, great ability after the catch; quite the coming-out party, though unfortunately, it had to come at the cost of losing Keenan Burton for the season with a knee injury. Donnie Avery (4-67) may have broken out today, pwning Randall Gay on 29- and 19-yard TDs. Good routes by Avery, with impressive footwork and hands on the 2nd one. But hands would be a big problem for the receivers today. The Rams settled for a FG in the 3rd after drops by Avery and Randy McMichael (2-30), his millionth this season. Danny Amendola had a soul-crushing drop on 3rd-and-1 in the 4th. He was open on a shallow cross, and the field opened up for him like the Red Sea for Moses, and then, doink! Daniel Fells (3-51) had big catches on each of the 2nd-half scoring drives but dropped the 2-point attempt after the Rams' last TD. It's true the Saints had three starters out much of the game, but Ram receivers are (finally) getting open and playing with some confidence. Positive steps, but they'd better get a lot closer to Six Sigma certification handswise.
* Offensive line: Even with the starting RG out injured and a rookie manning RT, the Ram offensive line is jelling into a capable unit. Bulger was sacked just twice and Jackson had running room on almost every handoff. Both sacks came in the 2nd quarter. Will Smith stripped Bulger for a fumble early in the quarter after eluding Alex Barron, but Bulger had a couple of chances that play to unload to Jackson. The other sack came late in the half with the pocket breaking down after Jacob Bell appeared to miss his assignment. Not to worry, both drives where Bulger was sacked ended in Ram TDs. Protection was good enough most of the game; the time it needed to be better was the Rams' very last drive, where Bulger was flushed once and hit as he threw a couple of times. That wasn't the line's only difficulty down the stretch, as a series of 3-and-outs threatened to drop the Rams out of contention. Barron false started to kill a late 3rd-quarter drive. Charles Grant punked Jason Smith a couple of times to stuff Jackson and slow up drives. Though timely for New Orleans, those were anomalies. Jackson started the game busting off for 30 off blocks by Karney, Avery and Barron, on the right side in a “heavy” alignment. (That drive ended when Kenneth Darby couldn't handle a Jonathan Vilma blitz.) A big block by Barron got Jackson 14 to start the 2nd. More strong blocking by Barron, and McMichael, helped Jackson convert a 3rd-and-9 late in the half. Jason Brown had a strong game. Anthony Hargrove was not a factor, and Brown threw some good blocks on the Rams' 2nd TD drive. His and Adam Goldberg's surge was key to Jackson's TD plunge. The Ram linemen all blocked well. Bell and Smith had some good moments. Brown and Goldberg impressed in the middle. And Barron is starting to scare me, because his run-blocking has been so eye-opening lately, chances are improving that he'll be back in a Ram uniform next year. Let's also not overlook very solid supporting efforts by McMichael, Karney and Fells. The Ram offensive line is improving to the point now where they can dictate the tempo of the game, and that can only lead to good things.
* Defensive line / LB: You may have noticed the Ram defensive line on Chris Long's MANLY sack of Drew Brees in the 4th quarter. Long drove LT Jermon Bushrod backward right into Brees and took both Saints down in what might have been his most impressive play so far as a pro. If you didn't notice the d-line any other play today, I can't blame you. That was the only sack, Brees was rarely pressured otherwise, and the Saints gouged the Rams for 201 on the ground. Reggie Bush took a 90-flip for 16 on the Saints' first play, as they caught Leonard Little stunting inside. The Saints converted four straight third downs on their first TD drive. The rare times Little even made Brees step up, the QB still had a very solid pocket to step up into, as the Ram DTs were anonymous and invisible today. Saint misdirection killed the Rams again in the 2nd as Robert Meacham took an end-around for 41. Chris Long didn't stay home and Chris Chamberlain ate an inside handoff fake. NO-body out there for the Rams. Bush exploded for 55 off the left side late in the 3rd. Little got blocked, and the RG went right through the gap in the Rams' over formation and picked off James Laurinaitis. That run was right at C.J. Ah You, a big liability against the run when they line him up inside as a pass rusher. Laurinaitis looked good in coverage but only had 4 tackles. The Saints went up 28-17 in the 4th on Brees' TD pass to Meacham where there was no Ram WITHIN FIVE YARDS of Brees when he threw. Brees is a tougher sack target because he throws a lot off half-rolls, but this was ridiculous. The Rams weren't even getting close enough to Brees to violate a restraining order. Except for Long's sack, the best they could do was make him step up, sometimes. Pressure from Little did help force Brees' 2nd INT, and the D did turn up the dial late in the game. After Little batted down a pass in the 4th, a special teams penalty on Dahl emboldened the Saints to go for it on 4th-and-2. But LaJuan (WHO?) Ramsey and Paris Lenon stuffed a fullback handoff that had worked for 8 earlier in the game. Long's sack got the Rams the ball back for a TD drive. And after an onside kick failed, Cliff Ryan's run stuff on 2nd down helped get the Rams the ball back one last time. The Rams didn't seem to commit extra people to the box; you almost want to cut them some slack for the 201 rushing yards, a decent chunk of which didn't lead to scores. But the front four has to be far more solid than they looked today. When the Saints do lose a game, Brees will be sacked more than once and pressured more than a handful of times.
* Secondary: I wouldn't have picked Jeremy Shockey as the focal point of the Saint passing game, but the Rams appeared determined to keep him in check today, and succeeded. He was just 3-42, and with Marques Colston just a shocking 2-17, the Rams were able to limit Drew Brees to just 223 yards despite the lack of pass pressure. David Vobora set the tone at LB in the 1st by lighting up Shockey as a pass arrived, with Oshiomogho Atogwe collecting the rebound for an INT. Brees' 2nd INT was also intended for Shockey, in the 3rd, but James Laurinaitis had the TE blanketed and James Butler fielded the overthrow, returned to the Ram 40 and humorously went into the fetal position he should have stayed in in the Ford Field end zone two weeks ago. Atogwe saved a TD the next possession by headbutting the ball out of Colston's hands at the goal line; it rolled out of bounds in the end zone for a Rams touchback. For all that, the Rams hurt themselves by forgetting about H-back David Thomas (5-45). Despite getting drilled by Atogwe for a near fumble, he converted two of the four third downs on the Saints' first TD drive, helped by terrible tackling by Justin King. He came out of the backfield completely uncovered (again) for 16 during the Saints' 4th TD drive, capped by a perfect Brees throw to Robert Meacham, beating both James and Quincy Butler. Playing the role of goal-line hurdle, Atogwe got flattened by Colston on Bush's TD run. Craig Dahl got burned by Bush on his TD catch. Bush faked right then ran a drag left, and Dahl was never, ever, ever going to catch him. I'd say the Rams achieved a lot of their goals against New Orleans. They limited Shockey and Colston and kept Brees' yardage down. But this game was a matter of the Saints having just too many weapons.
* Special teams: Just when you think special teams have turned a corner – bang! they played a pivotal negative role today. The turning point of the game was the start of the second half, when Courtney Roby – seriously, Courtney Roby? - returned the kickoff 97 yards to put the Saints up 21-14. He got a run at the ball falling short of the goal line, good Saint blocking negated two Rams rightside defenders to give him a lane, K.C. Asiodu got decleated, opening the lane wider, Josh Brown ain't Jeff Wilkins in the tackling department, and Roby's gone and the Saints are back in charge. Brown's next kickoff was deep into the end zone for a touchback, and thanks for thinking of doing that a touchdown late, geniuses. The week off appeared to hurt Donnie Jones more than it helped. None of his punts had anything on them and he averaged just 36 yards per boot. His first punt, from just across midfield, came down at the Saints' 25. Yay, you pinned them inside their 30! Big advantage to the Saints today on special teams.
* Coaching: End-of-game time management looms large today. The Rams expended a timeout at the 2:50 mark after a 23-yard pass to Fells. My guess is Steve Spagnuolo was concerned about the offense getting lined back up for the next play in time. The timeout was followed immediately by a TD, so it was successful, if costly, because they spent only two timeouts getting the ball back from the Saints. And with no TO's left the last 2:00, they did almost nothing but throw over the middle. After the completion to McMichael with 0:42 left, the best move is a spike. But you can't spike out of shotgun formation, which is where they kept Bulger, and a screen pass will NEVER be worth TWENTY seconds in this situation, but away it goes, for four whole yards. Bulger didn't get out of shotgun the entire drive. There was no way he was going to improvise a spike play. Pat Shurmur's supposed to watch the clock, too; he needed to order up a spike, but I guess he got too caught up getting Bulger multiple play calls and/or trying to bleed time off the clock so the Saints couldn't have any if the Rams scored. Bulger probably should have thrown it away instead of hitting Jackson the second time. Either way, the Rams tried to cut the endgame way too fine, and they're much too wet behind the ears to try that. Hell, look at how big an idiot Belichick made out of himself in Indianapolis last night trying it. Right now the Rams need to worry about scoring, period, in late-game situations before they move on to more advanced material. Another problem for Shurmur today was the offense again failing to get back out of the blocks after halftime. Both Jackson after the game and D'Marco Farr during the game mentioned alignment and stunting changes the Saints made after halftime. A rookie coordinator's going to get outschemed by Gregg Williams, and there was a lot right with today's offense, in balance, distribution and catching the Saints in defenses they wanted to catch them in. But the halftime letdown is still a Shurmur trend.
I believe Ken Flajole's strategy today was to keep men back in coverage and blitz very little. It's an understandable strategy against that passing attack, and the Rams held the Saints to a season “low” 28 points, and Brees to a very modest 223 yards. But they got gashed on the ground for 201, put very little pressure on the QB, and still lost. Spagnuolo and Flajole have to realize by now that their front four guys aren't going to get it done without help. The conservatism of the Ram offense has chafed at a lot of Rams Nation this year, but I'm not sure that the conservatism on defense hasn't been worse. Was this the defense you expected? Bailing out at the snap? Playing pass prevent on 1st-and-goal at the 3? Maybe I'm just too impatient to wait out a talent upgrade, but the best this defensive approach was going to achieve today was to slow the Saints down. It was never going to beat them.
* Upon further review: The home crowd wanted a lot of calls today we didn't get. Unfortunately for us, Gene Steratore and crew got the calls right. We wanted a fumble when David Thomas got flipped and lost the ball. His arm hit the ground first, though. Wanted DPI on that weird cross-field throw to McMichael that Roman Harper broke up. Well, Harper was playing the ball. Wanted roughing when Tracy Porter fell on a prone Jackson after a good run. Nope, Jason Brown blocked him into Jackson. I don't know why the call on Jackson's TD run took so long, but they got it right, and they also called Gibson's 4th-down scoop on the final drive correctly without replay. Probably the best-officiated Rams game of the season. They sure out-reffed the crowd, at least. A-minus.
* Cheers: It took an extra day extension from the league and an infusion of, um, shall we say exuberant Saints fans, but the game did sell out, and the crowd was very good. St. Louis has got nothing to be embarrassed about when they've got 50,000-plus showing up for a 1-7 team. The crowd was great, too, at least until special teams killed the mood right after halftime. From my sampling, Saint fans can pride themselves on making today's the drunkest, fightingest crowd of the year. Who dat, indeed. Military was the theme of the day, from the dog tag giveaway to Navy officer / gospel singer Generald Wilson nailing the National Anthem, to the traditional parade pass at halftime. Guess I can't complain about that, though it sure couldn't have cost the Rams much to put on.
* Who’s next?: Of all the streaks in all the football joints in all the towns in all the world, this one has to come back into mine. The bane of my football existence, Bill Bidwill's Big Dead, return to St. Louis next week not only having beaten the Rams five times in a row, they've won four straight in the Dome. So worthless Bidwill has more success with his franchise as the visitors in St. Louis than he ever did in 28 incompetent years here as the home team!
One trend in this series the Rams have to break is their proclivity to give up touchdowns to the Big Dead defense. Arizona has scored 6 defensive TDs in the last five games against the Rams, 5 of them on INT returns. But instead of arguing that the Rams' receivers and offensive linemen need to become better tacklers, let's take the tack that facing Arizona puts extra emphasis on the Rams to try to win with their usual offensive M.O. There's just one problem. Arizona's pretty much shut Steven Jackson down the last three meetings, and they entered this past week with the #3 run defense in the league, and their now 3-4 D under new coordinator Bill Davis has gone from the bottom of the league to the top in points allowed and third down conversions. And they lead the league in runs stuffed (per Football Outsiders), led by super safety Adrian Wilson. Carolina, though, gashed them for about 250 by lining a slot receiver up on one side, to take a defender out of the box, and running behind the tight end to the other side. NFL.com sure makes it sound easy, anyway, and seeing Billy Bajema or Mike Karney picking off Wilson all day would be a sight for sore eyes as far as this rivalry goes. Jackson should be a dangerous receiver next week either way. Arizona's aggression makes them vulnerable to screens and short passes, and a great way to defuse Wilson and Arizona's aggressive LB corps is to make them cover people downfield. The Rams'll enter this showdown at least with some outs; will they hit one this time or get flushed down the river they way they have been?
Speaking of things the Rams need to hit, another crushing trend of this series has been their inability to pressure Kurt Warner. They've sacked Kurt three times in the last four meetings and given Larry Fitzgerald and Anquan Boldin more time than they'll ever need to get open. Opponents have slowed Arizona down a little by dropping their safeties back to take away the Warner-to-Fitzgerald deep game and daring the Big Dead, with their typically bottom-of-the-league rushing game, to run on them. For the Rams to make that work, they'd better defend the run a LOT better than the last time Arizona was here, when Tim Hightower and J.J. Arrington rolled them for 170 yards. The Rams did hold that same pair to 54 yards in Arizona last December, so there's reason for hope, though rookie Beanie Wells is emerging as a big upgrade to the out-of-the-league Arrington. But that won't be enough reason for hope if the Rams don't put serious pressure on Warner for a change. More than even Jackson this week, the Rams have to get a winning effort from their defensive front. Not a very promising prospect after today.
I've said before the Rams would be improved over last year just because they changed coaches. Jim Haslett's defenses failed for three years to put much pressure on Warner. Steve Spagnuolo's here because of past brilliance pressuring the QB. Unleash the hounds, coach. This is the perfect week for an underdog playing with more intensity to knock off a talented, yet inconsistent, favorite. If Spagnuolo combines a good defensive game plan with 53 players rockin' right out of the locker room next Sunday, he can certainly catch Arizona by surprise. It's time to draw a line in the sand in this rivalry. The Rams need to let Bidwill's boys know that when they step off the plane in St. Louis, they're not stepping on a doormat any more – they're stepping into a snakepit.
--Mike
Game stats from nfl.com
Monday, November 2, 2009
RamView, November 1, 2009
From The Couch
(Report and opinions on the game.)
Game #8: RAMS 17, Lions 10
On the occasion of the Rams' first win in 378 days, here's some George Frideric Handel:
Rams Nation, our long, long national nightmare is over. Riding their superstar RB, the Rams won, yes, I said WON, a battle of bad football attrition over the dreadful Detroit Lions. The 2008 Lions' 0-16 is safe. The expansion Bucs' 0-26 is safe. Steve Spagnuolo's Rams have slain their first dragon. Savor the bye week, Rams Nation. Savor it well.
* RB: One player can't win a football game by himself, can he? One man can't beat eleven, can he? Are you sure? Steven Jackson (22-149) was like Bruce Lee in Enter the Dragon today. No matter how many henchmen (in blue and silver) you threw at him, he was going to kick their asses. We probably could have taken our cue from the way Jackson shoved the DT out of the way on his first rush of the game, but until 3:00 before halftime, it looked like he might have a slow day. But right then, from the Rams 9, he cut inside Alex Barron's block, slipped a DB at the 14, crashed into Jason Brown trying to drive a LB out of his way, and pushed him forward. Louis Delmas slid off him at the 19, and by the time Julian Peterson came and Jackson dragged him 6 yards, Steven had a 26-yard gain and lit the fuse to an unusual TD drive. He began building a head of steam late in the 3rd, with 9- and 7-yard runs to kick off a drive that Marc Bulger killed with an INT. Still, Jackson looked ready to take over the game at any time. He took a slant near midfield and ran through Delmas and Ernie Sims for half of a 12-yard gain the next drive, but that also died at Bulger's hand. Jackson saved the Rams a safety in the 4th. He broke a tackle at the goal line, broke another with help from Billy Bajema, punked Ko Simpson to the ground with a stiffarm and got the Rams breathing room out to the 13. Detroit stopped that drive, but Jackson had saved his best work for last. Game tied at 10, 2:00 left, Rams at the Lions' 42. Jackson thunders up the middle behind Mike Karney, runs over the poor umpire, and drags defenders five yards down to the 25. If Jackson had charged fare for all the Lions who took rides on him today, he could have retired wealthy on Monday. His next carry, though, was express all the way. He runs right, around Daniel Fells' dominating block, Delmas whiffs on him in the hole, and Steven is gone. A couple of Lions offered chase, but once Jackson hit the 10, Usain Bolt wasn't catching him on this run. Jackson FTW!
* QB: Jackson saved Marc Bulger's bacon after a frustratingly poor game, 17-35-176, passer rating 51.6. Bulger's had problems this year with protection and subpar receivers, but those issues were minimal today and he still almost blew the game, against one of the league's worst defenses. His decision-making looked strong early, as he hit Keenan Burton for 22 and Donnie Avery for 15 to spark a game-opening FG drive. After settling for that, the offense settled for useless short passes on 3rd-and-long until special teams lightning struck for a TD right before halftime to give the Rams a 10-2 lead. No coffee for Bulger at the team meeting tomorrow, though. Coffee is for closers. Bulger blew many opportunities to put the Lions away. Overthrowing an open Avery on a bomb in the 3rd. Scrambling in the open field on 3rd-and-6 later and sliding a yard short of the first down. After Randy McMichael dropped a red zone TD pass the next drive, Bulger stuck a fork in it. He threw a flat pass for Jackson, possibly thinking DE Dewayne White fell out of the play, but White bounced up instead and picked it off. Just sloppy. After Detroit tied the game, Bulger answered by getting a pass blocked at the line for the second time to end a drive at midfield. The Rams got the ball back with about 2:00 left, and Bulger started that drive by getting a pass batted down before Jackson took over. Are you 6'3” or 5'3”? Some good defense by Delmas broke up several passes, and receivers dropped a couple. But they were also more open today than they've been all year. Pass protection was the best it's been all year. The running game was powerful. And Bulger still blew ample opportunities. He hung McMichael out to dry a couple of times. His accuracy on shorter passes looked really shoddy. In short, the Rams won today despite Marc Bulger. There are other offensive issues, but the starting QB's game is not in a good place.
* Receivers: Tight ends were targeted a lot, with mixed results. Randy McMichael (2-16) could have had two TDs. Louis Delmas knocked him into next week at the goal line to break up one; McMichael dropped the other, a catch an NFL TE has to make, at the front right pylon in the 4th. McMichael did draw a DPI critical to the Rams' decisive TD drive. Daniel Fells (1-36) was all alone downfield for the Rams' first TD, making the easy catch and stiffarming Cliff Avril to the ground to stun Detroit right before halftime. Well, the stunner was that Josh Brown, not Bulger, threw Fells the pass, on a fake FG attempt. Billy Bajema (2-43), of all people, made a nice grab of a ball thrown behind him and beat the safety downfield for 27 in the 4th. Keenan Burton (5-54) was the leading receiver, but in a familiar pattern, the Rams went to him a lot early, he made nice catches and showed the best YAC ability on the team, and the offense then forgot about him most of the rest of the game. His sliding, spinning, Curly-Howard-style 8-yard catch kept the Rams' game-winning drive moving forward. Danny Amendola (1-13) wasn't a factor and missed the 4th quarter after getting injured on a kick return. Also a non-factor: Donnie Avery (1-15), who dropped as many as he caught. Hopefully Avery will pull it together during the bye week; this sure has been a lost season so far.
* Offensive line: Jackson didn't really win the game by himself, of course. The offensive line played its best game in perhaps three years. They paved the way for Jackson's 147 yards. Bulger not only wasn't sacked; he was rarely even touched and got forever to throw at times. Alex Barron may have had his best game as a Ram. Julian Peterson beat him a couple of times early, but Alex was solid otherwise. I can't remember a game where so many successful runs came off of Barron blocks. Jason Smith played well, delivering some punishing run blocks and keeping speed rushes directed behind Bulger for the most part. There were plays where the Lions just quit rushing because the Rams had them stymied, with Barron and Smith looking around for guys to hit. It's been a long time since the Ram offensive line so resembled a wall. Jackson got blocks from Barron, Jason Brown and all three WRs on his 26-yard run before halftime. Most of the tight end blocking was terrific. Fells dumped a Lion on his butt to give Bulger time on the 15-yard completion to Avery in the 1st, and he sealed the right edge but good on Jackson's winning TD run. Right before that run, Jackson got good blocks from Brown, Adam Goldberg (RG for injured Richie Incognito) and Mark Setterstrom (LG for injured Jacob Bell) on a 17-yard blast up the middle. Bajema blocked two Lions to help Jackson get out of the end zone on the near-safety in the 4th. Setterstrom got beat on that play, but line breakdowns were few and far between. Larry Foote blitzed between Fells and Bell to drop Jackson for a 4-yard loss in the 2nd. But that was about it. The Lion d-line may not present the highest level of difficulty, but the Ram offensive line dominated the trenches today and have earned themselves at least a couple of nice steaks during their week off.
* Defensive line / LB: A win for the Ram defense today despite an ugly start. They didn't really stop the run; Detroit ran for 127, and killed Ram blitzes with screen passes for at least another 68 yards. They put very little pressure on Matthew Stafford until late in the game despite Detroit's bad offensive line. They couldn't stop a cutback run to save their lives. The Lions ran through them like crap through a goose in the first half but killed every drive themselves with brutal dropped passes or penalties. Leger Douzable (!) may have been the star of the first half, with a couple of tackles for loss, but his linemates didn't make them stand up. Aaron Brown ran around Chris Long for 11 late in the 1st as TE Will Heller dominated Long at the point of attack. Kevin Smith and Maurice Morris gashed Ram blitzes off screen passes, with NO ONE covering Morris on a 3rd-and-11 screen that gained 19. But that drive ended (sort of) in a Stafford interception, and Detroit's ensuing drive was promising until ending in another dropped pass. The Rams forced their first 3-and-out late in the 2nd, with James Hall's pressure forcing Stafford's high, and dropped, pass. They got another in the 3rd, thanks to LaJuan (WHO?) Ramsey coming through unblocked to stuff Smith for a 4-yard loss. They followed with another 3-and-out. Stafford back-body-dropped Cliff Ryan to briefly avoid trouble, but Long cleaned up to get his first sack of the season and end an Andy-Stitzer-like streak of not getting some. The 4th quarter did not start well, though, as Detroit tied the game. Stafford beat them with a bomb, then a 4-yard TD run made possible by Leonard Little's massive overpursuit. They tied the game with a 2-pointer that saw James Laurinaitis bite HARD on play-action and leave Morris wide open in the end zone. The Lions got the ball back with the game still tied and appeared to have unstoppable momentum. Morris took a pitch right for 13, with Little getting blocked by the TE and Ryan getting knocked down. Morris then cut back for 15 more, as Ramsey and Little got pancaked and David Vobora ran himself out of the play. At midfield, though, Ryan made the play of the day, defeating his man soundly and blowing up Morris' attempted outside run. Morris tried to cut back, but right into Little for a 7-yard loss. Now the Rams had momentum, and kept it. With the Lions pinned at their 6 with 4:00 left, Ramsey stuffed a Morris run, then Little beat Gosder Cherilus with a sweet spin move for the Rams' second sack, helped by pressure alongside from VICTOR ADEYANJU. The Rams got good field position after the punt and turned it into a TD lead, and the D-line got to pin its ears back with 1:30 to play. Hall nearly got Stafford a couple of times; I believe he was the one drawing the two holding penalties on Jon Jansen. Long got up in the rookie's face. Little finished it off with good late pressure to force a wild pass on 3rd-and-20. Yep, it's not how you start, it's how you finish. The Lions had every opportunity to run the Rams right off the field early, but didn't take advantage, and paid for it. It's not how you'd script the defense's performance for the first win of the season, but I'll by-God take it.
* Secondary: It is very difficult to grade the Ram defense today, with Lions receivers dropping passes as if Matthew Stafford was throwing them live cacti. Bryant Johnson burned Ron Bartell deep on the opening drive but flubbed the catch. That wasn't the first time Johnson would burn Bartell with just a simple move at the line. He did it again on a 36-yard catch down to the Ram 5 to start the 4th, as the Ram defense was completely unalert to a team trying a big play to start off a quarter. But the Lion receivers were the Rams' best weapons. Will Heller dropped a pass to kill a drive. Brandon Pettigrew killed a drive by dropping one right into James Butler's hands late in the 2nd. And in classic Ram DB form, Butler didn't catch the ball that was right in his hands. And oh, hell no, that wasn't even his worst play of the day. Early in the 2nd, he made a nice diving catch of another Lions muffed catch (think they didn't miss Calvin Johnson today??) and assumed the fetal position just inside the goal line. Major threat averted, right? No, the dumbass gets up and runs the ball out of the end zone! Then the even dumber dumbass runs BACK INTO the end zone and gets tripped up there by Kevin Smith for a safety! James needs to knock off the rust and play a lot more like a veteran the 2nd half of the season. Quincy Butler became the latest DB to leapfrog Jonathan Wade on the depth chart. He broke up a couple of deep passes (including one where James Butler really jacked up Pettigrew) and was all right in run support, though not a very physical tackler. Late pass rush brought a lot of wild throws from Stafford, so we're left hanging wondering how the Rams would have fared today against a competent passing game.
* Special teams: Tom McMahon wins today's coaching game ball for dialing up the play that changed the game late in the first half, running a fake instead of trying a 54-yard FG. The play was executed almost perfectly. New long snapper Ryan Neill fed Donnie Jones a perfect snap for the play. Jones and Josh Brown sold it beautifully. None of the Lions paid attention to Daniel Fells heading downfield off the end of the line. Brown rolled left and threw Fells a little hook shot of a pass, and the TE took care of the rest with a 36-yard TD rumble. Special teams winning games for the Rams: who'da thunk it? Jones had a fine day punting, averaging 44.4 and pinning Detroit inside the 15 three times. Brown was responsible for 11 of the Rams' points and has a perfect career passer rating of 158.3. The only downer was Amendola getting CLOBBERED on a kick return in the 4th. Quincy Butler replaced him and is clearly from the Shaun McDonald school of punt returns. He's not qualified to do it.
* Coaching: Congratulations to Steve Spagnuolo on his first NFL coaching victory. Let's not wait so long for the next one. The key decision of today's game was obviously the decision to fake the FG. I sure wasn't expecting it as a fan; when the Rams lined up to go for it on 4th-and-8, I grumbled that they're sure paying Josh Brown a lot to not try 54-yard FGs indoors. Obviously, they're paying him for his passing skills. I do hope we all would have liked the call even if it had failed, after the many what-did-you-have-to-lose? questions for Spagnuolo after the Jagwire game.
The rumor is false that I paid David Roach to run into Pat Shurmur on the sideline while covering a punt in the 2nd and knock some sense into him. That collision followed this sequence: Lion blitz blows up Jackson handoff for a loss; screen to Jackson on 2nd-and-14 (incomplete); 4-YARD QUICK OUT to Amendola on 3rd-and-14 (also incomplete). The Lions had just held the ball for the better part of 11 minutes; the Rams needed a lot better than that right then. They didn't get it the next drive, either, with a pass SHORT OF THE MARKER for Avery on 3rd-and-8, but that was followed by the fake FG TD, and after that, maybe Shurmur stopped gripping his playcard quite so tightly. The Rams stayed balanced in the 2nd half, and a couple of long passes would have worked with better execution: the 2nd-and-15 bomb for Avery and the end zone pass to McMichael. I liked the expanded use of the TEs, which reminds me: the Rams need some decent TEs. In the end, sometimes football strategy really is as easy as letting your best players do what they do the best. As simple as a give-it-to-Jackson! game plan may be, I credit Shurmur for sticking with it. One thing that puzzled me: as much as the Lions like to, and did blitz, the Rams didn't try a lot of screen passes or draws, and the ones they tried didn't work well.
Meanwhile, Scott Linehan drove yours truly absolutely nuts with the same thing. Any time the Rams tried to blitz in the first half, here comes the screen pass to the tailback for ten yards or more, AND I CANNOT BELIEVE THE RAM COACHING STAFF IS GETTING SCHOOLED BY SCOTT FREAKING LINEHAN. Linehan also remembered how vulnerable his old defensive players were to cutback runs, fed the Rams plenty, the Rams rarely stopped it, and OH MY GOD I CANNOT FREAKING BELIEVE THE RAMS ARE GOING TO LOSE TO SCOTT FREAKING LINEHAN. The Rams stopped all that in the second half, though, I think simply by turning the blitzing dial down. Linehan certainly missed Calvin Johnson, but unlike most of his 2.25 seasons here, today it was the Rams making the necessary halftime adjustments and turning them into a win.
* Upon further review: Penalty calls were key to two of the Rams' scoring drives, and I believe Ron Winter and crew got both calls right. Julian Peterson did grab Bulger's helmet on the way by on 3rd-and-9 to extend the FG drive in the 1st. That's an insta-call that the refs should, and did, make. Barron should have been called for illegal hands to the face blocking Peterson on the play, though. The game-winning drive was extended on 3rd-and-2 by a DPI on Delmas defending McMichael, also a proper call, I believe. Delmas cut off McMichael's route without playing the ball. Full disclosure, though: my signal cut out during the live play so I only saw the replays. Hall got away with catching Kevin Smith in the head at the end of a long screen in the 2nd. It didn't look like the usual grab-and-twist 15-yard facemask penalty to me, but it was still contact with the head and Smith was injured on the play. Hall deserved some kind of 15-yard penalty there but got away scot-free. I thought the Winter crew got the key calls right but I can't give a crew a good grade when they fail to protect players in that fashion. C-minus.
* Cheers: First of all, do not get mad at me, male tennis players. I respect your athletic skills and do not question your manliness. However, as an NFL head coach, Steve Spagnuolo simply CANNOT wear girly tennis socks on the sideline. Football is a crew sock sport, coach; you can't wear socks that are just girl's socks minus the little puff ball on the heel. Fox again gave us the official TV crew of the Rams – Ron Pitts and John Lynch. Pitts sounds more and more a mess by the week. He missed spots by as many as five yards and frequently missed by a couple. He called a Jones punt as “angled toward the sideline”; Dennis Northcutt fielded it smack in the middle of the field. The broadcast didn't pay attention to Winter's announcements a bunch of times, including a 5-yard Lion penalty in the 4th that gave the Rams a first down. Pitts had little clue. And I don't remember either announcer saying anything about Chris Long finally getting a sack; you'd think they've done enough Rams games to know that's been an issue. They made up for some shortcomings by showing Jackson a ton of respect, and Lynch almost always agrees with me on replays of officials' calls, which has to be a good thing, right? But this crew is starting to coast a little bit.
* Who’s next?: It will look like throwback week in St. Louis in two weeks, not because the Rams will be in their old blue and yellow, but because it's going to look like the Greatest Show on Earth is back in the form of the New Orleans Saints. It's going to take more than one bye week for the Rams to figure out how to keep up with the Saints, who have already hung 48 on the Giants, for crying out loud, and just hung 46 on a Miami team that also got an extra week to prepare. The Saints average – average! - 40 points a game! The Rams scored their 40th point of the 2009 season in week SIX! And that's probably all you need to know about the looming matchup on November 15th.
The undefeated Saints bring the NFL's #1 offense and the league's hottest QB in Drew Brees, who nearly broke Dan Marino's single-season yardage record last year, and a scary receiving lineup – Marques Colston, Lance Moore, Devery Henderson, Robert Meacham, even Jeremy Shockey. Yet their rushing offense rates higher than their passing offense: 3rd in the league vs. 6th. Once their aerial circus puts them out in front, Pierre Thomas and Mike Bell wear out the defense and keep them there. No one's had an answer for the Saint offense this season. Spagnuolo will need to repeat his Super Bowl XLII game plan success just to slow this juggernaut down. The Dolphins had the best chance to beat the Saints so far in 2009 last week, taking (and blowing) a 24-3 lead. New Orleans struggled early with Miami's 3-4, and the Fins really mixed up their blitzes and coverages. They brought blitzes from everywhere but underground and had Brees confused and throwing awful, stupid passes for a half. And they still nearly gave up 50 points ! If the Saints have a weak link, it's LT Jermon Bushrod, who's there because Jammal Brown's lost for the season. To disrupt the Saints at all, James Hall and Chris Long HAVE to come up big in that matchup.
Their offense takes all the headlines, but the Saints' dominance this season is also defensively-infused. The rest of the NFL has long dreaded the day the Saints got an even-decent secondary. Well, that day is here. Jabari Greer is a terrific young playmaker and cover man; his signing was the overlooked free agent move of the offseason. Tracy Porter has made a huge leap in his second season. Strong safety Roman Harper is having a Pro Bowl season, and Darren Sharper is having a Defensive Player of the Year season, having already picked off a ridiculous six passes and returned three of them for TDs. Preventing defensive TDs is not something the Ram offense has exactly excelled at. The Saints are top-10 against the run, too, behind Harper, Jonathan Vilma and former Ram Scott Shanle. The Saint pass rush is tied with the Rams at just 23rd in the league. Jason Smith will have a big assignment against Charles Grant, though the Rams can partially slow the Saint pass rush by comping Anthony Hargrove a suite at Harrah's. The Ram offense is going to have to be themselves to stay close with the Saints. Lots of power running with Jackson and very little risk-taking in the passing game against the Saints' big-play secondary.
Will that be enough? It doesn't seem likely; this Saints game is shaping up as a redux of the Colts game, as the Rams continue to get pummeled by a brutal schedule. My advice? Don't think about the Saints until they get here, and just enjoy watching them play. You only get to see offensive greatness like theirs every ten years or so. Meanwhile, we've got two weeks to bask in a Rams victory, and we should use them well. Prosit, Rams Nation!
--Mike
Game stats from nfl.com
From The Couch
(Report and opinions on the game.)
Game #8: RAMS 17, Lions 10
On the occasion of the Rams' first win in 378 days, here's some George Frideric Handel:
Rams Nation, our long, long national nightmare is over. Riding their superstar RB, the Rams won, yes, I said WON, a battle of bad football attrition over the dreadful Detroit Lions. The 2008 Lions' 0-16 is safe. The expansion Bucs' 0-26 is safe. Steve Spagnuolo's Rams have slain their first dragon. Savor the bye week, Rams Nation. Savor it well.
* RB: One player can't win a football game by himself, can he? One man can't beat eleven, can he? Are you sure? Steven Jackson (22-149) was like Bruce Lee in Enter the Dragon today. No matter how many henchmen (in blue and silver) you threw at him, he was going to kick their asses. We probably could have taken our cue from the way Jackson shoved the DT out of the way on his first rush of the game, but until 3:00 before halftime, it looked like he might have a slow day. But right then, from the Rams 9, he cut inside Alex Barron's block, slipped a DB at the 14, crashed into Jason Brown trying to drive a LB out of his way, and pushed him forward. Louis Delmas slid off him at the 19, and by the time Julian Peterson came and Jackson dragged him 6 yards, Steven had a 26-yard gain and lit the fuse to an unusual TD drive. He began building a head of steam late in the 3rd, with 9- and 7-yard runs to kick off a drive that Marc Bulger killed with an INT. Still, Jackson looked ready to take over the game at any time. He took a slant near midfield and ran through Delmas and Ernie Sims for half of a 12-yard gain the next drive, but that also died at Bulger's hand. Jackson saved the Rams a safety in the 4th. He broke a tackle at the goal line, broke another with help from Billy Bajema, punked Ko Simpson to the ground with a stiffarm and got the Rams breathing room out to the 13. Detroit stopped that drive, but Jackson had saved his best work for last. Game tied at 10, 2:00 left, Rams at the Lions' 42. Jackson thunders up the middle behind Mike Karney, runs over the poor umpire, and drags defenders five yards down to the 25. If Jackson had charged fare for all the Lions who took rides on him today, he could have retired wealthy on Monday. His next carry, though, was express all the way. He runs right, around Daniel Fells' dominating block, Delmas whiffs on him in the hole, and Steven is gone. A couple of Lions offered chase, but once Jackson hit the 10, Usain Bolt wasn't catching him on this run. Jackson FTW!
* QB: Jackson saved Marc Bulger's bacon after a frustratingly poor game, 17-35-176, passer rating 51.6. Bulger's had problems this year with protection and subpar receivers, but those issues were minimal today and he still almost blew the game, against one of the league's worst defenses. His decision-making looked strong early, as he hit Keenan Burton for 22 and Donnie Avery for 15 to spark a game-opening FG drive. After settling for that, the offense settled for useless short passes on 3rd-and-long until special teams lightning struck for a TD right before halftime to give the Rams a 10-2 lead. No coffee for Bulger at the team meeting tomorrow, though. Coffee is for closers. Bulger blew many opportunities to put the Lions away. Overthrowing an open Avery on a bomb in the 3rd. Scrambling in the open field on 3rd-and-6 later and sliding a yard short of the first down. After Randy McMichael dropped a red zone TD pass the next drive, Bulger stuck a fork in it. He threw a flat pass for Jackson, possibly thinking DE Dewayne White fell out of the play, but White bounced up instead and picked it off. Just sloppy. After Detroit tied the game, Bulger answered by getting a pass blocked at the line for the second time to end a drive at midfield. The Rams got the ball back with about 2:00 left, and Bulger started that drive by getting a pass batted down before Jackson took over. Are you 6'3” or 5'3”? Some good defense by Delmas broke up several passes, and receivers dropped a couple. But they were also more open today than they've been all year. Pass protection was the best it's been all year. The running game was powerful. And Bulger still blew ample opportunities. He hung McMichael out to dry a couple of times. His accuracy on shorter passes looked really shoddy. In short, the Rams won today despite Marc Bulger. There are other offensive issues, but the starting QB's game is not in a good place.
* Receivers: Tight ends were targeted a lot, with mixed results. Randy McMichael (2-16) could have had two TDs. Louis Delmas knocked him into next week at the goal line to break up one; McMichael dropped the other, a catch an NFL TE has to make, at the front right pylon in the 4th. McMichael did draw a DPI critical to the Rams' decisive TD drive. Daniel Fells (1-36) was all alone downfield for the Rams' first TD, making the easy catch and stiffarming Cliff Avril to the ground to stun Detroit right before halftime. Well, the stunner was that Josh Brown, not Bulger, threw Fells the pass, on a fake FG attempt. Billy Bajema (2-43), of all people, made a nice grab of a ball thrown behind him and beat the safety downfield for 27 in the 4th. Keenan Burton (5-54) was the leading receiver, but in a familiar pattern, the Rams went to him a lot early, he made nice catches and showed the best YAC ability on the team, and the offense then forgot about him most of the rest of the game. His sliding, spinning, Curly-Howard-style 8-yard catch kept the Rams' game-winning drive moving forward. Danny Amendola (1-13) wasn't a factor and missed the 4th quarter after getting injured on a kick return. Also a non-factor: Donnie Avery (1-15), who dropped as many as he caught. Hopefully Avery will pull it together during the bye week; this sure has been a lost season so far.
* Offensive line: Jackson didn't really win the game by himself, of course. The offensive line played its best game in perhaps three years. They paved the way for Jackson's 147 yards. Bulger not only wasn't sacked; he was rarely even touched and got forever to throw at times. Alex Barron may have had his best game as a Ram. Julian Peterson beat him a couple of times early, but Alex was solid otherwise. I can't remember a game where so many successful runs came off of Barron blocks. Jason Smith played well, delivering some punishing run blocks and keeping speed rushes directed behind Bulger for the most part. There were plays where the Lions just quit rushing because the Rams had them stymied, with Barron and Smith looking around for guys to hit. It's been a long time since the Ram offensive line so resembled a wall. Jackson got blocks from Barron, Jason Brown and all three WRs on his 26-yard run before halftime. Most of the tight end blocking was terrific. Fells dumped a Lion on his butt to give Bulger time on the 15-yard completion to Avery in the 1st, and he sealed the right edge but good on Jackson's winning TD run. Right before that run, Jackson got good blocks from Brown, Adam Goldberg (RG for injured Richie Incognito) and Mark Setterstrom (LG for injured Jacob Bell) on a 17-yard blast up the middle. Bajema blocked two Lions to help Jackson get out of the end zone on the near-safety in the 4th. Setterstrom got beat on that play, but line breakdowns were few and far between. Larry Foote blitzed between Fells and Bell to drop Jackson for a 4-yard loss in the 2nd. But that was about it. The Lion d-line may not present the highest level of difficulty, but the Ram offensive line dominated the trenches today and have earned themselves at least a couple of nice steaks during their week off.
* Defensive line / LB: A win for the Ram defense today despite an ugly start. They didn't really stop the run; Detroit ran for 127, and killed Ram blitzes with screen passes for at least another 68 yards. They put very little pressure on Matthew Stafford until late in the game despite Detroit's bad offensive line. They couldn't stop a cutback run to save their lives. The Lions ran through them like crap through a goose in the first half but killed every drive themselves with brutal dropped passes or penalties. Leger Douzable (!) may have been the star of the first half, with a couple of tackles for loss, but his linemates didn't make them stand up. Aaron Brown ran around Chris Long for 11 late in the 1st as TE Will Heller dominated Long at the point of attack. Kevin Smith and Maurice Morris gashed Ram blitzes off screen passes, with NO ONE covering Morris on a 3rd-and-11 screen that gained 19. But that drive ended (sort of) in a Stafford interception, and Detroit's ensuing drive was promising until ending in another dropped pass. The Rams forced their first 3-and-out late in the 2nd, with James Hall's pressure forcing Stafford's high, and dropped, pass. They got another in the 3rd, thanks to LaJuan (WHO?) Ramsey coming through unblocked to stuff Smith for a 4-yard loss. They followed with another 3-and-out. Stafford back-body-dropped Cliff Ryan to briefly avoid trouble, but Long cleaned up to get his first sack of the season and end an Andy-Stitzer-like streak of not getting some. The 4th quarter did not start well, though, as Detroit tied the game. Stafford beat them with a bomb, then a 4-yard TD run made possible by Leonard Little's massive overpursuit. They tied the game with a 2-pointer that saw James Laurinaitis bite HARD on play-action and leave Morris wide open in the end zone. The Lions got the ball back with the game still tied and appeared to have unstoppable momentum. Morris took a pitch right for 13, with Little getting blocked by the TE and Ryan getting knocked down. Morris then cut back for 15 more, as Ramsey and Little got pancaked and David Vobora ran himself out of the play. At midfield, though, Ryan made the play of the day, defeating his man soundly and blowing up Morris' attempted outside run. Morris tried to cut back, but right into Little for a 7-yard loss. Now the Rams had momentum, and kept it. With the Lions pinned at their 6 with 4:00 left, Ramsey stuffed a Morris run, then Little beat Gosder Cherilus with a sweet spin move for the Rams' second sack, helped by pressure alongside from VICTOR ADEYANJU. The Rams got good field position after the punt and turned it into a TD lead, and the D-line got to pin its ears back with 1:30 to play. Hall nearly got Stafford a couple of times; I believe he was the one drawing the two holding penalties on Jon Jansen. Long got up in the rookie's face. Little finished it off with good late pressure to force a wild pass on 3rd-and-20. Yep, it's not how you start, it's how you finish. The Lions had every opportunity to run the Rams right off the field early, but didn't take advantage, and paid for it. It's not how you'd script the defense's performance for the first win of the season, but I'll by-God take it.
* Secondary: It is very difficult to grade the Ram defense today, with Lions receivers dropping passes as if Matthew Stafford was throwing them live cacti. Bryant Johnson burned Ron Bartell deep on the opening drive but flubbed the catch. That wasn't the first time Johnson would burn Bartell with just a simple move at the line. He did it again on a 36-yard catch down to the Ram 5 to start the 4th, as the Ram defense was completely unalert to a team trying a big play to start off a quarter. But the Lion receivers were the Rams' best weapons. Will Heller dropped a pass to kill a drive. Brandon Pettigrew killed a drive by dropping one right into James Butler's hands late in the 2nd. And in classic Ram DB form, Butler didn't catch the ball that was right in his hands. And oh, hell no, that wasn't even his worst play of the day. Early in the 2nd, he made a nice diving catch of another Lions muffed catch (think they didn't miss Calvin Johnson today??) and assumed the fetal position just inside the goal line. Major threat averted, right? No, the dumbass gets up and runs the ball out of the end zone! Then the even dumber dumbass runs BACK INTO the end zone and gets tripped up there by Kevin Smith for a safety! James needs to knock off the rust and play a lot more like a veteran the 2nd half of the season. Quincy Butler became the latest DB to leapfrog Jonathan Wade on the depth chart. He broke up a couple of deep passes (including one where James Butler really jacked up Pettigrew) and was all right in run support, though not a very physical tackler. Late pass rush brought a lot of wild throws from Stafford, so we're left hanging wondering how the Rams would have fared today against a competent passing game.
* Special teams: Tom McMahon wins today's coaching game ball for dialing up the play that changed the game late in the first half, running a fake instead of trying a 54-yard FG. The play was executed almost perfectly. New long snapper Ryan Neill fed Donnie Jones a perfect snap for the play. Jones and Josh Brown sold it beautifully. None of the Lions paid attention to Daniel Fells heading downfield off the end of the line. Brown rolled left and threw Fells a little hook shot of a pass, and the TE took care of the rest with a 36-yard TD rumble. Special teams winning games for the Rams: who'da thunk it? Jones had a fine day punting, averaging 44.4 and pinning Detroit inside the 15 three times. Brown was responsible for 11 of the Rams' points and has a perfect career passer rating of 158.3. The only downer was Amendola getting CLOBBERED on a kick return in the 4th. Quincy Butler replaced him and is clearly from the Shaun McDonald school of punt returns. He's not qualified to do it.
* Coaching: Congratulations to Steve Spagnuolo on his first NFL coaching victory. Let's not wait so long for the next one. The key decision of today's game was obviously the decision to fake the FG. I sure wasn't expecting it as a fan; when the Rams lined up to go for it on 4th-and-8, I grumbled that they're sure paying Josh Brown a lot to not try 54-yard FGs indoors. Obviously, they're paying him for his passing skills. I do hope we all would have liked the call even if it had failed, after the many what-did-you-have-to-lose? questions for Spagnuolo after the Jagwire game.
The rumor is false that I paid David Roach to run into Pat Shurmur on the sideline while covering a punt in the 2nd and knock some sense into him. That collision followed this sequence: Lion blitz blows up Jackson handoff for a loss; screen to Jackson on 2nd-and-14 (incomplete); 4-YARD QUICK OUT to Amendola on 3rd-and-14 (also incomplete). The Lions had just held the ball for the better part of 11 minutes; the Rams needed a lot better than that right then. They didn't get it the next drive, either, with a pass SHORT OF THE MARKER for Avery on 3rd-and-8, but that was followed by the fake FG TD, and after that, maybe Shurmur stopped gripping his playcard quite so tightly. The Rams stayed balanced in the 2nd half, and a couple of long passes would have worked with better execution: the 2nd-and-15 bomb for Avery and the end zone pass to McMichael. I liked the expanded use of the TEs, which reminds me: the Rams need some decent TEs. In the end, sometimes football strategy really is as easy as letting your best players do what they do the best. As simple as a give-it-to-Jackson! game plan may be, I credit Shurmur for sticking with it. One thing that puzzled me: as much as the Lions like to, and did blitz, the Rams didn't try a lot of screen passes or draws, and the ones they tried didn't work well.
Meanwhile, Scott Linehan drove yours truly absolutely nuts with the same thing. Any time the Rams tried to blitz in the first half, here comes the screen pass to the tailback for ten yards or more, AND I CANNOT BELIEVE THE RAM COACHING STAFF IS GETTING SCHOOLED BY SCOTT FREAKING LINEHAN. Linehan also remembered how vulnerable his old defensive players were to cutback runs, fed the Rams plenty, the Rams rarely stopped it, and OH MY GOD I CANNOT FREAKING BELIEVE THE RAMS ARE GOING TO LOSE TO SCOTT FREAKING LINEHAN. The Rams stopped all that in the second half, though, I think simply by turning the blitzing dial down. Linehan certainly missed Calvin Johnson, but unlike most of his 2.25 seasons here, today it was the Rams making the necessary halftime adjustments and turning them into a win.
* Upon further review: Penalty calls were key to two of the Rams' scoring drives, and I believe Ron Winter and crew got both calls right. Julian Peterson did grab Bulger's helmet on the way by on 3rd-and-9 to extend the FG drive in the 1st. That's an insta-call that the refs should, and did, make. Barron should have been called for illegal hands to the face blocking Peterson on the play, though. The game-winning drive was extended on 3rd-and-2 by a DPI on Delmas defending McMichael, also a proper call, I believe. Delmas cut off McMichael's route without playing the ball. Full disclosure, though: my signal cut out during the live play so I only saw the replays. Hall got away with catching Kevin Smith in the head at the end of a long screen in the 2nd. It didn't look like the usual grab-and-twist 15-yard facemask penalty to me, but it was still contact with the head and Smith was injured on the play. Hall deserved some kind of 15-yard penalty there but got away scot-free. I thought the Winter crew got the key calls right but I can't give a crew a good grade when they fail to protect players in that fashion. C-minus.
* Cheers: First of all, do not get mad at me, male tennis players. I respect your athletic skills and do not question your manliness. However, as an NFL head coach, Steve Spagnuolo simply CANNOT wear girly tennis socks on the sideline. Football is a crew sock sport, coach; you can't wear socks that are just girl's socks minus the little puff ball on the heel. Fox again gave us the official TV crew of the Rams – Ron Pitts and John Lynch. Pitts sounds more and more a mess by the week. He missed spots by as many as five yards and frequently missed by a couple. He called a Jones punt as “angled toward the sideline”; Dennis Northcutt fielded it smack in the middle of the field. The broadcast didn't pay attention to Winter's announcements a bunch of times, including a 5-yard Lion penalty in the 4th that gave the Rams a first down. Pitts had little clue. And I don't remember either announcer saying anything about Chris Long finally getting a sack; you'd think they've done enough Rams games to know that's been an issue. They made up for some shortcomings by showing Jackson a ton of respect, and Lynch almost always agrees with me on replays of officials' calls, which has to be a good thing, right? But this crew is starting to coast a little bit.
* Who’s next?: It will look like throwback week in St. Louis in two weeks, not because the Rams will be in their old blue and yellow, but because it's going to look like the Greatest Show on Earth is back in the form of the New Orleans Saints. It's going to take more than one bye week for the Rams to figure out how to keep up with the Saints, who have already hung 48 on the Giants, for crying out loud, and just hung 46 on a Miami team that also got an extra week to prepare. The Saints average – average! - 40 points a game! The Rams scored their 40th point of the 2009 season in week SIX! And that's probably all you need to know about the looming matchup on November 15th.
The undefeated Saints bring the NFL's #1 offense and the league's hottest QB in Drew Brees, who nearly broke Dan Marino's single-season yardage record last year, and a scary receiving lineup – Marques Colston, Lance Moore, Devery Henderson, Robert Meacham, even Jeremy Shockey. Yet their rushing offense rates higher than their passing offense: 3rd in the league vs. 6th. Once their aerial circus puts them out in front, Pierre Thomas and Mike Bell wear out the defense and keep them there. No one's had an answer for the Saint offense this season. Spagnuolo will need to repeat his Super Bowl XLII game plan success just to slow this juggernaut down. The Dolphins had the best chance to beat the Saints so far in 2009 last week, taking (and blowing) a 24-3 lead. New Orleans struggled early with Miami's 3-4, and the Fins really mixed up their blitzes and coverages. They brought blitzes from everywhere but underground and had Brees confused and throwing awful, stupid passes for a half. And they still nearly gave up 50 points ! If the Saints have a weak link, it's LT Jermon Bushrod, who's there because Jammal Brown's lost for the season. To disrupt the Saints at all, James Hall and Chris Long HAVE to come up big in that matchup.
Their offense takes all the headlines, but the Saints' dominance this season is also defensively-infused. The rest of the NFL has long dreaded the day the Saints got an even-decent secondary. Well, that day is here. Jabari Greer is a terrific young playmaker and cover man; his signing was the overlooked free agent move of the offseason. Tracy Porter has made a huge leap in his second season. Strong safety Roman Harper is having a Pro Bowl season, and Darren Sharper is having a Defensive Player of the Year season, having already picked off a ridiculous six passes and returned three of them for TDs. Preventing defensive TDs is not something the Ram offense has exactly excelled at. The Saints are top-10 against the run, too, behind Harper, Jonathan Vilma and former Ram Scott Shanle. The Saint pass rush is tied with the Rams at just 23rd in the league. Jason Smith will have a big assignment against Charles Grant, though the Rams can partially slow the Saint pass rush by comping Anthony Hargrove a suite at Harrah's. The Ram offense is going to have to be themselves to stay close with the Saints. Lots of power running with Jackson and very little risk-taking in the passing game against the Saints' big-play secondary.
Will that be enough? It doesn't seem likely; this Saints game is shaping up as a redux of the Colts game, as the Rams continue to get pummeled by a brutal schedule. My advice? Don't think about the Saints until they get here, and just enjoy watching them play. You only get to see offensive greatness like theirs every ten years or so. Meanwhile, we've got two weeks to bask in a Rams victory, and we should use them well. Prosit, Rams Nation!
--Mike
Game stats from nfl.com
Monday, October 26, 2009
RamView, October 25, 2009
From The Couch
(Report and opinions on the game.)
Game #7: Colts 42, Rams 6
Well, the Rams know what it was like to be the Japanese air force during the Godzilla movies. They knew they would have to play a perfect game today to stand a chance against the Colts, but as the final score makes plain, they were pretty much their normal 2009 selves, even as the Colts weren't really trying that hard. 17 in a row!
* QB: Every football show you watch lately hails 2009 as the Year of the Quarterback. For Rams quarterback Marc Bulger, 2009's been a year to forget. Today's stat line was the most dreadful one yet of a season gone bad: 14-26, 140 yards, no TDs, 2 INTs (one returned for TD), passer rating 37.3, worse than if he had just thrown every pass attempt into the ground. And this includes a 50-yard bomb to Donnie Avery the Rams' first series! Indisputably, Bulger has to get better help from his receivers than he did today. There were at least four dropped passes. The opening drive fizzled into a FG after Tim Carter dropped a 2nd-down pass and had no clue where he was going on a 3rd-down end zone incompletion. Mike Karney and Kenneth Darby dropped passes the next drive. Avery topped the day off by dropping a 4th-down pass. Bulger got pretty good protection a lot of the day, but three drives were killed by sacks. You can pin a lot of Bulger's bad numbers on his receivers and maybe a little on the offensive line. The brutal passer rating, though, belongs a lot to him. In the 3rd, rookie Jacob Lacey jumped Keenan Burton's out route to pick off Bulger deep in Rams territory and ran it in for a TD to put the Colts out of reach, 28-6. CBS’ analyst said Burton didn't come back for the ball hard enough, but still – isn't that play usually the veteran DB picking off the rookie QB instead of vice versa? Why's Bulger throwing that pass into a group of Colt defenders when he's got Steven Jackson open in the middle of the field for a checkdown? Surely Bulger knows where Jackson's going to be on every play, so why's he trying to force a much more difficult pass to Burton, on first down? I understand Bulger's end zone INT in the 4th even less. No doubt, as pointed out on TV, Burton ran a terrible pattern. But why did Bulger throw to him? After he pump-faked and froze the safety, he had Randy McMichael open in the middle of the field on a post route down at the goal line. Inside shoulder throw to the TE is a TD there. Why's Bulger throwing into “crowds” on the sidelines when he has open options in the middle of the field? It's been very popular to blame the inexperienced Rams receiving corps for the team's woeful offensive performance, and that argument holds a lot of water. But I'm not sure Marc Bulger didn't cost his team 14 points today. A lot may be out of Bulger's control; he may be just the “manager” of the offense, but the Rams don't have the margin of error to absorb big mistakes from their QB, and I believe there's going to be at least one “Doh!” moment when they review tape Monday.
* RB: Paradoxically, the better Steven Jackson plays, the worse the Rams do, as he’s coming off his best game of the season in an otherwise-pitiful blowout. This week the second half was his strong half, and he thrived despite an utterly predictable game plan that had him running up the middle on nearly every first down. Jackson owned the third quarter. He started by spinning out of a tackle in the backfield and gaining 11. The Rams' second FG drive was all Jackson, gashing the Colts over the right side for 12, 11, and 13 more, before getting Josh Brown into position with 8 yards on a 3rd-down inside handoff. He opened the next drive with a 14-yard run off the left side, and the way Jackson was piling up yards now, the Colts' 21-6 lead was starting to topple like a Jenga tower. Indy salted the game away, though - Jenga! - with a pick-six the next play. That didn’t slow Jackson down much. He powered up the middle for 9, then behind Jacob Bell for 14, to ignite a Rams drive that got back into the red zone. And fizzled. Badly. Not much later, Indy's up 35-6 and Jackson's coming out of the game with what I think was a shoe problem but scarily looked a little like a foot injury. We're near the time of year for scary stuff, but I can imagine little scarier than the Ram offense without Steven Jackson, whose 134 yards on 23 carries were nearly as much as Marc Bulger passed for. Kenneth Darby did chip in 16 yards, most of it on a 2nd-and-a-mile draw play, while I'm not sure Samkon Gado (4-5) has actually run forward for a gain this season. The Ram backfield, no, the Ram offense, no, the whole Rams team without Jackson would be like the Doors without Jim Morrison.
* Receivers: If there’s a sadder joke right now than the Ram receiving corps, I don’t want to hear it. Things got off to a hot start today when Donnie Avery (2-58) caught a 50-yard bomb from Bulger off a flea-flicker, though I don’t know why he couldn’t keep his feet under him on the play. The pass led him, he should have been on his way to the end zone; instead, he goes down in a heap and is injured (AGAIN) on the play. He did come back in time to drop a pass in the 4th. His replacement, Tim Carter (0-0), butchered the end of that opening drive by dropping a 2nd down pass and breaking the wrong way in the end zone on 3rd down. Why is he here again? Keenan Burton (3-28) earned some of the blame for both of Bulger’s INTs – he sure ran a poor route on the 2nd one, cutting behind the defender. It’s apparent the Rams have NO downfield threat without Avery on the field. It was just sad watching the DB outrun Burton on an attempted go route late in the game. With the tight ends chipping in only 3 catches for 16 yards combined, the only sort-of-bright spot was Danny Amendola (5-39), who did some damage with quick screens. As for the guy who’s so great the Rams traded Will Witherspoon for him, even though he couldn’t beat out Jason Avant at Philadelphia, even though the Rams drafted UNC’s third-best wideout – you know, the one with the broken leg? – instead of him in this past draft’s FIFTH round? Yeah, he was inactive. Answers at WR remain few and far between.
* Offensive line: The offensive line looked pretty good for stretches. They held the dangerous Colts DEs in check much of the way. They also had their best run-blocking game of the season. Jackson was only stopped for no gain or a loss twice. Richie Incognito got a strong block in front of Jackson on a 9-yard draw in the 2nd. A LB got through but great surge by the whole line got Jackson 11 after he broke that tackle early in the 3rd. Then they really started taking it to the Colts. Jackson went right for 12 behind Mike Karney and Randy McMichael. He went right for 11 the next play behind McMichael and Adam Goldberg. Then, right again, 13 more, behind Goldberg, Karney and Billy Bajema. Waiter, more RED MEAT over here, please! They got Jackson running left later, a couple of 14-yarders behind dominating blocks by Jacob Bell, and if even Bell's bringing it like that, the line must be having a great day, right? Well... Bell helped kill two early drives, once with a holding penalty, once with a missed block on a promising screen to Amendola. Jason Smith split time with Alex Barron at LT; in the 2nd, he whiffed on Dwight Freeney completely - no spin required on that play – and got Bulger splattered at the 1-yard line. Bulger was sacked again the next drive. As Bulger's trying to step up from the rush, Eric Foster knocks Barron back SIX FEET, into Bulger's way, giving him nowhere to go. Holy cats, Alex. Barron then held a spinning Freeney brutally on third down (no flag) and still couldn't stop him from getting to Bulger and forcing an incomplete pass. And guess who false-started to kill the Rams' first drive after halftime. As the Rams neared the red zone in the 3rd, no one blocked Robert Mathis on a 1-yard Samkon Gado loss; that was probably Bajema's block to make. Next play, Daniel Muir whips Jason Brown with a swim move and drops Bulger for the third time. I'd say most of the line played ok. Goldberg actually had a pretty good game. The weak(est) link was Barron, and now that we see Smith starting to get snaps over there, there's little reason not to keep him at LT the rest of the season. They're taking way too many lumps with Barron over there anyway. Smith needs the work and can’t be that much worse.
* Defensive line / LB: Not a good day at all to be a Rams defensive player. Today looked more like an 11-on-11 no-contact scrimmage than it looked like an actual game. I kept checking to see if Peyton Manning had a red jersey on. Leonard Little was the only Ram to even remotely pressure Manning, landing a couple of hits. He got Manning’s arm on one play, but of course, Peyton completed the pass anyway. Chris Long maybe got close enough once to hail a cab that could get him closer to the QB for minimum fare. Long usually does some good stuff that doesn’t get noticed on the box score, but today it was hard enough just to notice him, vs. either the pass or the run. With Indy already up 7-3, Long ate up the fake like a rube to set up a screen to Dallas Clark for 11. If Long stays home, Manning can’t even throw the pass! Next play, Clark manhandles Long, Reggie Wayne blocks James Butler and the LT wipes out Ron Bartell with a kickout block, leaving Donald Brown a huge hole to run through untouched for 45. It was depressing how easily the Rams were taken out of plays today, especially by tight ends. James Laurinaitis had just 4 tackles and got blocked out of a lot of plays. Joseph Addai scored an EASY 6-yard TD to put Indy up 21-3. The Rams had NINE in the box and still couldn’t touch the ballcarrier. Mike Pollak picked off O.J. Atogwe AND Laurinaitis. Ryan Diem easily drove off Little, a bit of a liability against the run himself. Clark easily drove off Paris Lenon. It was cake for Addai from there. The Colts’ 5th TD drive wasn’t pretty for the Rams. Their best stop of the drive only came because they had 12 men on the field. (Hey, I told them to try it.) Long got driven out of the way like a lightweight on a 12-yard Addai run. Addai went Little’s way for 8 after Leonard was flattened by yep, TE Gijon Robinson. That led to another passing TD, but the Colts weren't done on the ground, as somebody named Chad Simpson put the bow on the ugly package with a 31-yard TD run around left end to make it 42-6. Long got stopped by a double-team, but Larry Grant got blocked and looked out of position, Laurinaitis wasn't quite fast enough to keep Simpson from turning the corner, and as with a lot of the day, I don't know what James Butler was doing. I think he was trying to play the cutback, so no safety help on the play when Simpson shot up the sideline. C.J. Ah You lined up as an inside pass rusher a lot and led the defense with seven tackles. They also dropped him back in coverage a few times. Those seven tackles equaled the rest of the line’s output combined, according to NFL.com. I was surprised to see Long had as many as he did, 3. Little? None. Dominated ain’t the word for what happened to the Ram front seven today. The Colts just steamrolled them, with TD drives of 90, 78 and 93 yards, with little sign the Rams were ever going to stop them. Like I said up top: Japanese air force, meet Godzilla.
* Secondary: In some ways, the secondary played better than Manning’s 3-touchdown day made it look. Yes, Clark beat Ron Bartell and James Butler for 27 and the Colts' 2nd TD. That, however, was a damn perfect pass by Manning I'm not sure anybody could have defended. To open the game, Gijon Robinson beat tight coverage by Laurinaitis for 19 on 2nd-and-15. Then Reggie Wayne began abusing Bartell, beating him for 25 and 17 to set up his 5-yard TD where he just cut in front of Bradley Fletcher at the goal line. Wayne and Bartell may have been in the same ballpark today literally, but they sure weren't figuratively. Only an injury to Wayne gave Bartell much relief in that matchup. Bartell had a full plate; he was also called on to cover Dallas Clark a lot, and the Rams did hold him to 3 catches for 44. Butler and Craig Dahl hammered Clark to help get a rare defensive stop to start the 2nd. Bartell nearly intercepted a pass for Clark a little later; I still don't know how he managed not to catch the ball. Possibly he didn't see it until too late. Midway through the 3rd, Bartell and O.J. Atogwe perfectly bracketed Wayne on a 3rd-down deep pass to get the Rams the ball back, and a little hope, down 21-6. We know that didn't last long. Fletcher appeared to have the best day of any of the DBs. He was very strong in run support, and you have to notice that Manning didn't go after him a lot. Then, as he's smartly breaking up a sideline bomb for Pierre Garcon in the 4th, his leg buckles in holy-mother-of-God fashion, though it's been diagnosed as a hyperextended knee. Let's hope he heals fast; he's starting to look pretty good out there. Back after several weeks on the shelf, Butler looked mostly rusty. He wasn't a factor against the run (1 tackle), he took a bad angle on the Simpson TD run, and he bit on the play-fake on Austin Collie's TD like Lassie chomping on a Milk-Bone. The Rams need a lot better safety play than that; hell, they need a lot better defensive play, period, than they got today, or they're going 0-and-60, let alone 16.
* Special teams: Funny thing – one area the Rams may be settled in is their traditionally-awful special teams. The Colts didn’t do very much on returns. Donnie Jones pinned Indy inside the 15 four times, inside the 5 twice. And the defense actually made all of those stand up! Josh Brown did all the Rams’ scoring, from 30 and 45. Worst news of the day was a season-ending ACL injury to long snapper Chris Massey covering a punt in the 2nd. It’ll be up to Billy Bajema to replace Massey the rest of the way. What a shame to lose a favorite player, one of the team’s most consistent, and yet still unsung worker like Massey in a game like this one.
* Coaching: I know the Colts scored 42, but the defensive approach today was still fine. The little blitzing they did worked in that it rushed Manning’s throw or convinced him to check down on 3rd-and-long. I didn’t notice any of the Colts’ big plays beating blitzes, unless you count the play where no one covered Collie in the flat in the 3rd quarter, and I’m not sure Fletcher was supposed to blitz there. Too much blitzing would have just exposed the Ram secondary further. The Rams had to get there with their four-man rush, and they never did.
Since I’m voting lack-of-talent vs. scheme on defense this week, I’d better do it on offense, too. Once again this week what we mainly saw was Bulger rarely getting the ball downfield, nothing completed over 10 yards, few passes even being thrown that far. Yet opportunities downfield are popping up on the radar, mine anyway, maybe I’m poorly calibrated, that Bulger’s missing. And it really does seem true that without Avery on the field, the Rams have NO ONE capable of getting open more than 10 yards downfield and stretching the defense. Burton doesn’t have the speed; Carter needs a map to find the end zone. With Avery on the field, Pat Shurmur went deep early, and with a sweet flea-flicker play, pretty much a perfect call. I liked the well-set-up quick screens to Amendola, though I think he’s got the speed to use downfield a little more. I would have liked to see Jackson and the tight ends used more – they totaled just four catches, and I have to believe those guys could help free up the WRs. But without Avery, yeah, Shurmur’s trying to chop down the mightiest tree in the forest with a herring. If you guessed Jackson was going up the middle on every first down today, you were right a lot more than you were wrong. It’s a tribute to Jackson that he gained as much as he did on plays where everybody knows he’s getting the ball, and where he’s going. Shurmur seemed to mix that up better in the 2nd half, getting Jackson going right, then left, and getting big gains out of it. You’d think that with ok protection and an awesome running game to balance it, that the passing game would still work a lot better than it is. I don’t know how much play-action the Rams tried. The raging success of the flea-flicker should make play-action a Shurmur staple, shouldn’t it? Somewhere along the way, Shurmur’s got to make more happen with the pieces he’s got. King Arthur didn’t have to chop down the tree to defeat the Knights Who Say Ni, you know.
* Upon further review: The weird play involving the Carl Cheffers crew was an Addai sweep on 3rd-and-2 in the 4th. The spot always looked poor, short by about a yard, and the Colts eventually challenged it. Cheffers reviews the play and announces that they’re going to “respot the ball to the middle of the line” and re-measure. That by itself wouldn’t change the measurement, would it? Yet, out come the chains, and now we’ve suddenly got a first down. They got the play right, but Cheffers needed to describe what was going on better. The spot certainly changed, didn’t it? Instead he frustrated the home fans when he could have completely avoided that. I’ll give the crew a C.
* Cheers: Full disclosure: I was unable to attend today's game, so I'd like to thank my fellow Rams fans and an estimable number of Colts fans for keeping the TV blackout lifted, though that stuck me with Kevin Harlan and Solomon Wilcots on CBS trying to one-up each other in the Stupid Stat of the Day competition. Harlan: the Rams have gone through 12 QBs since Manning became the Colts starter in 1998. That's important when the Rams have been in more Super Bowls than the Colts since 1998? Seems as meaningful to me as the Rams outrushing the Colts in the third quarter today. Wilcots won, though, with: Austin Collie gained 14 pounds while on a 2-year mission in Argentina, going from 196 to 220. I didn't major in math, either, but... Despite a snowstorm, last week, the Patriot cheerleaders dressed for Halloween, when Pats fans already have a lot to cheer about. A week closer to Halloween, in a climate-controlled dome, before thousands of fans with little else to cheer about, the Rams “cheerleaders” once again this year did not dress for Halloween. As this appalling lack of cheerleader professionalism continues, RamView has no choice but to call for a new Rams cheerleader coordinator. This year most of all, the Rams “cheerleaders” should be going the extra yard to spread cheer. If you're not trying to be the best, you're not trying.
* Who’s next?: During the offseason, I happily wrote that the head coaching change to Steve Spagnuolo from Scott Linehan would gain the Rams two or three wins, simply because Linehan was so awful. Well, we’re coming up on week 8 now, the change to Spagnuolo has yet to mean even ONE win, and the Rams look more and more like they’re heading down the road of historic futility the Detroit Lions paved last season. Speak of the bedeviled, that’s the Rams’ next opponent, with none other than Scott Linehan calling the offense for HC Jim Schwartz.
Bad news: Linehan’s had a bye week to plan for the Rams. The best game Linehan called in 2.25 seasons here came off a bye, when the 0-7 Rams won in New Orleans in 2007. And the bye gets the Lions a lot healthier, giving Matthew Stafford, Daunte Culpepper and stud WR Calvin Johnson time to come back from injuries. The Rams won’t face the offense the Packers shut out two weeks ago. Thanks again for that bye week scheduling, NFL! There isn’t a big secret to defending the Lions; Linehan said as much in an interview last month. Play eight in the box and shade coverage to Calvin’s side. Linehan doesn’t have confidence in his running game yet and won’t punish a defense for directing extra attention toward #81. Kevin Smith gets just 3.2 a rush, and the Lions’ two longest runs this season are by Stafford and Culpepper. The Lions got a big game from Bryant Johnson when they beat Washington last month to break their 19-game losing streak. The Rams can’t let that 2nd receiver beat them, whether it’s him or rookie TE Brandon Pettigrew. The snowball starts rolling if that happens. In the end, though, it’s a Linehan offense; just blitz it. Stafford’s shown he’ll make the rookie-type mistake, and is still working on his accuracy. Culpepper’s a veteran but isn’t much less mistake-prone. Detroit’s o-line allowed the second-most sacks in the league thru six weeks and has a Barronesque penalty waiting to happen in Gosder Cherilus. Double Calvin, throw some pressure at them, let the chips fall where they may; some should fall right into your lap.
The main reason the Redskins lost to Detroit in September was abysmal offense, something we’re all too familiar with here. Certainly the Lions are going to stack up the line to stop Steven Jackson; it’s imperative for the Rams to open up the field with the pass. The Lions are actually among the league’s sack leaders but are still the 29th-ranked pass defense and allow a whopping passer rating against of 118.7. Yes, they’ve faced Brees, Rodgers, Cutler, Roethlisberger and Favre, but even Jason Campbell logged a 97.6! The Lions have as bad a secondary as the Rams will face this year outside practice – the Ram passing game runs out of excuses a little after noon this Sunday. DC Gunther Cunningham wants to blitz half the time but has had to play it more conservatively because his players screw up too much. Again, though, they’ve just gotten a free week to hammer out some of their defensive growing pains. Have I thanked the NFL for scheduling Detroit that bye week already? The Ram offense isn’t tasked with playing error-free ball like they were against the Colts. Their job this week is to commit fewer errors than Detroit.
Is that too high a hurdle now? Eight weeks into the season, does Steve Spagnuolo have the Rams coached up enough to outplay an offense engineered by Scott Linehan? Can they match wits and blows with the team coming off the worst season in NFL history? The answer may very well be no, and if it is, the 2009 season won’t be just a small step backward for the Rams, it’ll be a giant leap backward for Ramkind. And the moon’s going to seem nearby compared to the depth of the hole the Rams are on their way to digging themselves into.
--Mike
Game stats from nfl.com
From The Couch
(Report and opinions on the game.)
Game #7: Colts 42, Rams 6
Well, the Rams know what it was like to be the Japanese air force during the Godzilla movies. They knew they would have to play a perfect game today to stand a chance against the Colts, but as the final score makes plain, they were pretty much their normal 2009 selves, even as the Colts weren't really trying that hard. 17 in a row!
* QB: Every football show you watch lately hails 2009 as the Year of the Quarterback. For Rams quarterback Marc Bulger, 2009's been a year to forget. Today's stat line was the most dreadful one yet of a season gone bad: 14-26, 140 yards, no TDs, 2 INTs (one returned for TD), passer rating 37.3, worse than if he had just thrown every pass attempt into the ground. And this includes a 50-yard bomb to Donnie Avery the Rams' first series! Indisputably, Bulger has to get better help from his receivers than he did today. There were at least four dropped passes. The opening drive fizzled into a FG after Tim Carter dropped a 2nd-down pass and had no clue where he was going on a 3rd-down end zone incompletion. Mike Karney and Kenneth Darby dropped passes the next drive. Avery topped the day off by dropping a 4th-down pass. Bulger got pretty good protection a lot of the day, but three drives were killed by sacks. You can pin a lot of Bulger's bad numbers on his receivers and maybe a little on the offensive line. The brutal passer rating, though, belongs a lot to him. In the 3rd, rookie Jacob Lacey jumped Keenan Burton's out route to pick off Bulger deep in Rams territory and ran it in for a TD to put the Colts out of reach, 28-6. CBS’ analyst said Burton didn't come back for the ball hard enough, but still – isn't that play usually the veteran DB picking off the rookie QB instead of vice versa? Why's Bulger throwing that pass into a group of Colt defenders when he's got Steven Jackson open in the middle of the field for a checkdown? Surely Bulger knows where Jackson's going to be on every play, so why's he trying to force a much more difficult pass to Burton, on first down? I understand Bulger's end zone INT in the 4th even less. No doubt, as pointed out on TV, Burton ran a terrible pattern. But why did Bulger throw to him? After he pump-faked and froze the safety, he had Randy McMichael open in the middle of the field on a post route down at the goal line. Inside shoulder throw to the TE is a TD there. Why's Bulger throwing into “crowds” on the sidelines when he has open options in the middle of the field? It's been very popular to blame the inexperienced Rams receiving corps for the team's woeful offensive performance, and that argument holds a lot of water. But I'm not sure Marc Bulger didn't cost his team 14 points today. A lot may be out of Bulger's control; he may be just the “manager” of the offense, but the Rams don't have the margin of error to absorb big mistakes from their QB, and I believe there's going to be at least one “Doh!” moment when they review tape Monday.
* RB: Paradoxically, the better Steven Jackson plays, the worse the Rams do, as he’s coming off his best game of the season in an otherwise-pitiful blowout. This week the second half was his strong half, and he thrived despite an utterly predictable game plan that had him running up the middle on nearly every first down. Jackson owned the third quarter. He started by spinning out of a tackle in the backfield and gaining 11. The Rams' second FG drive was all Jackson, gashing the Colts over the right side for 12, 11, and 13 more, before getting Josh Brown into position with 8 yards on a 3rd-down inside handoff. He opened the next drive with a 14-yard run off the left side, and the way Jackson was piling up yards now, the Colts' 21-6 lead was starting to topple like a Jenga tower. Indy salted the game away, though - Jenga! - with a pick-six the next play. That didn’t slow Jackson down much. He powered up the middle for 9, then behind Jacob Bell for 14, to ignite a Rams drive that got back into the red zone. And fizzled. Badly. Not much later, Indy's up 35-6 and Jackson's coming out of the game with what I think was a shoe problem but scarily looked a little like a foot injury. We're near the time of year for scary stuff, but I can imagine little scarier than the Ram offense without Steven Jackson, whose 134 yards on 23 carries were nearly as much as Marc Bulger passed for. Kenneth Darby did chip in 16 yards, most of it on a 2nd-and-a-mile draw play, while I'm not sure Samkon Gado (4-5) has actually run forward for a gain this season. The Ram backfield, no, the Ram offense, no, the whole Rams team without Jackson would be like the Doors without Jim Morrison.
* Receivers: If there’s a sadder joke right now than the Ram receiving corps, I don’t want to hear it. Things got off to a hot start today when Donnie Avery (2-58) caught a 50-yard bomb from Bulger off a flea-flicker, though I don’t know why he couldn’t keep his feet under him on the play. The pass led him, he should have been on his way to the end zone; instead, he goes down in a heap and is injured (AGAIN) on the play. He did come back in time to drop a pass in the 4th. His replacement, Tim Carter (0-0), butchered the end of that opening drive by dropping a 2nd down pass and breaking the wrong way in the end zone on 3rd down. Why is he here again? Keenan Burton (3-28) earned some of the blame for both of Bulger’s INTs – he sure ran a poor route on the 2nd one, cutting behind the defender. It’s apparent the Rams have NO downfield threat without Avery on the field. It was just sad watching the DB outrun Burton on an attempted go route late in the game. With the tight ends chipping in only 3 catches for 16 yards combined, the only sort-of-bright spot was Danny Amendola (5-39), who did some damage with quick screens. As for the guy who’s so great the Rams traded Will Witherspoon for him, even though he couldn’t beat out Jason Avant at Philadelphia, even though the Rams drafted UNC’s third-best wideout – you know, the one with the broken leg? – instead of him in this past draft’s FIFTH round? Yeah, he was inactive. Answers at WR remain few and far between.
* Offensive line: The offensive line looked pretty good for stretches. They held the dangerous Colts DEs in check much of the way. They also had their best run-blocking game of the season. Jackson was only stopped for no gain or a loss twice. Richie Incognito got a strong block in front of Jackson on a 9-yard draw in the 2nd. A LB got through but great surge by the whole line got Jackson 11 after he broke that tackle early in the 3rd. Then they really started taking it to the Colts. Jackson went right for 12 behind Mike Karney and Randy McMichael. He went right for 11 the next play behind McMichael and Adam Goldberg. Then, right again, 13 more, behind Goldberg, Karney and Billy Bajema. Waiter, more RED MEAT over here, please! They got Jackson running left later, a couple of 14-yarders behind dominating blocks by Jacob Bell, and if even Bell's bringing it like that, the line must be having a great day, right? Well... Bell helped kill two early drives, once with a holding penalty, once with a missed block on a promising screen to Amendola. Jason Smith split time with Alex Barron at LT; in the 2nd, he whiffed on Dwight Freeney completely - no spin required on that play – and got Bulger splattered at the 1-yard line. Bulger was sacked again the next drive. As Bulger's trying to step up from the rush, Eric Foster knocks Barron back SIX FEET, into Bulger's way, giving him nowhere to go. Holy cats, Alex. Barron then held a spinning Freeney brutally on third down (no flag) and still couldn't stop him from getting to Bulger and forcing an incomplete pass. And guess who false-started to kill the Rams' first drive after halftime. As the Rams neared the red zone in the 3rd, no one blocked Robert Mathis on a 1-yard Samkon Gado loss; that was probably Bajema's block to make. Next play, Daniel Muir whips Jason Brown with a swim move and drops Bulger for the third time. I'd say most of the line played ok. Goldberg actually had a pretty good game. The weak(est) link was Barron, and now that we see Smith starting to get snaps over there, there's little reason not to keep him at LT the rest of the season. They're taking way too many lumps with Barron over there anyway. Smith needs the work and can’t be that much worse.
* Defensive line / LB: Not a good day at all to be a Rams defensive player. Today looked more like an 11-on-11 no-contact scrimmage than it looked like an actual game. I kept checking to see if Peyton Manning had a red jersey on. Leonard Little was the only Ram to even remotely pressure Manning, landing a couple of hits. He got Manning’s arm on one play, but of course, Peyton completed the pass anyway. Chris Long maybe got close enough once to hail a cab that could get him closer to the QB for minimum fare. Long usually does some good stuff that doesn’t get noticed on the box score, but today it was hard enough just to notice him, vs. either the pass or the run. With Indy already up 7-3, Long ate up the fake like a rube to set up a screen to Dallas Clark for 11. If Long stays home, Manning can’t even throw the pass! Next play, Clark manhandles Long, Reggie Wayne blocks James Butler and the LT wipes out Ron Bartell with a kickout block, leaving Donald Brown a huge hole to run through untouched for 45. It was depressing how easily the Rams were taken out of plays today, especially by tight ends. James Laurinaitis had just 4 tackles and got blocked out of a lot of plays. Joseph Addai scored an EASY 6-yard TD to put Indy up 21-3. The Rams had NINE in the box and still couldn’t touch the ballcarrier. Mike Pollak picked off O.J. Atogwe AND Laurinaitis. Ryan Diem easily drove off Little, a bit of a liability against the run himself. Clark easily drove off Paris Lenon. It was cake for Addai from there. The Colts’ 5th TD drive wasn’t pretty for the Rams. Their best stop of the drive only came because they had 12 men on the field. (Hey, I told them to try it.) Long got driven out of the way like a lightweight on a 12-yard Addai run. Addai went Little’s way for 8 after Leonard was flattened by yep, TE Gijon Robinson. That led to another passing TD, but the Colts weren't done on the ground, as somebody named Chad Simpson put the bow on the ugly package with a 31-yard TD run around left end to make it 42-6. Long got stopped by a double-team, but Larry Grant got blocked and looked out of position, Laurinaitis wasn't quite fast enough to keep Simpson from turning the corner, and as with a lot of the day, I don't know what James Butler was doing. I think he was trying to play the cutback, so no safety help on the play when Simpson shot up the sideline. C.J. Ah You lined up as an inside pass rusher a lot and led the defense with seven tackles. They also dropped him back in coverage a few times. Those seven tackles equaled the rest of the line’s output combined, according to NFL.com. I was surprised to see Long had as many as he did, 3. Little? None. Dominated ain’t the word for what happened to the Ram front seven today. The Colts just steamrolled them, with TD drives of 90, 78 and 93 yards, with little sign the Rams were ever going to stop them. Like I said up top: Japanese air force, meet Godzilla.
* Secondary: In some ways, the secondary played better than Manning’s 3-touchdown day made it look. Yes, Clark beat Ron Bartell and James Butler for 27 and the Colts' 2nd TD. That, however, was a damn perfect pass by Manning I'm not sure anybody could have defended. To open the game, Gijon Robinson beat tight coverage by Laurinaitis for 19 on 2nd-and-15. Then Reggie Wayne began abusing Bartell, beating him for 25 and 17 to set up his 5-yard TD where he just cut in front of Bradley Fletcher at the goal line. Wayne and Bartell may have been in the same ballpark today literally, but they sure weren't figuratively. Only an injury to Wayne gave Bartell much relief in that matchup. Bartell had a full plate; he was also called on to cover Dallas Clark a lot, and the Rams did hold him to 3 catches for 44. Butler and Craig Dahl hammered Clark to help get a rare defensive stop to start the 2nd. Bartell nearly intercepted a pass for Clark a little later; I still don't know how he managed not to catch the ball. Possibly he didn't see it until too late. Midway through the 3rd, Bartell and O.J. Atogwe perfectly bracketed Wayne on a 3rd-down deep pass to get the Rams the ball back, and a little hope, down 21-6. We know that didn't last long. Fletcher appeared to have the best day of any of the DBs. He was very strong in run support, and you have to notice that Manning didn't go after him a lot. Then, as he's smartly breaking up a sideline bomb for Pierre Garcon in the 4th, his leg buckles in holy-mother-of-God fashion, though it's been diagnosed as a hyperextended knee. Let's hope he heals fast; he's starting to look pretty good out there. Back after several weeks on the shelf, Butler looked mostly rusty. He wasn't a factor against the run (1 tackle), he took a bad angle on the Simpson TD run, and he bit on the play-fake on Austin Collie's TD like Lassie chomping on a Milk-Bone. The Rams need a lot better safety play than that; hell, they need a lot better defensive play, period, than they got today, or they're going 0-and-60, let alone 16.
* Special teams: Funny thing – one area the Rams may be settled in is their traditionally-awful special teams. The Colts didn’t do very much on returns. Donnie Jones pinned Indy inside the 15 four times, inside the 5 twice. And the defense actually made all of those stand up! Josh Brown did all the Rams’ scoring, from 30 and 45. Worst news of the day was a season-ending ACL injury to long snapper Chris Massey covering a punt in the 2nd. It’ll be up to Billy Bajema to replace Massey the rest of the way. What a shame to lose a favorite player, one of the team’s most consistent, and yet still unsung worker like Massey in a game like this one.
* Coaching: I know the Colts scored 42, but the defensive approach today was still fine. The little blitzing they did worked in that it rushed Manning’s throw or convinced him to check down on 3rd-and-long. I didn’t notice any of the Colts’ big plays beating blitzes, unless you count the play where no one covered Collie in the flat in the 3rd quarter, and I’m not sure Fletcher was supposed to blitz there. Too much blitzing would have just exposed the Ram secondary further. The Rams had to get there with their four-man rush, and they never did.
Since I’m voting lack-of-talent vs. scheme on defense this week, I’d better do it on offense, too. Once again this week what we mainly saw was Bulger rarely getting the ball downfield, nothing completed over 10 yards, few passes even being thrown that far. Yet opportunities downfield are popping up on the radar, mine anyway, maybe I’m poorly calibrated, that Bulger’s missing. And it really does seem true that without Avery on the field, the Rams have NO ONE capable of getting open more than 10 yards downfield and stretching the defense. Burton doesn’t have the speed; Carter needs a map to find the end zone. With Avery on the field, Pat Shurmur went deep early, and with a sweet flea-flicker play, pretty much a perfect call. I liked the well-set-up quick screens to Amendola, though I think he’s got the speed to use downfield a little more. I would have liked to see Jackson and the tight ends used more – they totaled just four catches, and I have to believe those guys could help free up the WRs. But without Avery, yeah, Shurmur’s trying to chop down the mightiest tree in the forest with a herring. If you guessed Jackson was going up the middle on every first down today, you were right a lot more than you were wrong. It’s a tribute to Jackson that he gained as much as he did on plays where everybody knows he’s getting the ball, and where he’s going. Shurmur seemed to mix that up better in the 2nd half, getting Jackson going right, then left, and getting big gains out of it. You’d think that with ok protection and an awesome running game to balance it, that the passing game would still work a lot better than it is. I don’t know how much play-action the Rams tried. The raging success of the flea-flicker should make play-action a Shurmur staple, shouldn’t it? Somewhere along the way, Shurmur’s got to make more happen with the pieces he’s got. King Arthur didn’t have to chop down the tree to defeat the Knights Who Say Ni, you know.
* Upon further review: The weird play involving the Carl Cheffers crew was an Addai sweep on 3rd-and-2 in the 4th. The spot always looked poor, short by about a yard, and the Colts eventually challenged it. Cheffers reviews the play and announces that they’re going to “respot the ball to the middle of the line” and re-measure. That by itself wouldn’t change the measurement, would it? Yet, out come the chains, and now we’ve suddenly got a first down. They got the play right, but Cheffers needed to describe what was going on better. The spot certainly changed, didn’t it? Instead he frustrated the home fans when he could have completely avoided that. I’ll give the crew a C.
* Cheers: Full disclosure: I was unable to attend today's game, so I'd like to thank my fellow Rams fans and an estimable number of Colts fans for keeping the TV blackout lifted, though that stuck me with Kevin Harlan and Solomon Wilcots on CBS trying to one-up each other in the Stupid Stat of the Day competition. Harlan: the Rams have gone through 12 QBs since Manning became the Colts starter in 1998. That's important when the Rams have been in more Super Bowls than the Colts since 1998? Seems as meaningful to me as the Rams outrushing the Colts in the third quarter today. Wilcots won, though, with: Austin Collie gained 14 pounds while on a 2-year mission in Argentina, going from 196 to 220. I didn't major in math, either, but... Despite a snowstorm, last week, the Patriot cheerleaders dressed for Halloween, when Pats fans already have a lot to cheer about. A week closer to Halloween, in a climate-controlled dome, before thousands of fans with little else to cheer about, the Rams “cheerleaders” once again this year did not dress for Halloween. As this appalling lack of cheerleader professionalism continues, RamView has no choice but to call for a new Rams cheerleader coordinator. This year most of all, the Rams “cheerleaders” should be going the extra yard to spread cheer. If you're not trying to be the best, you're not trying.
* Who’s next?: During the offseason, I happily wrote that the head coaching change to Steve Spagnuolo from Scott Linehan would gain the Rams two or three wins, simply because Linehan was so awful. Well, we’re coming up on week 8 now, the change to Spagnuolo has yet to mean even ONE win, and the Rams look more and more like they’re heading down the road of historic futility the Detroit Lions paved last season. Speak of the bedeviled, that’s the Rams’ next opponent, with none other than Scott Linehan calling the offense for HC Jim Schwartz.
Bad news: Linehan’s had a bye week to plan for the Rams. The best game Linehan called in 2.25 seasons here came off a bye, when the 0-7 Rams won in New Orleans in 2007. And the bye gets the Lions a lot healthier, giving Matthew Stafford, Daunte Culpepper and stud WR Calvin Johnson time to come back from injuries. The Rams won’t face the offense the Packers shut out two weeks ago. Thanks again for that bye week scheduling, NFL! There isn’t a big secret to defending the Lions; Linehan said as much in an interview last month. Play eight in the box and shade coverage to Calvin’s side. Linehan doesn’t have confidence in his running game yet and won’t punish a defense for directing extra attention toward #81. Kevin Smith gets just 3.2 a rush, and the Lions’ two longest runs this season are by Stafford and Culpepper. The Lions got a big game from Bryant Johnson when they beat Washington last month to break their 19-game losing streak. The Rams can’t let that 2nd receiver beat them, whether it’s him or rookie TE Brandon Pettigrew. The snowball starts rolling if that happens. In the end, though, it’s a Linehan offense; just blitz it. Stafford’s shown he’ll make the rookie-type mistake, and is still working on his accuracy. Culpepper’s a veteran but isn’t much less mistake-prone. Detroit’s o-line allowed the second-most sacks in the league thru six weeks and has a Barronesque penalty waiting to happen in Gosder Cherilus. Double Calvin, throw some pressure at them, let the chips fall where they may; some should fall right into your lap.
The main reason the Redskins lost to Detroit in September was abysmal offense, something we’re all too familiar with here. Certainly the Lions are going to stack up the line to stop Steven Jackson; it’s imperative for the Rams to open up the field with the pass. The Lions are actually among the league’s sack leaders but are still the 29th-ranked pass defense and allow a whopping passer rating against of 118.7. Yes, they’ve faced Brees, Rodgers, Cutler, Roethlisberger and Favre, but even Jason Campbell logged a 97.6! The Lions have as bad a secondary as the Rams will face this year outside practice – the Ram passing game runs out of excuses a little after noon this Sunday. DC Gunther Cunningham wants to blitz half the time but has had to play it more conservatively because his players screw up too much. Again, though, they’ve just gotten a free week to hammer out some of their defensive growing pains. Have I thanked the NFL for scheduling Detroit that bye week already? The Ram offense isn’t tasked with playing error-free ball like they were against the Colts. Their job this week is to commit fewer errors than Detroit.
Is that too high a hurdle now? Eight weeks into the season, does Steve Spagnuolo have the Rams coached up enough to outplay an offense engineered by Scott Linehan? Can they match wits and blows with the team coming off the worst season in NFL history? The answer may very well be no, and if it is, the 2009 season won’t be just a small step backward for the Rams, it’ll be a giant leap backward for Ramkind. And the moon’s going to seem nearby compared to the depth of the hole the Rams are on their way to digging themselves into.
--Mike
Game stats from nfl.com
Monday, October 19, 2009
RamView, October 18, 2009
From The Couch
(Report and opinions on the game.)
Game #6: Jagwires 23, Rams 20 (OT)
Make it 16 straight losses, a YEAR without a win, for the Rams after a surreal amount of bad luck in Jacksonville. Untimely injuries, dropped interceptions, crap pass interference calls by crap referees, even the coin toss conspired against the gallant but near-luckless Rams today. Hey, “football gods,” you owe us one after today. Big time.
* QB: Marc Bulger (22-34-213, 79.7 rating) started this game with a hot hand left over from last week's performance off the bench. His first pass was a superb sideline cover-2 beater to Keenan Burton for 21. And after Steven Jackson drove the Rams into the red zone, Bulger hit Donnie Avery in the corner of the end zone with a pretty 17-yard pass for the Rams' FIRST first-quarter TD of the season, a 7-0 lead, and what appeared to be the start of a promising afternoon on offense. Not so fast. Next possession, Bulger went deep for Avery, who had a step, in the end zone, but the pass was slightly underthrown and intercepted by Rashean Mathis. Avery left the game injured a little later and it was all downhill from there. The offense's options the rest of the way: be carried on Jackson's broad shoulders or have Bulger throw a 5-yard pass (if that). Bulger spent most of the afternoon dumping off on 3rd-and-long. This may well have been due to lack of open, or healthy, receivers. Burton and Danny Amendola were the only WRs who could even take the field for stretches. A couple of times near midfield, though, in the 1st and again in the 3rd, Bulger could have kept a drive alive with better third-down throws to Amendola. Both times Amendola had to come back for a short, low ball, thrown by Bulger on the run, and he couldn't get the first. In Jagwire territory near the end of the first half, Bulger slightly overthrew Daniel Fells (and hung him out to dry), who was open on a promising deep middle route. In the second half, the Rams had one (rushing) first down until the final 2:00, when they finally sustained another drive. Bulger hit Amendola for 13 on 3rd-and-5 at the Jagwire 35. Then, after having a certain TD pass to Daniel Fells knocked down by LB Daryl Smith, he hit Randy McMichael for 14 to get the Rams inside the 10. But with one shot with 15 seconds left, Bulger couldn't make anything happen, the Rams settled for a FG and never saw the ball again. This game's filled with a lot of what-ifs. What if Bulger hits one of those 3rd-down passes to Amendola? What if he puts another foot or so on the intercepted TD bomb for Avery? Seems like small potatoes, but more and more, the Ram offense doesn't appear to have even that small a margin for error.
* RB: Called on to carry the Ram offense by himself with 10 or 11 Jagwires clawing at him, another heroic effort by Steven Jackson was wasted. He ran for only 50 yards but totaled 128 thanks to success with the screen pass. He kept the first Ram TD drive alive on 3rd-and-8, taking a screen 19 yards and running over a DB after getting a big block from Richie Incognito. He powered most of the Rams’ FG drive late in the 2nd, with a couple of 9-yard runs off the left side and a 7-yard run behind Mike Karney up the middle. The Karney-Jackson combo was successful several times. Jackson started the 3rd quarter powering right up the middle for 15. Unfortunately, it would be another lost 3rd quarter for him from there. He only had three carries for minus-1 and two incompletions between that run and the 1:49 mark of the 4th quarter, when he made the Rams’ offensive play of the day. Off play-action at the Rams 22, he got another block from Incognito, and with at least three Jagwires whiffing along the way, rumbled off for 38 yards, dragging four defenders the last five yards. Efforts like that made it a real shame the Rams could only tie the game in regulation. Jackson ran hard against a Jagwire D stacked up to stop him all day. He was dangerous as a receiver. He even picked blitzes up well today. The guy’s just about doing it all. And getting nothing to show for it.
* Receivers: Is it time to wonder what Donnie Avery (1-17) is ever going to amount to? Shortly after beating two Jagwires in the corner of the end zone and making a nice catch for the Rams’ first TD, he left the game, injured AGAIN (hip-related), and the line of scrimmage became a black hole from which the Ram passing game could or would not escape. The injury made Keenan Burton (5-37) the ersatz #1, but after a fast start, he did nothing, with just one catch for two yards in the 2nd half. Danny Amendola (3-25) had a couple of shots to convert 3rd downs but Bulger’s throws appeared to pull him in short of the mark. He did convert a 3rd-and-5 to extend the game-tying FG drive. Randy McMichael (3-32) turned a couple of short passes into 10-yard-plus first downs; maybe the Rams should have looked his way more. Daniel Fells (2-11) got clocked the first time Bulger threw his way and wasn’t much of a factor. Tim Carter (0-0), who’d been back about three days after originally being cut in training camp, was thrust into action but got hurt himself, leaving Burton and Amendola the Rams’ ONLY healthy WRs at times. Injuries don’t help, but save the Laurent Robinson signing, the Rams haven’t made a good decision at the position since drafting Kevin Curtis in 2003. This year’s decision to woefully understaff the position is certainly included.
* Offensive line: The offensive line wasn’t outplayed today as much as it was outnumbered. When the defense can load up the box with impunity, the linemen simply can’t pick up everybody, and so Jackson fell often to slashing LBs and DBs. Strictly line-vs.-line, the Rams held up all right. Surprised by Derrick Harvey dropping back in coverage during the opening drive, Bulger held the ball and was sacked after Atiyyah Ellison beat Jacob Bell AND put Alex Barron ON HIS ASS, but that was the only time Bulger was taken down, and he had great protection for stretches. And right after that sack, a great block out front by Richie Incognito sprung a Jackson screen for 19 and a first down anyway. Run blocking was up and down. Barron set the edge nicely for a 9-yard sweep left late in the 2nd but drew a false start in the 1st. Jackson ran behind Mike Karney for 9 and 7 during the Rams’ first-half FG drive and also got a nice block from Bell on that first run. Then again, he got dropped for -3 inside the 2:00 warning after Randy McMichael got no block on Clint Ingram at all. The Rams opened the 2nd half on offense with a 15-yard run for Jackson up the middle, with big blocks by Jason Brown, Incognito and Karney. Two plays later, Bell gets beaten badly on the backside and Jackson can only gain 1 after spinning out of a big loss. I didn’t keep careful track but it looked like Adam Goldberg and Jason Smith switched in and out at RT. Smith looked good run-blocking, but on the Rams’ final 3-and-out, both he and Barron got eaten alive on a Jackson run that lost three. Ingram then bulled Barron right back into Bulger to foul up a screen pass the next play. The Rams did get back to tie the game after the big 38-yard screen to Jackson, sprung by a decent block again by Incognito. Richie had a good game. Smith and Jason Brown I’d say were ok. Bell and Barron I’d call inconsistent. You’d have liked line play to be a little better, but you’d also have liked Jacksonville not to have stacked the line of scrimmage all day, either.
* Defensive line / LB: The Ram defense played with a lot of heart but couldn’t have had a lot of lung left after spending most of the 2nd half and all of OT on the field. It’s no wonder they had trouble stopping the Jagwires late. Unfortunately, though, they didn’t really stop them early, either. They sacked David Garrard three times but still gave him far too much time to throw. The 4-man rush rarely got there – Chris Long’s presence in the Ram defense was barely a rumor – and the Rams blitzed a lot and it didn’t get there a lot. The 41-yard bomb to Torry Holt beat a blitz, and Maurice Jones-Drew ran through Bradley Fletcher the next play for the first of three TDs. The Rams were terrible on 3rd down, stopping only 5 of 16 chances. Garrard scrambled through the gaping lane Leonard Little left for 9 on 3rd-and-8 at the end of the 1st. Good news, though; Ron Bartell forced a Jones-Drew fumble the next play. The D really asserted itself the next drive. Cliff Ryan came in unblocked to drop Jones-Drew for minus-3. James Hall followed with a MANLY play, going right through Eugene Monroe and grabbing Garrard for the Rams’ first sack. Little then discarded Eben Britton with ease and sacked Garrard again to end the drive. Ryan got a sack early in the 3rd thanks to LaJuan (WHO?) Ramsey collapsing the pocket single-handedly, and a blitzing Fletcher hit Garrard on 3rd down to end the drive. The Rams still held a 10-6 lead, and were looking solid, but the offense kept coming straight off the field. The Jagwires had the ball at least 20 minutes of the 2nd half and wore the Rams down. Another big factor was an injury that put Hall out of the game. C.J. Ah You was nowhere near as staunch against the run, which the Jags exploited. Ah You did make a big play at the end of the 3rd. With Garrard getting simply all day to throw by this point, Ah You tipped a red-zone pass at the line for an INT by James Laurinaitis. But the offense put the defense right back out there, and now they really started getting gashed. Garrard faked Ryan out of his jock and ran through Little’s vacated area for an 11-yard scramble. Then the killer blow, a Jones-Drew 26-yard draw down to the three. The entire d-line was pushed right and destroyed. Six Rams screwed tackles on the play, including a near-horse collar by Laurinaitis that Jones-Drew ran through. On 3rd-and-goal, Jones-Drew bounced off Larry Grant and through Ah You’s spot – he had been driven nearly all the way to the center – to give Jacksonville a 13-10 lead. The offense 3-and-outed AGAIN, though, and the Rams looked dead, if not for a moment of brilliance by Little. He stepped out on an intended screen pass for Greg Jones, plucked the ball from the receiver’s hands, sprinted 30 yards down to the 5 and DIVED for the pylon for the TD and a 17-13 lead. Sadly, that momentum wasn’t enough to energize another stop. Garrard scrambled for 13 through a lane left this time by Long. Jones-Drew swept right for 18 with DBs missing tackles and Ah You getting dominated by a TE. An unhurried Garrard hit Mike Sims-Walker for 26. Jones-Drew beat a zone blitz, and Little in coverage, on a 13-yard screen down to the 10, and he and his o-line just overpowered the Rams on their way to a go-ahead TD. The game was probably in effect over when the Rams lost the overtime coin toss. Two plays into OT, the Rams lost Bartell AND Will Witherspoon to injuries. Garrard hit Sims-Walker for 22 to get the Jags close, and Jones-Drew continued to overpower the Rams’ right side for another 20 yards to make Josh Scobee’s game-winning FG a chippie. The D was certainly gassed by the end of the game, but could too have helped itself out with more consistent play earlier in the game, especially pressure on Garrard. They played with great heart, but could be said to have expired today due to arrhythmia.
* Secondary: In a disappointing season, I don’t know that there’s been a more disappointing Rams player than Ron Bartell. Bartell was Torry Holt’s (5-101) bee-yotch today, as the future Hall-of-Famer chalked up his first 100-yard game since 2007. Holt turned Bartell inside out on a 41-yard catch in the first like it was training camp 2005 all over again and Bartell was a rank rookie. Holt also drew two (legit) DPIs off of Bartell, including one on a two-yard slant on 2nd-and-10 that had me screaming to put someone else on Torry. For the love of Taje Allen, just let him catch that! Well, it was hardly a banner day for any of the Ram secondary. Mike Sims-Walker (9-120) burned Craig Dahl and O.J. Atogwe for 35 before Bartell redeemed himself (a little) by forcing a Jones-Drew fumble to start the 2nd. Soft zone coverage was ineffective all day. Sims-Walker got the Jagwires in (very long) FG position right before halftime with a 22-yard catch – how can you let that happen? As much as poor offense kept putting the defense back on the field, the secondary didn’t help them get off quickly. A six-minute Jagwire drive in the 3rd should have been stopped earlier, but Dahl dropped an interception, Bartell and Jonathan Wade committed DPIs real and imagined, and Wade was 10 yards off Mike Thomas on a 3rd-and-4 completion. Quincy Butler (!) finally ended the drive by breaking up a pass to Sims-Walker. But Sims-Walker broke wide open underneath the too-soft zone for 26 on the last Jagwire TD drive, and he did it again on a 3rd-and-6 in OT, all but sealing the Rams’ doom. 335 yards passing by David Gerrard? TWO 100-yard Jacksonville receivers? Terrible game by the Ram secondary today. Terrible.
* Special teams: Surprisingly strong day for Josh Brown, who hit a 52-yarder I was certain he’d miss just before halftime, and the 27-yard game-tying FG with :07 left in the game. Most of his kickoffs boomed deep into the end zone, too, which makes Donnie Jones’ poor day even more puzzling. Jones shanked punts all day for a pedestrian 41.8 average and can kiss the Pro Bowl good-bye, missing several opportunities to pin the Jagwires back with even-decent punts. The broadcast blamed a swirling wind. Enough to take almost ten yards off a guy’s punts? Amendola had a 57-yard return, getting good blocks in the “wedge” area (and some Jagwires out of their lanes) and picking up a block downfield by Billy Bajema. But Jones was a big impediment today in the Rams’ battle for field position.
* Coaching: It's certainly fair to wonder whether the Rams could have safely taken another shot at the end zone with seven seconds left in regulation, especially with a timeout in hand. For those who believe so, what play do you call? The previous play took 8 seconds. If Bulger gets flushed again, game's over. If you're throwing a fade pass into the end zone, who's the receiver? McMichael maybe? Maybe run what the Titans tried at the end of Super Bowl 34 and hit Burton on a slant? I’m fine with the FG because I just don’t know that they would have had a successful play to run for the TD. And you’ve got to rely on the hometown timekeeper not to have an itchy trigger finger. In full hindsight, that last TO probably should have come after McMichael's catch with 0:23 left. A couple of other game-management issues can probably be chalked up to Steve Spagnuolo being a rookie coach. Why freeze Josh Scobey before the 58-yard attempt at the end of the first half? Wouldn't you rather have him rush that try? It looked like Jagwire HC Jack del Rio really got away with pushing the officials around, browbeating them into more than his fair share of calls. I'd like to have seen Spagnuolo bow up more against that kind of stuff. Without the other guy fighting back, veteran coaches like del Rio are going to run roughshod over the referees all day.
It looked like Pat Shurmur's play-calling got off to a good start. The opening drive was the Rams' best drive of the season. The offense looked nicely balanced and the no-huddle kept the Jagwires on their heels. Once Avery was gone for the game, though, the passing game went back into the shell it's been in all season. And the offense’s second-half woes continued. After an initial first down, they didn’t get another until the final 2:00 of regulation. They essentially three-and-outed the entire half. Shurmur tried to get the ball in Jackson’s hands each possession, but there was nothing to discourage the Jagwires from putting everyone in the box to stop him. The Rams’ longest completion the first 28:00 of the second half was seven yards. Bulger had one attempt longer than ten yards. Instead of stretching the field, Shurmur wrapped it up tight and put a double rubber band around it. I know he was down to Amendola and Burton at WR for a while, but what, neither of them can run a 15-yard route? The tight ends can only catch 4-yard passes in the flat? The Rams have no way to get an RB downfield for a pass? Did Shurmur know he was up against the worst pass defense in the league? As much as I want to cut Shurmur some slack for the injuries at WR, an offense relying heavily on Donnie Avery remaining healthy probably isn’t operating on the right premise.
* Upon further review: I've never been a Jeff Triplette fan and today did nothing to change my mind. Some of the DPI calls were horrendous, coming WELL after the play was over, and with heavy lobbying from the Jagwire sideline. Wade's play in the 3rd was no DPI – he was within five yards and released contact before the pass was thrown. Laurinaitis didn't interfere with Jones-Drew in the 4th, either. There is no faceguarding penalty in the NFL; James was guilty of nothing except good coverage. I wouldn't be complaining if he were still a Ram like he should be, but the sideline “catch” by Holt late in the 3rd was completely a reputation-based call. Torry can make that catch. Has many times before. DIDN'T THIS TIME. He had a toe out of bounds and the ball was still moving in his outstretched hands. What was Triplette watching on the replay monitor after the Rams challenged? Playboy After Dark? The fumble called on Garrard in the 3rd was also an awful call. How did the official think the ball ended up where it did if Garrard's arm wasn't in motion? Luckily, none of these questionable calls contributed to scoring drives, so I'll score Triplette and crew a D-minus and hope they don't do any other Rams games this year.
* Cheers: I guess we're going to get a lot of Ron Pitts and John Lynch on game calls this year, huh? Like them or not, anything's better than Matt Vasgersian. Pitts was all over Donnie Jones' off-day punting like he had money on him or something. Can't remember the last time a play-by-play guy was so obsessed with a punter. Play-calling was pretty sloppy at times, especially regarding carries by Jones-Drew, who Pitts sometimes called “Jones” or “Drew” instead of using his correct name. The Jagwires have Greg Jones at RB, too; Pitts should know better than to get lazy with Jones-Drew's name in the booth. Lynch's points about Avery's absence hurting the offense were good, and he agreed some of the DPI calls were cheesy, but yes, John, I know Torry Holt wanted to get back at his old team. Lynch beat that dead horse so much that by the end of the game he was beating a bottle of glue.
* Who’s next?: Who made up this schedule, anyway? “Let’s see, your team struggled to the second-worst record in the league last year, so, next season, we’ll schedule three of your first four games on the road, and we’ll have two of your first three home games be against possibly the two best teams in the league. We’ll make sure both those teams are undefeated when you play them, and that you’ll play one that’s on a 14-game winning streak and got a bye the week before so they’re nice and rested up for ya. Lotsa luck, Spags!”
At least next week will give St. Louis fans the rare treat of seeing Peyton Manning in person. True, you can see him half-a-dozen times during a commercial break in any televised sports event (has Peyton ever turned down a product endorsement? Seriously, LifeLock?), but he’s well on his way to becoming the greatest QB in NFL history, if he isn’t already. His arm, accuracy and football intelligence put him in a Hall-of-Fame class by himself, and he’s succeeded despite an everchanging cast of supporting characters. Nobody makes his whole team better as much as Manning does. This year, he’s thrown for over 300 yards every game and has a passer rating of 114.1. How do you stop the guy? Hey, don’t ask me. Or Arizona (lost 31-10). Or Seattle (lost 34-17). Or Miami, who lost to Indy despite holding the ball for FORTY-FIVE minutes. If you can’t even beat Peyton by denying him the ball, what can you possibly do? I wouldn’t blitz. Peyton’s killed the blitz his whole career, and rookie RB Donald Brown has been terrific at blitz protection. Losing a man in coverage won’t be a good gamble; it won’t give Manning less time. I'd consider rushing two, double-covering Reggie Wayne and septuple-covering Dallas Clark, who I can’t see the Rams holding under 100 yards, or 2 TDs. Maybe sneak a 12th guy onto the field every now and then, see if the referees notice (Hey, they almost didn’t against Seattle!). Maybe blitz all 11, or 12, guys whenever Indy gets inside the 10. I'm almost serious about some of these ideas. It's going to take something radical for this Rams team to hold the Colts under 30 points. At the very least, bend-but-don’t break, hope you can hold them to a FG every now and then.
Dwight Freeney has a remarkable streak for this remarkably-streaking Colts team: a sack in every game this season. He has to be one of the fastest defensive ends in NFL history, the reason he’s been able to turn his back to his blocker with his patented spin move thousands of times in his career without getting punished for it. If there’s a better 1-2 pass rush punch in the NFL than Freeney and Robert Mathis – 16.5 and 16 sacks respectively since the beginning of last season – I can’t name them. And the Colt defense that didn’t use to blitz much when Tony Dungy was head coach, likes to bring it now. The Rams are going to have their hands fuller than Nadya Suleman's babysitter. Colt defenses have been known to struggle against the run, so the Rams have a chance to run ball-control offense with Steven Jackson, if they can get promising young play-making OLB Tyjuan Hagler blocked. And the Ram passing game has to be able to sustain something against a young but underrated Colts secondary. If they didn't have enough for Jacksonville's league-worst pass defense, it's hard to see them having enough for Indianapolis.
In the 322 years since Sir Isaac Newton discovered its laws, there may never have been a more lopsided case of momentum than the one we'll have next week. The Colts have won 14 straight. The Rams have lost 16 straight. Sure, an ant can move a rubber-tree plant, as Spagnuolo'll no doubt be whistling at Rams Park all week.
But can a gnat stop an on-coming train?
--Mike
Game stats from nfl.com
From The Couch
(Report and opinions on the game.)
Game #6: Jagwires 23, Rams 20 (OT)
Make it 16 straight losses, a YEAR without a win, for the Rams after a surreal amount of bad luck in Jacksonville. Untimely injuries, dropped interceptions, crap pass interference calls by crap referees, even the coin toss conspired against the gallant but near-luckless Rams today. Hey, “football gods,” you owe us one after today. Big time.
* QB: Marc Bulger (22-34-213, 79.7 rating) started this game with a hot hand left over from last week's performance off the bench. His first pass was a superb sideline cover-2 beater to Keenan Burton for 21. And after Steven Jackson drove the Rams into the red zone, Bulger hit Donnie Avery in the corner of the end zone with a pretty 17-yard pass for the Rams' FIRST first-quarter TD of the season, a 7-0 lead, and what appeared to be the start of a promising afternoon on offense. Not so fast. Next possession, Bulger went deep for Avery, who had a step, in the end zone, but the pass was slightly underthrown and intercepted by Rashean Mathis. Avery left the game injured a little later and it was all downhill from there. The offense's options the rest of the way: be carried on Jackson's broad shoulders or have Bulger throw a 5-yard pass (if that). Bulger spent most of the afternoon dumping off on 3rd-and-long. This may well have been due to lack of open, or healthy, receivers. Burton and Danny Amendola were the only WRs who could even take the field for stretches. A couple of times near midfield, though, in the 1st and again in the 3rd, Bulger could have kept a drive alive with better third-down throws to Amendola. Both times Amendola had to come back for a short, low ball, thrown by Bulger on the run, and he couldn't get the first. In Jagwire territory near the end of the first half, Bulger slightly overthrew Daniel Fells (and hung him out to dry), who was open on a promising deep middle route. In the second half, the Rams had one (rushing) first down until the final 2:00, when they finally sustained another drive. Bulger hit Amendola for 13 on 3rd-and-5 at the Jagwire 35. Then, after having a certain TD pass to Daniel Fells knocked down by LB Daryl Smith, he hit Randy McMichael for 14 to get the Rams inside the 10. But with one shot with 15 seconds left, Bulger couldn't make anything happen, the Rams settled for a FG and never saw the ball again. This game's filled with a lot of what-ifs. What if Bulger hits one of those 3rd-down passes to Amendola? What if he puts another foot or so on the intercepted TD bomb for Avery? Seems like small potatoes, but more and more, the Ram offense doesn't appear to have even that small a margin for error.
* RB: Called on to carry the Ram offense by himself with 10 or 11 Jagwires clawing at him, another heroic effort by Steven Jackson was wasted. He ran for only 50 yards but totaled 128 thanks to success with the screen pass. He kept the first Ram TD drive alive on 3rd-and-8, taking a screen 19 yards and running over a DB after getting a big block from Richie Incognito. He powered most of the Rams’ FG drive late in the 2nd, with a couple of 9-yard runs off the left side and a 7-yard run behind Mike Karney up the middle. The Karney-Jackson combo was successful several times. Jackson started the 3rd quarter powering right up the middle for 15. Unfortunately, it would be another lost 3rd quarter for him from there. He only had three carries for minus-1 and two incompletions between that run and the 1:49 mark of the 4th quarter, when he made the Rams’ offensive play of the day. Off play-action at the Rams 22, he got another block from Incognito, and with at least three Jagwires whiffing along the way, rumbled off for 38 yards, dragging four defenders the last five yards. Efforts like that made it a real shame the Rams could only tie the game in regulation. Jackson ran hard against a Jagwire D stacked up to stop him all day. He was dangerous as a receiver. He even picked blitzes up well today. The guy’s just about doing it all. And getting nothing to show for it.
* Receivers: Is it time to wonder what Donnie Avery (1-17) is ever going to amount to? Shortly after beating two Jagwires in the corner of the end zone and making a nice catch for the Rams’ first TD, he left the game, injured AGAIN (hip-related), and the line of scrimmage became a black hole from which the Ram passing game could or would not escape. The injury made Keenan Burton (5-37) the ersatz #1, but after a fast start, he did nothing, with just one catch for two yards in the 2nd half. Danny Amendola (3-25) had a couple of shots to convert 3rd downs but Bulger’s throws appeared to pull him in short of the mark. He did convert a 3rd-and-5 to extend the game-tying FG drive. Randy McMichael (3-32) turned a couple of short passes into 10-yard-plus first downs; maybe the Rams should have looked his way more. Daniel Fells (2-11) got clocked the first time Bulger threw his way and wasn’t much of a factor. Tim Carter (0-0), who’d been back about three days after originally being cut in training camp, was thrust into action but got hurt himself, leaving Burton and Amendola the Rams’ ONLY healthy WRs at times. Injuries don’t help, but save the Laurent Robinson signing, the Rams haven’t made a good decision at the position since drafting Kevin Curtis in 2003. This year’s decision to woefully understaff the position is certainly included.
* Offensive line: The offensive line wasn’t outplayed today as much as it was outnumbered. When the defense can load up the box with impunity, the linemen simply can’t pick up everybody, and so Jackson fell often to slashing LBs and DBs. Strictly line-vs.-line, the Rams held up all right. Surprised by Derrick Harvey dropping back in coverage during the opening drive, Bulger held the ball and was sacked after Atiyyah Ellison beat Jacob Bell AND put Alex Barron ON HIS ASS, but that was the only time Bulger was taken down, and he had great protection for stretches. And right after that sack, a great block out front by Richie Incognito sprung a Jackson screen for 19 and a first down anyway. Run blocking was up and down. Barron set the edge nicely for a 9-yard sweep left late in the 2nd but drew a false start in the 1st. Jackson ran behind Mike Karney for 9 and 7 during the Rams’ first-half FG drive and also got a nice block from Bell on that first run. Then again, he got dropped for -3 inside the 2:00 warning after Randy McMichael got no block on Clint Ingram at all. The Rams opened the 2nd half on offense with a 15-yard run for Jackson up the middle, with big blocks by Jason Brown, Incognito and Karney. Two plays later, Bell gets beaten badly on the backside and Jackson can only gain 1 after spinning out of a big loss. I didn’t keep careful track but it looked like Adam Goldberg and Jason Smith switched in and out at RT. Smith looked good run-blocking, but on the Rams’ final 3-and-out, both he and Barron got eaten alive on a Jackson run that lost three. Ingram then bulled Barron right back into Bulger to foul up a screen pass the next play. The Rams did get back to tie the game after the big 38-yard screen to Jackson, sprung by a decent block again by Incognito. Richie had a good game. Smith and Jason Brown I’d say were ok. Bell and Barron I’d call inconsistent. You’d have liked line play to be a little better, but you’d also have liked Jacksonville not to have stacked the line of scrimmage all day, either.
* Defensive line / LB: The Ram defense played with a lot of heart but couldn’t have had a lot of lung left after spending most of the 2nd half and all of OT on the field. It’s no wonder they had trouble stopping the Jagwires late. Unfortunately, though, they didn’t really stop them early, either. They sacked David Garrard three times but still gave him far too much time to throw. The 4-man rush rarely got there – Chris Long’s presence in the Ram defense was barely a rumor – and the Rams blitzed a lot and it didn’t get there a lot. The 41-yard bomb to Torry Holt beat a blitz, and Maurice Jones-Drew ran through Bradley Fletcher the next play for the first of three TDs. The Rams were terrible on 3rd down, stopping only 5 of 16 chances. Garrard scrambled through the gaping lane Leonard Little left for 9 on 3rd-and-8 at the end of the 1st. Good news, though; Ron Bartell forced a Jones-Drew fumble the next play. The D really asserted itself the next drive. Cliff Ryan came in unblocked to drop Jones-Drew for minus-3. James Hall followed with a MANLY play, going right through Eugene Monroe and grabbing Garrard for the Rams’ first sack. Little then discarded Eben Britton with ease and sacked Garrard again to end the drive. Ryan got a sack early in the 3rd thanks to LaJuan (WHO?) Ramsey collapsing the pocket single-handedly, and a blitzing Fletcher hit Garrard on 3rd down to end the drive. The Rams still held a 10-6 lead, and were looking solid, but the offense kept coming straight off the field. The Jagwires had the ball at least 20 minutes of the 2nd half and wore the Rams down. Another big factor was an injury that put Hall out of the game. C.J. Ah You was nowhere near as staunch against the run, which the Jags exploited. Ah You did make a big play at the end of the 3rd. With Garrard getting simply all day to throw by this point, Ah You tipped a red-zone pass at the line for an INT by James Laurinaitis. But the offense put the defense right back out there, and now they really started getting gashed. Garrard faked Ryan out of his jock and ran through Little’s vacated area for an 11-yard scramble. Then the killer blow, a Jones-Drew 26-yard draw down to the three. The entire d-line was pushed right and destroyed. Six Rams screwed tackles on the play, including a near-horse collar by Laurinaitis that Jones-Drew ran through. On 3rd-and-goal, Jones-Drew bounced off Larry Grant and through Ah You’s spot – he had been driven nearly all the way to the center – to give Jacksonville a 13-10 lead. The offense 3-and-outed AGAIN, though, and the Rams looked dead, if not for a moment of brilliance by Little. He stepped out on an intended screen pass for Greg Jones, plucked the ball from the receiver’s hands, sprinted 30 yards down to the 5 and DIVED for the pylon for the TD and a 17-13 lead. Sadly, that momentum wasn’t enough to energize another stop. Garrard scrambled for 13 through a lane left this time by Long. Jones-Drew swept right for 18 with DBs missing tackles and Ah You getting dominated by a TE. An unhurried Garrard hit Mike Sims-Walker for 26. Jones-Drew beat a zone blitz, and Little in coverage, on a 13-yard screen down to the 10, and he and his o-line just overpowered the Rams on their way to a go-ahead TD. The game was probably in effect over when the Rams lost the overtime coin toss. Two plays into OT, the Rams lost Bartell AND Will Witherspoon to injuries. Garrard hit Sims-Walker for 22 to get the Jags close, and Jones-Drew continued to overpower the Rams’ right side for another 20 yards to make Josh Scobee’s game-winning FG a chippie. The D was certainly gassed by the end of the game, but could too have helped itself out with more consistent play earlier in the game, especially pressure on Garrard. They played with great heart, but could be said to have expired today due to arrhythmia.
* Secondary: In a disappointing season, I don’t know that there’s been a more disappointing Rams player than Ron Bartell. Bartell was Torry Holt’s (5-101) bee-yotch today, as the future Hall-of-Famer chalked up his first 100-yard game since 2007. Holt turned Bartell inside out on a 41-yard catch in the first like it was training camp 2005 all over again and Bartell was a rank rookie. Holt also drew two (legit) DPIs off of Bartell, including one on a two-yard slant on 2nd-and-10 that had me screaming to put someone else on Torry. For the love of Taje Allen, just let him catch that! Well, it was hardly a banner day for any of the Ram secondary. Mike Sims-Walker (9-120) burned Craig Dahl and O.J. Atogwe for 35 before Bartell redeemed himself (a little) by forcing a Jones-Drew fumble to start the 2nd. Soft zone coverage was ineffective all day. Sims-Walker got the Jagwires in (very long) FG position right before halftime with a 22-yard catch – how can you let that happen? As much as poor offense kept putting the defense back on the field, the secondary didn’t help them get off quickly. A six-minute Jagwire drive in the 3rd should have been stopped earlier, but Dahl dropped an interception, Bartell and Jonathan Wade committed DPIs real and imagined, and Wade was 10 yards off Mike Thomas on a 3rd-and-4 completion. Quincy Butler (!) finally ended the drive by breaking up a pass to Sims-Walker. But Sims-Walker broke wide open underneath the too-soft zone for 26 on the last Jagwire TD drive, and he did it again on a 3rd-and-6 in OT, all but sealing the Rams’ doom. 335 yards passing by David Gerrard? TWO 100-yard Jacksonville receivers? Terrible game by the Ram secondary today. Terrible.
* Special teams: Surprisingly strong day for Josh Brown, who hit a 52-yarder I was certain he’d miss just before halftime, and the 27-yard game-tying FG with :07 left in the game. Most of his kickoffs boomed deep into the end zone, too, which makes Donnie Jones’ poor day even more puzzling. Jones shanked punts all day for a pedestrian 41.8 average and can kiss the Pro Bowl good-bye, missing several opportunities to pin the Jagwires back with even-decent punts. The broadcast blamed a swirling wind. Enough to take almost ten yards off a guy’s punts? Amendola had a 57-yard return, getting good blocks in the “wedge” area (and some Jagwires out of their lanes) and picking up a block downfield by Billy Bajema. But Jones was a big impediment today in the Rams’ battle for field position.
* Coaching: It's certainly fair to wonder whether the Rams could have safely taken another shot at the end zone with seven seconds left in regulation, especially with a timeout in hand. For those who believe so, what play do you call? The previous play took 8 seconds. If Bulger gets flushed again, game's over. If you're throwing a fade pass into the end zone, who's the receiver? McMichael maybe? Maybe run what the Titans tried at the end of Super Bowl 34 and hit Burton on a slant? I’m fine with the FG because I just don’t know that they would have had a successful play to run for the TD. And you’ve got to rely on the hometown timekeeper not to have an itchy trigger finger. In full hindsight, that last TO probably should have come after McMichael's catch with 0:23 left. A couple of other game-management issues can probably be chalked up to Steve Spagnuolo being a rookie coach. Why freeze Josh Scobey before the 58-yard attempt at the end of the first half? Wouldn't you rather have him rush that try? It looked like Jagwire HC Jack del Rio really got away with pushing the officials around, browbeating them into more than his fair share of calls. I'd like to have seen Spagnuolo bow up more against that kind of stuff. Without the other guy fighting back, veteran coaches like del Rio are going to run roughshod over the referees all day.
It looked like Pat Shurmur's play-calling got off to a good start. The opening drive was the Rams' best drive of the season. The offense looked nicely balanced and the no-huddle kept the Jagwires on their heels. Once Avery was gone for the game, though, the passing game went back into the shell it's been in all season. And the offense’s second-half woes continued. After an initial first down, they didn’t get another until the final 2:00 of regulation. They essentially three-and-outed the entire half. Shurmur tried to get the ball in Jackson’s hands each possession, but there was nothing to discourage the Jagwires from putting everyone in the box to stop him. The Rams’ longest completion the first 28:00 of the second half was seven yards. Bulger had one attempt longer than ten yards. Instead of stretching the field, Shurmur wrapped it up tight and put a double rubber band around it. I know he was down to Amendola and Burton at WR for a while, but what, neither of them can run a 15-yard route? The tight ends can only catch 4-yard passes in the flat? The Rams have no way to get an RB downfield for a pass? Did Shurmur know he was up against the worst pass defense in the league? As much as I want to cut Shurmur some slack for the injuries at WR, an offense relying heavily on Donnie Avery remaining healthy probably isn’t operating on the right premise.
* Upon further review: I've never been a Jeff Triplette fan and today did nothing to change my mind. Some of the DPI calls were horrendous, coming WELL after the play was over, and with heavy lobbying from the Jagwire sideline. Wade's play in the 3rd was no DPI – he was within five yards and released contact before the pass was thrown. Laurinaitis didn't interfere with Jones-Drew in the 4th, either. There is no faceguarding penalty in the NFL; James was guilty of nothing except good coverage. I wouldn't be complaining if he were still a Ram like he should be, but the sideline “catch” by Holt late in the 3rd was completely a reputation-based call. Torry can make that catch. Has many times before. DIDN'T THIS TIME. He had a toe out of bounds and the ball was still moving in his outstretched hands. What was Triplette watching on the replay monitor after the Rams challenged? Playboy After Dark? The fumble called on Garrard in the 3rd was also an awful call. How did the official think the ball ended up where it did if Garrard's arm wasn't in motion? Luckily, none of these questionable calls contributed to scoring drives, so I'll score Triplette and crew a D-minus and hope they don't do any other Rams games this year.
* Cheers: I guess we're going to get a lot of Ron Pitts and John Lynch on game calls this year, huh? Like them or not, anything's better than Matt Vasgersian. Pitts was all over Donnie Jones' off-day punting like he had money on him or something. Can't remember the last time a play-by-play guy was so obsessed with a punter. Play-calling was pretty sloppy at times, especially regarding carries by Jones-Drew, who Pitts sometimes called “Jones” or “Drew” instead of using his correct name. The Jagwires have Greg Jones at RB, too; Pitts should know better than to get lazy with Jones-Drew's name in the booth. Lynch's points about Avery's absence hurting the offense were good, and he agreed some of the DPI calls were cheesy, but yes, John, I know Torry Holt wanted to get back at his old team. Lynch beat that dead horse so much that by the end of the game he was beating a bottle of glue.
* Who’s next?: Who made up this schedule, anyway? “Let’s see, your team struggled to the second-worst record in the league last year, so, next season, we’ll schedule three of your first four games on the road, and we’ll have two of your first three home games be against possibly the two best teams in the league. We’ll make sure both those teams are undefeated when you play them, and that you’ll play one that’s on a 14-game winning streak and got a bye the week before so they’re nice and rested up for ya. Lotsa luck, Spags!”
At least next week will give St. Louis fans the rare treat of seeing Peyton Manning in person. True, you can see him half-a-dozen times during a commercial break in any televised sports event (has Peyton ever turned down a product endorsement? Seriously, LifeLock?), but he’s well on his way to becoming the greatest QB in NFL history, if he isn’t already. His arm, accuracy and football intelligence put him in a Hall-of-Fame class by himself, and he’s succeeded despite an everchanging cast of supporting characters. Nobody makes his whole team better as much as Manning does. This year, he’s thrown for over 300 yards every game and has a passer rating of 114.1. How do you stop the guy? Hey, don’t ask me. Or Arizona (lost 31-10). Or Seattle (lost 34-17). Or Miami, who lost to Indy despite holding the ball for FORTY-FIVE minutes. If you can’t even beat Peyton by denying him the ball, what can you possibly do? I wouldn’t blitz. Peyton’s killed the blitz his whole career, and rookie RB Donald Brown has been terrific at blitz protection. Losing a man in coverage won’t be a good gamble; it won’t give Manning less time. I'd consider rushing two, double-covering Reggie Wayne and septuple-covering Dallas Clark, who I can’t see the Rams holding under 100 yards, or 2 TDs. Maybe sneak a 12th guy onto the field every now and then, see if the referees notice (Hey, they almost didn’t against Seattle!). Maybe blitz all 11, or 12, guys whenever Indy gets inside the 10. I'm almost serious about some of these ideas. It's going to take something radical for this Rams team to hold the Colts under 30 points. At the very least, bend-but-don’t break, hope you can hold them to a FG every now and then.
Dwight Freeney has a remarkable streak for this remarkably-streaking Colts team: a sack in every game this season. He has to be one of the fastest defensive ends in NFL history, the reason he’s been able to turn his back to his blocker with his patented spin move thousands of times in his career without getting punished for it. If there’s a better 1-2 pass rush punch in the NFL than Freeney and Robert Mathis – 16.5 and 16 sacks respectively since the beginning of last season – I can’t name them. And the Colt defense that didn’t use to blitz much when Tony Dungy was head coach, likes to bring it now. The Rams are going to have their hands fuller than Nadya Suleman's babysitter. Colt defenses have been known to struggle against the run, so the Rams have a chance to run ball-control offense with Steven Jackson, if they can get promising young play-making OLB Tyjuan Hagler blocked. And the Ram passing game has to be able to sustain something against a young but underrated Colts secondary. If they didn't have enough for Jacksonville's league-worst pass defense, it's hard to see them having enough for Indianapolis.
In the 322 years since Sir Isaac Newton discovered its laws, there may never have been a more lopsided case of momentum than the one we'll have next week. The Colts have won 14 straight. The Rams have lost 16 straight. Sure, an ant can move a rubber-tree plant, as Spagnuolo'll no doubt be whistling at Rams Park all week.
But can a gnat stop an on-coming train?
--Mike
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