Sunday, September 29, 2013

Rams-49ers recap


The Rams' 2013 season swirled down the toilet bowl with an awful 35-11 home loss to a 49ers team they thought they could compete with. The RamView recap is finally up.

Negatives: 19 total yards rushing. Sam Bradford heard footsteps, missed open receivers poorly the few times he had one and was sacked another five times. Both offensive and defensive lines were miserable failures. The 49ers ran for over 200 yards. Cortland Finnegan continued to play like complete garbage. T.J. McDonald broke his leg and will be out eight weeks. Tavon Austin could do nothing on offense or special teams.

Positives: Only 12 more games before the season is over! And I started Frank Gore in my fantasy league.

Possibly more catch-up on the way today; we'll see how it goes. Enjoying watching some ball without having to suffer through the Rams' incompetence for a change.

-$-

Monday, September 23, 2013

Rams injury report


Three players did not participate in practice Monday due to knee injuries: William Hayes, Chris Givens and Rodger Saffold. Hayes was injured during Sunday's 31-7 loss in Dallas and was on crutches after the game, so he sounds very doubtful for Thursday night. Saffold sprained an MCL in the loss at Atlanta, and has was originally described as "week-to-week", but the Rams can't have added two offensive linemen to the roster since his injury thinking he'd be back very quickly. I'd imagine Rodger will be out another 3-4 weeks. Another guess is that Max Starks will be at right tackle Thursday night.

Limited participation for: James Laurinaitis (foot), Jake Long (foot), T.J. McDonald (knee), Mike McNeill (chest), Daryl Richardson (foot), Chris Williams (foot). Richardson was actually on the field for a couple of plays Sunday but had to leave the game after getting his already-injured foot stepped on. Long was pulled from the game late Sunday as a precautionary measure after his injury. Should be fair to expect him to play Thursday, hopefully a lot better.

-$-

Rams-Dallas recap



The RamView recap of a most forgettable weekend for the Rams in Dallas is up now. Sure, I get that one up within two weeks. Go figure.

Negatives: No running game. No open receivers. The sackless streak not only ended, it went up in flames, with the Rams allowing Sam Bradford to get smeared SIX times and Jake Long looking like he didn't even belong at LT in a rec league. Demarco Murray gouged the Ram defense again, for 175 yards, with Chris Long and Robert Quinn getting blocked by tight ends with ease most of the game. A veteran coaching staff showed little ability to game-plan, make adjustments, motivate players or call timely timeouts on either side of the ball.

Positives: Greg Zuerlein put two kickoffs through the back of the end zone. I started Murray in my fantasy league.

Adding more insult to injury, the 49ers lost 27-7 at home yesterday and have opened as 3-point favorites to win here Thursday night.

RamView's still very much in catchup mode; I'll get injury reports and roster moves up when I get them assimilated.

-$-

Sunday, September 22, 2013

Game notes, weeks 1-2

Ramview.com is FINALLY up-to-date for the first two weeks of the season. Long recaps of the Rams' 27-24 home win over the Big Dead and their 31-27 road loss to Atlanta are up there. Quicker recaps right here...

Week 1 positives: Robert Quinn's three sacks made him NFC Defensive Player of the Week... Jared Cook had a massive 7-catch, 141-yard, 2-TD game in his Rams debut... Sam Bradford led a 4th-quarter rally to get the Rams out of a 24-13 hole... Third straight game Bradford wasn't sacked... Greg Zuerlein was a flawless 4-for-4 on FGs, with a 48-yarder to win the game in the final minute.

Week 1 negatives: Cortland Finnegan was by far the worst Ram on the field. Couldn't cover, couldn't tackle and committed stupid penalties... Speaking of which, seven penalties, 4 of them 15-yard personal fouls, all by veterans... Pass rush was almost non-existent outside of Quinn... That the Rams ever fell behind 24-13 in the first place to a team that went 1-7 on the road last season.

Week 2 positives: Fourth straight game Bradford wasn't sacked... Productive receiving games for Tavon Austin (2 TDs) and Austin Pettis (8-78)... Another sack for Quinn... Bad refereeing led directly to Atlanta's first TD... Brian Schottenheimer's got all these shiny, new weapons and doesn't seem to want to use them.

Week 2 negatives: Rams dug a big hole again, falling behind 24-3... Cook went from all-Pro to invisible man (1 catch, 10 yards)... The passing game was checkdown after checkdown...  No running game... Janoris Jenkins' terrible coverage allowed an 81-yard Julio Jones TD bomb... Only two sacks... Special teams were penalty-crazy.

Week 2 irony: After nine years of battling for them without getting over the top, Steven Jackson scored a TD against his old team... and was injured on the play. He'll be out several weeks with a hamstring injury. Hey, didn't the same thing happen to Jackson two years ago? The Falcons might want to work him a little harder next summer so he gets that hamstring deal out of the way in training camp.

Rams of the Week: Week 1 - Quinn; Week 2 - Jake Long.

More catchup on the way.

-$-

Saturday, September 7, 2013

Rams-Arizona game notes



The Rams remain 4.5-point favorites to beat Arizona in the Dome tomorrow. Kickoff is 3:25 p.m. There are still tickets for sale at last word, but enough have sold to get the game on TV locally (KTVI).

 





Starting lineup:
- Chris Williams won the training camp battle at LG and will start Sunday.
- Rodney McLeod and T.J. McDonald will be the starting safeties. It's not completely clear if McLeod will continue to start if Darian Stewart is ever healthy ever again.
- Benny Cunningham will return kicks.

Injuries: 
The Rams look pretty good from an injury standpoint, though I guess we can worry a little bit about their special teams depth. Out for Sunday:
- Cory Harkey (knee)
- Quinton Pointer (thigh)
- Darian Stewart AGAIN (hamstring)
- Jonathan Stewart (hip)

Chris Long missed the final week of training camp due to a "tweaked" knee, but says he feels good now, describing his health as both "fantastic" and "awesome".
Jermelle Cudjo and Lance Kendricks, who missed most and all of training camp respectively, are both reportedly full-go.
Matt Giordano, who also missed all of training camp, returned to practice Wednesday.
Matt Daniels has a cast on his arm, and recent practice reports have described him as limited, but he's not on the Rams' injury report at all.

Arizona is also in pretty good shape injury wise. They do list TE Rob Housler (ankle) as out, which takes away a target for the Rams' pass coverage to worry about, though he hadn't looked very good in preseason anyway. Calais Campbell (quad) is questionable; won't hurt any to have him slowed down. No one else is worse than probable, including Rashard Mendenhall, so the Rams better be ready for him.

Not so done:
Linebacker Jo-Lonn Dunbar may return to the Rams after his league suspension runs out. The move to release him earlier this week is now believed to have been a move to get the Rams under the salary cap by the league deadline. It saved the Rams $1 million against the cap. The Rams may try to bring Dunbar back with a cheaper deal.

Former Rams roundup:
Since the last mega-update:
- Quintin Mikell signed with the Panthers. The Panthers were the main team talking to Mikell all offseason. They finally had to make a move after losing Haruki Nakamura due to a concussion.
- Matt Mulligan was picked up, and released, by the Patriots;
- Andrew Hawkins (ankle injury, as seen on Hard Knocks) hit the IR/return list;
- Tampa Bay put Danny Gorrer (groin) on the IR/return list and re-signed Gary Gibson;
- "Thad" Lewis was signed to Buffalo's practice squad;
- Fendi Onobun was signed to Chicago's practice squad.

I'll do my best to have RamView out by Monday night. Sorry yet again for the lack of updates... I lost my lunchtime wireless connection earlier in the week. Not the worst Rams blog on the web for nothing...

 -$-

Wednesday, September 4, 2013

RamView, 9/4: Done-bar

KSDK TV
* The Rams' latest surprise roster move came Tuesday night when they cut LB Jo-Lonn Dunbar, their 2nd-leading tackler from last season. Dunbar entered training camp as an entrenched starting OLB but drew a 4-week suspension from the league for failing a PED test. Even though head coach Jeff Fisher claimed to "have known about [the failed test] for some time," and that the Rams hadn't signed free agent LB Will Witherspoon just before camp because of it, the suspension seemed to put Dunbar deep into Fisher's doghouse, and Fisher has now kicked him out of the doghouse.

Fisher seemed to hold Dunbar, as a veteran, to a higher standard than he did either of the young players, Isaiah Pead and Rokevious Watkins, who got suspended the first week of the season for "substances of abuse" violations. (The Rams cut Watkins, who is now on the Chiefs' practice squad, but because he reported to camp well out of shape for the second straight year.) Unlike the youngsters' transgressions, which he soft-peddled in the press, even defending Watkins, Fisher called Dunbar "selfish", said he "hurt the team", and immediately said he had no guarantee of getting his starting job back. Fisher held pretty hard to that word, huh.

Fisher's reaction to Dunbar's suspension just seems so out of proportion compared to the others that it's pretty natural to wonder what else Dunbar did to piss Fisher off, or if he has another failed test in the pipeline. Hopefully not, for his sake. Dunbar may already have blown the rest of his career as it is. He can't help any team till week 5 and won't get a lot of time to impress anyone before becoming an unrestricted free agent again at the end of the year. At 28, you wouldn't think he's done, but his future earning capacity has to have taken a major hit here.

Remains to be seen, of course, how much Dunbar's departure will affect the Ram defense. He wasn't in the nickel package, replaced by Alec Ogletree, so if Will Witherspoon can hold his own in the base package, the impact could be minimal.

* DEep. Dunbar's release reportedly gains the Rams a half-million dollars against the salary cap, so maybe it's not such a coincidence that a contract extension for Eugene Sims was announced right around the same time. And congratulations to Eugene. He's outperformed expectations as an original 6th-round pick, has become a good rotational DE and looked better than ever in training camp this year. (This was the last year of his rookie contract.)

Sims' signing leads to a question, though: how many defensive ends do the Rams need? It's like they've become doomsday preppers at the position. Chris Long is locked up through 2016. Sims and Will Hayes are locked up through 2015. They have an option on Robert Quinn for 2015.

With all those DEs signed that far into the future, and no doubt knowing they were close to extending Sims, why is Gerald Rivers on the roster? Rivers is quickly emerging as a talented DE, and it's fair to call him one of the best 53 they had in camp, but when is he going to play the next three years? Heck, why is Sammy Brown on the practice squad? When will he ever play for this team?

A fifth defensive end, when you've got the four in front of him locked up for at least three seasons, just seems like a luxury to carry on a roster. If Rivers is being developed as trade bait for a future draft pick, fine. If Brown's main job is to do Aldon Smith imitations during practice weeks, that's fine, too. I would use that roster spot differently, whether on a third QB, a dedicated kick returner or safety depth, considering the Rams are already carrying two injured guys there.

Gerald Rivers looks like a good young player. I'm just not sure the Rams are ever going to need him.

* Bradford does, and doesn't, suck. Doesn't, actually, but here are two differing opinions.  Bill Barnwell at Grantland.com contends the Rams are going to slide back into the bottom eight of the league this season because Bradford's going to suck because he doesn't have Danny Amendola to lean on, backing his argument up with old statistics. Maybe too old. Bernie Miklasz's work here doesn't mention that article, but came out a day later and pretty much refutes it. I know I'm rooting for Bernie to come out right in this discussion.

-$-

Sunday, September 1, 2013

Practice squad signings (updated)

QB Austin Davis is NOT on the Rams' practice squad, which they filled today:

Emory Blake
Mason Brodine
Sammy Brown
Cody Davis
Sean Hooey
Eric Stevens
Justin Veltung
Darren Woodard

So, you can't make the club from the tub, but in three cases, you can become a scrub. No word yet if Austin Davis was claimed by another team.


Al Lapuaho (Miami), Fendi Onobun (Chicago) and Greg Salas (Philadelphia) have been added to practice squads per Jim Thomas.

Rokevious Watkins has been signed to Kansas City's practice squad.

-$-