RamView year in review: Coaching staff

NFL.com

Jeff Fisher: B-

Fisher wins as a leader and motivator who gives his team its identity, but not necessarily as a tactician. Getting away from what his teams have done best on offense for a month, without the players or the offensive coordinator to make the new approach succeed, looms as a major tactical error that probably cost the Rams the playoffs. If not that, it most certainly was the Rams' woeful 1-5 division record, a deep disappointment after 2012's 4-1-1, 4 games against NFC Championship teams or not. Fisher also took far too long to "get involved" in defensive play-calling. That shouldn't have taken the months of ineffective blitzing and repeated abuse from mediocre wide receivers that it did. Fisher's team plays tough and believes in itself, a big turnaround from the last two regimes, but in Carolina and in Seattle, Fisher was clearly not in control of his team, and that is unacceptable. The Rams must cut back on the ludicrous amount of penalties they commit and keep their composure much better for Fisher's grade to improve. Fisher also needs to call timeouts when they need to be called. If your defense has 10 men on the field near the goal line, call a timeout. If you have a fake punt on, but the opponent left its starting defense on the field expecting it, call a timeout. If Justin Blackmon is right in front of you and you see no one on your defense covering him, call a timeout. Jeff Fisher clearly knows how to assemble a good coaching staff and a talented roster. He isn't forced to be a master strategist as a result, and he isn't one. But he's missed some opportunities when the Rams have needed him to be an above-average strategist.

Brian Schottenheimer: D+

Wasn't going to be this tough on Schotty originally, but the Rams’ failure at the start of the season to institute a dynamic passing game started them 1-3 and cost them the playoffs. I think we can officially fail Schotty as a coach who can design and run a creative passing game. And his running game is even less creative, since all the Rams did was run up the middle all year. It took way too long to get Tavon Austin into the offense, though once he did, he got some good payoffs. Schotty’s not a dumb coach. He’s certainly smarter than Josh McDaniels. His game plans match up with what his players do best (though that was a flaw in early 2013). He stays smart and sticks with what’s working in a given game. Though he was better in 2012, he's been a very good red zone and goal line tactician. He's established, though, that he's just not a coordinator who's going to elevate an offense to a new level. How fitting that Kellen Clemens ran the system well the second half of the season; if Schotty were a QB, that's who he'd be. A game manager. Those aren't exciting, and continuity is not the most exciting reason to keep an offensive coordinator around, but for Schottenheimer, it'll have to do.

Tim Walton: D-

The Rams’ fantastic front four was severely let down by awful defensive schemes. It was a defense that at times seemed designed to give up first downs on third-and-long, with much-too-soft pass coverage paired with ineffective blitzing. Walton compounded that by getting fooled badly at times at the goal line, going light up front to defend the pass just to have someone waltz through a huge gap for an easy TD on the ground. What made Walton look really bad was the spread of the news of Fisher taking a bigger role in play-calling late in the season, which was followed almost immediately by some of the Ram defense's best games. And, as I finished that last sentence, word came that the Rams fired Walton and will replace him with bounty boy Gregg Williams. Well, THAT ought to help cut back on the penalties.

John Fassell: B-

Has crafted excellent kicking and coverage games. Hekker and Zuerlein were his guys all along and he deserves credit for making those calls. Special teams still has plenty to clean up, though. Their penalty record was awful, they didn't block a kickoff return well all year, and they failed big-time on two fake punts, getting outschemed by Dallas and out-executed by San Francisco. Those are coaching fails, and why the hell were they punting to Devin Hester in the Chicago game? Fassell should get this grade up to A pretty quickly.

Paul Boudreau: B

Had an A grade before I realized I didn't give any of his players a grade higher than C. His line was usually effective despite a plague of injuries that made week-to-week consistency and chemistry nearly impossible to attain. Saffold's move to guard worked like magic and Barksdale was credible at RT. The line struggled badly out of the gate, though, and coach Boudreau needs to coax Pro Bowl-quality play out of Jake Long again before I'm completely convinced.

Mike Waufle: A

Just doing what he always does. Show up at a team and lead their d-line to the top of the league in sacks. Rams use a lot of wrinkles up front, too; Waufle doesn't just surf on the waves created by his players.

Frank Bush: A

The Rams usually got good games from the linebackers and Alec Ogletree's development is on the fast track.

Chuck Cecil: C-

If soft zone defense is to be a viable defensive strategy for the Rams, their DBs have to play it a lot better than they do. There are a lot of mistakes in the back, with young players not seeming to have their heads in the game all the time and possibly regressing. McDonald's development at safety was promising.

Ben Sirmans: B+

Thinking about it, the Rams played a rookie 5th-round pick and a rookie free agent and had a credible running game. Would have gotten an A had Stacy made the starting lineup sooner.

Ray Sherman: F

Rams wide receivers ran sloppy routes, failed to get open, had poor footwork, let passes into their body, concentrated poorly, had poor hands, didn’t take care of the ball when they actually did catch it, didn’t adjust properly on blitzes or adjust well when the QB was in trouble. The Rams’ best receiver from 2012 regressed pretty badly, the rookies took a long time to become effective and Quick, the top-picked WR from 2012, showed little sign of progressing into a quality NFL player, and WOW, is a lot of this coachable. And though Sherman isn’t the tight ends coach, when you see Jared Cook show all of those traits, and realize that he worked out with the wide receivers in training camp, something has to tell you everything Ray Sherman touches turns into something, and it ain’t gold.

Frank Cignetti: C

Ram QBs don't have any technical flaws, and Cignetti probably deserves some credit for the quality of Clemens' play the second half of the season, as he executed well in a system he fit well. The guy in Sam Bradford's ear the most has got to get it out of him to lift his performance to an elite level in 2014.

Rob Boras: B

Having blamed Cook on Ray Sherman, I'll credit the Rams' blocking TE success to coach Boras. Most encouraging is that Harkey has become a borderline elite fullback.

Looking ahead: Bah, I should have realized the minute Williams became available from Tennessee's coaching purge that Walton's days in St. Louis would be numbered. Remember how quickly the Rams let a rookie coordinator go while they tell us we need to be patient with some of their badly-underperforming young players. With Schottenheimer finishing third at best for the Vanderbilt job, I don't see any (more) turnover on Fisher's staff. They're all his guys.

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