Fools Gold

[Vitamike]

Devils advocate here....

Both Sam and Nick found themselves on the road in OT games in Week 9 with the ball to open the overtime quarter.

• Sam throws 5 of 5 for 55 yards, including the deep game winning TD.
• Nick goes 1 of 2 for 0 yards and watches Hekker walk on to punt the ball to Adrian Peterson & company.

Also Sam is getting more comfortable with every game and Nick seems to be less and less comfortable.

Now for the real deal, we made the right move, even if Sam deservedly goes on to be the Eagles franchise QB and Foles kicks rocks in another year.

That Bradford salary was crippling our roster and we were getting nothing in return. All we had to gain was a hope and a prayer that Sam wouldn't get hurt again this season and we surely wouldn't have been able to sign Nick Fairley who provides quality depth to the D line.

 

[Clayton]

Devils advocate here

I'll play Devil's advocate here, too.

Not with Bradford. Its not worth talking about him because he is always one hit away from being done.

But there are moments in every loss except maybe the Redskins game that you can point to and say 'maybe the Rams win that game if Foles doesn't make that bone headed play.' Football Outsiders had Foles as the worst starting QB last week and mentioned the grounding penalty which was pretty big. While I think the Foles experiment absolutely deserves more time, its been a failure so far.

 

[Jermaine133]

It has been a failure yes, but look at the shitty lineman we have blocking for him. Rookies or not they SUCK!!!! GURLEY is that good that he needs only a little room to be good.

 

[Retroram52]

I disagree with you Jermaine not on the main point that our O-lineman are not what we expected but that some of them are really pretty good. The difference was evident on Sunday past when Havenstein was not in there and the holes for Gurley were gone on the right side with Reynolds in that position. The difference was incredibly noticeable. Brown next to him is not the same player either when Havenstein is not there. Havenstein is a pretty good rookie O-lineman and he will be a great one I believe.

GRob is coming along slowly. There are glimmer's of greatness but he not progressing as fast as say an O. Pace of a decade ago in his second year. Donnal's characterization would not be fair as this was his first game. I suspect if Wichmann made it to center, we would see a game of averages for him as well and a better performance with each passing game.

We failed a decade ago in not attending to a post-superbowl O-line. The neglect has been well-documented and we are reaping what the FO has sown. But if there were ever an area of our team that is going to take some time with a good crop of big young studs, it is the O-line.

Yea, I get your frustration as we all have been waiting, year-in and year-out for something to change and we have heard the excuses one too many times to put any faith in any further similar proclamations. We watched countless times as this FO has passed on very good O-lineman to take another defensive player.

However, I do believe this crop of youngsters we now have are going to be good and only time will tell. So, hang in there. I doubt we make the play-offs this year but I believe that will be in our future. Our O-line has to be a foundational priority in order for this team to take that next step. Of course we have all stated that waiting is the key and we have done it each year hoping the choices this FO will finally payoff.

 

[ANGELAKERAMS]

Retro

I agree with your assessment.

However, when you see the Pats plug in rookie OL and an undrafted rookie center and they outperform the Rams OL by a wide margin when the Rams have invested much higher picks, you can't help but question A) the draft choices that were made ( especially GRob ), and B) the coaches that are supposed to be teaching these guys.

Havenstein has looked good, and Brown plays well next to him, but GRob is looking like Jason Smith 2.0

And that is why I hated the pick. They essentially took a Guard with the #2 pick because GRob barely had to pass protect in college because they ran the ball 85-90% of the time.

You don't take guards and hope they can be great LT's. Especially not at #2. And that's what they did and that's why it hasn't worked out and may never work out. He may end up being a Robert Gallery ( another #2 ). Busted as a T but was a pretty good G for several years. That may end up being what the Rams have to do just to salvage the pick.

But you are right. They ignored the OL for so long, and then when they did address it, the picks were busts ( Barron, even Saffold ). That is why this team has been terrible for so long.

They've done a magnificent job fixing the DL. Too bad they can't spot the same level of talent for the OL.

 

[zeke2829]

The Vikings were getting penetration throughout our whole line last Sunday! Not just the left side. They were stacking the box and blitzing from all directions all day trying to stop our only threat(Gurley). They were successful at it. Heck we couldnteven use 4 wrs sets as we have to have an extra blocker in there to help pass protect. To make things worse, our TE's cant even block to save their asses. So the end result is pretty simple.....3 and out! Every week we see the same problem! At the beginning of the season all I heard was these young lineman(Brown, G-Rob and Havenstein) should all be great run blockers, well I guess this still remains to be seen!

 

[Smed55]

That's right!! I was just taking a peaceful nap and my Sammy radar went off I fell right out of my bunk bed.

That's funny Coug, but sadly it's probably also true that you sleep in a bunk bed with your footy " Sammie jammies"

 

[Retroram52]

Yep ALR. When you compare some of our moves with other teams it does come up a bit lacking as you stated. Then the next problem is coaching. Boudreau is supposed to be one of the premier O-lineman coaches and his taking also-ran lineman and turning them into good players is well-documented. But maybe he doesn't know how to deal with a higher talented player(s)? We are then back to the original point that waiting is our default activity.

Trying to convert a guard with GRob to play LT is a legitimate point ALR. We passed on some pretty good LTs in the last three years and that is what is so frustrating. It almost appears that we need to create chaos and negativity by just being stupid in the draft and FA.

Like you stated ALR, we did well with defense but have come up short many times with the offense and this goes all the way back to the post-superbowl years. Presently Fisher in conjunction with Snead are calling the shots in the draft and FA and it is obvious they don't have much of an eye for O-line talent.

That combination goes to Jermaine's numerous posts about how stupid Fisher and possibly Snead really are. All of it is indeed pretty frustrating and all we can do at this juncture is hope things work out but that has become so old to be laughable.

 

[RamsFan88]

I think this team can still make the playoffs as a wild card. If Quinn and Havenstein are back, we should win the next two games. 6-4 and another big match up going against Cincy. Hopefully Foles can perform well enough, but we really haven't seen that since Week 1.

 

[Smed55]

I agree with Retro, our oline really isn't as bad as some of you think? They are young and are going to make mistakes. There really are only a few teams that have really good olines, if you actually looked there are a ton of teams that have really poor oline play, at least ours is really young and there is hope for the future!

As far as Ram88, I hope your right, but Chicago looked better than they have all year last week, so they might not be as easy a win as they looked like just a few weeks ago!

And if we don't improve on our 3rd down conversion rate, it will be hard to beat anybody! We have been atrocious on 3rd down all year, but especially bad the past 3 games

 

[SJ76]

I think this whole deal with Zimmer and Vikings is going to fuel the fire. I think they get better but we need to get over .500 and put the petal down.

Time to grow up and start whipping ass

Play calls have to get better too. We have to go for the jugular and not play for ties.

 

[Smed55]

Devils advocate here....

Both Sam and Nick found themselves on the road in OT games in Week 9 with the ball to open the overtime quarter.

• Sam throws 5 of 5 for 55 yards, including the deep game winning TD.
• Nick goes 1 of 2 for 0 yards and watches Hekker walk on to punt the ball to Adrian Peterson & company.

Also Sam is getting more comfortable with every game and Nick seems to be less and less comfortable.

Now for the real deal, we made the right move, even if Sam deservedly goes on to be the Eagles franchise QB and Foles kicks rocks in another year.

That Bradford salary was crippling our roster and we were getting nothing in return. All we had to gain was a hope and a prayer that Sam wouldn't get hurt again this season and we surely wouldn't have been able to sign Nick Fairley who provides quality depth to the D line.

While I totally agree with the majority of your post Vita, I'm still not impressed by Sammies "numbers". Obviously better than Foles numbers," in this case" he still went 4-4 for 14 yards (typical Sammie) and half of the 41 yard TD to Mathews was YAC yards!

 

[SJ76]

Sam Hasnt changed. He's a fairly accurate QB when he has time. He's still an average QB that is below average against good defenses. His offense is up tempo and tires out defenses. And he's got 3 solid RBs that spread the field.

Has Foles been better? No. But they are in 2 totally opposite offenses

Chip Kelly's team is built for the regular season, not the playoffs.

 

[27mtrcougar]

I think Foles bounces back this weekend against the Bears. won't surprise me if he passes for 300 yds. He's been hearing the media all week rip him to pieces... He better respond against a poor defense like the Bears.

 

[jacobarch]

I hope you're right. He's looked pretty subpar so far this year

 

[shopson67]

Any chance Welker is active?

 

[27mtrcougar]

Any chance Welker is active?

Fish said he looked really good in practice. I'm guessing he might

 

[Smed55]

Any chance Welker is active?

I hope he doesn't see the field, have a real bad feeling about this signing? Hate to see something bad happen to him, it will be on the Rams for signing him, I think a lot of teams avoided him because they didn't want that hanging over their team!
The guy is one hit away from wearing a bib the rest of his life, and he's more or less a cross the middle type WR, nothing good will come from this?

 

[Smed55]

Fish said he looked really good in practice. I'm guessing he might

Didn't he say that about Sammie? so i guess Fishers idea of looking good is different than most of us?

 

[Retroram52]

Fisher says that about alot of players who then go out and suck during the game. Can you say Jared Cook?