The Rams aren't the only team in the same boat

[Smed55]

If you look around the league, the majority of the teams do not have a quality back up at QB? Oaklands backup sucked Sunday, and I never even heard of him, Seneca Wallace while serviceable, is not Aaron Rodgers. Buffalos backup, stunk it up. Yes there are a few that have done well lately, Keenum, Foles, Campbell, but will they continue? Matt Flynn, Matt Cassel, to name a few were hot commodities, yet in the big picture, they weren't all that!

The problem is, all teams invest a large amount of money in their starting QB, so they are not going to pay millions of dollars for a backup QB that is going to hold a clipboard, then when their starter goes down, it bites them in the ass. All backups are backups for a reason, they usually aren't all that good, they are usually just serviceable until your starter is back, or you can find a better option.

We as Ram fans have suffered many years now, but so has Detroit, Cleveland, Oakland, Buffalo,
Jacksonville, and the list does go on. I'm sure their fans are posting the same things on their boards that we do on ours. Their team sucks, their coaches are clueless, their oline sucks, their D sucks, WR are dropping
balls.

There are exceptions to this, you have certain teams that are consistently good, they are run well from top to bottom. Teams like the Rams are missing something in this process, but that is the case with the majority of teams in the NFL.

I have the NFL package and watch every game every week via shortcuts, all teams have drops, all teams have penalties, alot of teams have crappy olines, missed FG's. It just seems like these things happen at the worst times when it happens to the Rams.

People have said on these boards that every week the team that plays the Rams, one guy is going to have a monster game. Well "if" the Rams would have won last week, Titan fans would have been on their board saying the same thing about Stacy. It's not just against the Rams, Oakland fans are complaint that Foles threw 7 TD's against them. A few weeks back Romo threw for 500 yards against a team that wasn't the Rams, Manning had 7TD's against a team that was not the Rams, Darrel Young for Washington, had 1TD in 3 years, he scored 3 Sunday against a team that wasn't the Rams.

I know all of us watch our team more closely than we do other teams and it hits home more for us, but
a lot of teams have the same issues we do. I'm sure fans of other bottom feeder teams like us are just as frustrated and fed up with their teams as we are.

But it's easy to be frustrated when we all see the same problems happening over and over. It makes you
wonder, what are they doing all week in practice, what are they NOT seeing when they look at game film. Why is this guy starting in front of this guy.

My biggest beef is, our defense was pretty good last year, we even added a couple of players that should have made us even better, yet we are worse. To me that's telling me it just might be the DC, call me crazy, but Fisher being a defensive minded coach can't see this. We have some studs on defense, but I think both Long and the Animal have not had as good a years so far this year.

Anyway, this is getting a bit long, just needed to throw my two cents in there, because I am totally frustrated with this team myself!!!

 

[Retroram52]

Yea Smed55, you have a point with Detroit, Cleveland, Oakland, Buffalo, and Jacksonville because of the length of time that these teams including the Rams have been in the toliet. We have had the worst record of any NFL franchise from 2006-2011 and over the previous 12 years since the Superbowl in 1999 and 2001, we have been in the top five worst franchises. We have been worst than Oakland, Cleveland, Detroit, Buffalo, and Jacksonville and that is saying alot. So all of the things you mention about complaints may be shared but they are certainly justified because many of us have spent an inordinate amount of time supporting futility and you and I have seen better times dating back more than a decade. So I hear you loud and clear.

 

[Smed55]

Yea Smed55, you have a point with Detroit, Cleveland, Oakland, Buffalo, and Jacksonville because of the length of time that these teams including the Rams have been in the toliet. We have had the worst record of any NFL franchise from 2006-2011 and over the previous 12 years since the Superbowl in 1999 and 2001, we have been in the top five worst franchises. We have been worst than Oakland, Cleveland, Detroit, Buffalo, and Jacksonville and that is saying alot. So all of the things you mention about complaints may be shared but they are certainly justified because many of us have spent an inordinate amount of time supporting futility and you and I have seen better times dating back more than a decade. So I hear you loud and clear.

Yes Retro we have seen better days. I don't necessarily have to have a Super Bowl to be happy with my Rams. Back in the late 60's we probably had the second best team in the league year in and year out, but we were in the same division as the Unitas led Colts, in the 70s we had good teams, then we were decent in the 80's but SF was pretty much better than everyone else.

As I've said, at least we have seen success, I think it would be tougher being a Lions fan. They are the only

non expansion team to never make it to the Superbowl, actually they have rarely ever even made the playoffs. They had arguably the best RB ever in Barry Sanders and nothing to show for it. Then they had a run of drafting a WR in the first round for like 10 straight years (sarcasm, but like three or four straight years), they currently have arguably the best WR in the NFL right now, and nothing to show for it. They have had some terrible coaches, and have been unfortunate to be in the same division as some very good teams over the years.

Three other teams, all expansion teams never have made it either, Jacksonville, Houston, and Cleveland are the others that haven't been to the Superbowl, so there are other fans out there that haven't even gotten to experience the little success that we have.

 

[shopson67]

To be fair, that was Buffalo's 4th QB this year. Kevin Kolb, EJ Manuel, Thad Lewis, then UDFA rookie Jeff Tuel, and just cut QB #5 Matt Flynn yesterday. Kolb is on IR, Manuel and/or Lewis could return this week.

 

[LongtimeRamsFan42]

For me, the big question is....Does this problem have to do with a lack of talent at the QB position? Or a lack of quality coaches who can properly develop these guys into true NFL QB's? Or is it a combo of the two?

 

[Retroram52]

LongtimeRamsfan. Bill Walsh once stated that every QB coming into the NFL should spend a minimum of three-five years watching the game from the sidelines. He often pushed for and utilized himself a practice squad type mini-farm club which was later implemented after Walsh's death.

The original idea of the practice squad was to harbor players who would eventually be resigned anyway as a pool for development of QBs and the so-called skill positions, not necessarily a place to place injured players the clubs were placing there to avoid the year long IR death penalty. So, yes, Walsh understood that good coaching and "redshirting" players for awhile was best for the game and the QBs in the longterm.

In today's NFL, we have a whole host of watered down also-ran type QB's that are now fostering the complaint by the media that there are not enough quality QBs to go around especially with the host of injuries QBs face every year. The latest is Rodgers in GB. So, the notion of the cellphone mentality has seeped into the thinking of FO's and coaches because of the pressure to win by putting underdeveloped QBs in right out of college which of course is fueled by the Almighty doe-reh-me!!

 

[Smed55]

To be fair, that was Buffalo's 4th QB this year. Kevin Kolb, EJ Manuel, Thad Lewis, then UDFA rookie Jeff Tuel, and just cut QB #5 Matt Flynn yesterday. Kolb is on IR, Manuel and/or Lewis could return this week.

Yes Shopson, I do realize that that was their 4th QB, but all their other options weren't all that good either.

If you look around the league, a lot of teams can complain about their backup QB's, but in reality a lot of teams starting QB's really aren't that good either.

 

[shopson67]

Yes Shopson, I do realize that that was their 4th QB, but all their other options weren't all that good either.

If you look around the league, a lot of teams can complain about their backup QB's, but in reality a lot of teams starting QB's really aren't that good either.

I would argue that outside of Tuel, all those Buffalo options are much better than what the Rams have to work with, post Bradford injury. I know most people here would love to have Thad Lewis on the Rams roster right now.

 

[Smed55]

I would argue that outside of Tuel, all those Buffalo options are much better than what the Rams have to work with, post Bradford injury. I know most people here would love to have Thad Lewis on the Rams roster right now.

There is no reason to argue about that, I agree, it's just that their first 3 options really are nothing to write home about either!