St. Louis Rams: Progression Turns to Regression

It’s been a very long time since the St. Louis Rams have came into a season with some expectations.

After a 7-8-1 record under Jeff Fisher last year, the Rams finally had hope for improvement before this season. It came at rare times last year when the Rams would play with no energy and they were competitive in every game except the blowout lost to the New England Patriots that took place in London. Jeff Fisher really changed the attitude of this team and every Rams fan out there took notice of this.

This was the year the Rams had many expectations from Sam Bradford’s breakout year to the Rams finally clinching a playoff berth. However, the St. Louis Rams have shown no improvement from last season.

A week ago the Rams were blown out by the Dallas Cowboys. They were on a short week with two games in five days, but many of the Rams players were determined to put up a good fight with the San Francisco 49ers come Thursday night.

There is a reason for Rams fans to panic after the San Francisco 49ers completely outwit the Rams on Thursday. They were dominated in all three phases of the game which resulted in a 35-11 loss in front of their home crowd.

The St. Louis Rams never came to play on Thursday and it was flat out “disgusting”. The running game was shut down all night as Daryl Richardson had 12 rushing attempts for 16 yards. The Rams had a total of 18 rushing yards on the night which is the worse rushing total this season. This came as Isaiah Pead was inactive for the game and some can say he is the most explosive and talented running back on this Rams roster.

The Rams also find themselves playing teams that are coming off tough losses. Playing the Falcons, Cowboys, and 49ers the past three weeks those teams all lost in dramatic fashion the week before. The Rams are catching all these playoff teams from a year ago at a bad time, however in order to be a playoff team themselves they must beat the best.

This is a Rams team we all expected to be better from last year. It was just a year ago when all of us were watching the exciting defense get a sack on 3rd down and now we watch the opposing offense attack our soft coverage. To make matters worse, our offense has been non-existent the past two games. The St. Louis Rams have way to much talent to be playing this terrible on offense and on almost every play on Thursday night the receivers were asked to run seven yard stops and do there best to get yards after the catch. This philosophy is difficult to watch because all of our receivers are potential play makers, but the Rams are not using them the correct way.

You can blame Sam Bradford for all of the offensive struggles, however we feel like offensive coordinator Brian Schottenheimer has a lot to do for the lack of explosive plays down the field. Schottenheimer has been calling terrible plays and it seems like he doesn’t know how to use all the potential stars on this Rams offense. You would expect the offense to be much improved from last year because as a matter of fact, this is Sam Bradford’s second year in the Schottenheimer offense.

It’s still only been four games into this young season, but the St. Louis Rams have shown no improvement from last year. It’s very hard to watch this team play with no intensity, fire, and passion. It’s hard to say what the problem is as some can blame the players or can blame the coaches using these talented players in the wrong system.

The Rams are the youngest team in the NFL and there have been obvious growing pains through the first four weeks. Rams’ fans all over the world were expecting big things this season, however with the struggles on all three phases of the game from this team, a little patience would be best attain through this growing process of this long 2013 season.