Before I talk about the game itself, let me mention the Isaac Bruce number retirement ceremony was very nice. Ike is a class act, and I liked what the Rams did for him. I was there, and it got a little emotional watching the old highlights.

Now, I felt like the offense was still awfully conservative again, and it’s getting to a point where I’m not exactly sure who to blame. It looked like there were some plays that were designed to stretch the field, but for whatever reason it didn’t happen. My guess is that it comes down to a couple of culprits: A) The coaching staff isn’t calling enough plays down the field, B) The wide receivers aren’t getting open down the field, or C) Bradford isn’t trusting himself enough to throw the deep ball. I highly doubt that C is the problem, and my guess would be that it is a bit of a mixture of the first two. Bradford completed just under 30 passes today, but he threw for less than 200 yards. That’s not adding up.

Defensively, the guys were flying all over the place today. There was still a little bit of a lull tackling the ball-carrier in the second half, and I have no idea why that happens every weeks, but it’s hard have much negativity when talking about this group. They forced 4 turnovers, and they really shut down the Carolina running game completely. I don’t know if we just made them look bad or if they are really that bad, but this defense is certainly establishing themselves as legit.

The Rams are 4-4 heading into their bye week, and I don’t think we could have hoped for much more heading into the season. Realistically, this team could be 6-2, but I’m completely thrilled with where we are at. This division is still up for grabs, and we are right in the thick of it.

It was looking awfully good again for the Rams today, but the team failed to score in the second half and failed to stop the final Tampa drive as they fell to the Bucs 18-17. I’m going to keep this relatively short since I don’t like to overreact right after losses, but there are some things that need to be said. A more in depth look at the game will happen tomorrow night, so stay tuned.

I have a major issue with something this team is doing, and Patrick actually stole my thunder a bit with his comment on the preview post. I’m sick of the unnecessarily conservative play-calling by the offense in the second half of games. It almost came back to bite us last weekend against the Chargers, and it did us in today. The offense was pretty much nonexistent for the last two quarters after doing a very good job moving the ball in the first half. I know this defense is good, but you can’t expect 17 points to hold up when you aren’t sustaining drives and picking up first downs. The offense is young, and you don’t want to make big mistakes to let the other team back in the game, but at some point we have to take the training wheels off Sam Bradford and let do his thing for an entire game.

I’m all fired up again after writing that, so I should probably stop there so I don’t say something I regret. Make sure to check back tomorrow for the game recap.