Rams To Keep It “Vanilla” Throughout The Preseason

If the Rams preseason approach had to choose a flavor of ice cream, it would be vanilla. The Rams kept it pretty simple in the first preseason game against the Browns and will do much the same on Saturday against the Packers. They might throw in a little chocolate swirl on Saturday, but overall it will be a very plain and simple vanilla game plan.

After the Rams played a very simple game against the Browns, fans started to hit the panic button. Why is Brandon Weeden torching our secondary? Why were Tavon Austin and Jared Cook basically  non-factors? Why is our dominant defensive line not getting to the quarterback? And did we set our expectations too high? Dont worry Rams fans, it’s all part of the plan, and for a fair warning dont expect much to change on Saturday.

Fisher is going to take a very simple approach in this preseason as to not risk any of the possible success in the regular season, and it’s essential to trust his judgement. Taking a simple approach is a common practice around the NFL, that is why the Jets didnt use their secret wild-cat formation with Tebow throughout the preseason last year even though it wouldnt have helped them either way. The point is if teams cant study what your going to do week one, a lot of what they do to try and stop you will be on the fly. What makes this even more critical is that the Rams play an opponent that just so happens to be in the division. The less the Cardinals know, the better. Fisher described his theory very well, “our focus is on the opener and the early-season opponents. So, the less we show in preseason, sometimes the more productive you are.” Let’s all hope Fisher backs up his theory and the Rams will productive as he says in the early goings of the season.

During the game on Saturday the plan is to work on fundamentals and working on some other little things. T.J. McDonald and Alec Ogletree each has assignment and communication mishaps against the Browns. The Rams will look to work on and fix those sorts of small issues. The offense didnt struggle much against Cleveland aside from a few minor things, but Sam Bradford said that whatever game plan is in place, it is the offense’s goal to go out and execute it. Bradford was also asked if he was concerned that Austin and Cook weren’t getting a lot of targets and Bradford responded by saying that he is confident that they will both see their fair share of targets in the regular season.

The goal of the preseason is to get ready for week one and stay healthy. Overall the Rams are doing a good job of doing both. The experts will try to blow out of proportion what is happening in the preseason to create some chaos, but in reality what happens in the preseason means nothing, because teams arent throwing their entire arsenal at their opponent. Like Fisher said the Rams will get ready for week one and hopefully, if all goes well, they will come out with a week one victory.