The St. Louis Rams’ 34-6 loss against the Minnesota Vikings Sunday afternoon was embarrassing, and there is no other way to spin it. It was a dumpster fire at its finest. The Rams simply looked unprepared and unready to play a football game. There were a lot of problems on this teams yesterday, but where do you even start? You start where it all begins, up top and up front.
Yesterday’s loss may not directly start up top with Rams owner Stan Kroenke. But between the questions of whether or not this team moves to Los Angeles, and the fact that Kroenke just remains silent is frustrating. Not saying anything at all is just as bad as Jerry Jones who says too much.
The fact that many Rams fans who were at the game saw as many Vikings jerseys as they did and at times those fans were louder than the home team’s, it’s disappointing.
The product that was put on the field on Sunday is uncalled for and inexcusable. After week one, people are already saying that this is the “same old Rams”, the “same old losing Rams” that we have been forced to watch over the last decade. After a loss like the one against the Vikings, it’s hard to argue otherwise.
From the owner the problems move down to the coaches. There is no question that this team has talent, and that is a good thing. However, the fact that this talent is unable to produce a winning product consistently is mind-boggling.
Don’t get me wrong, I love Jeff Fisher and appreciate that he has turned this franchise around. I get that. However, this might be the most undisciplined team in the NFL. His laid back, relaxed approach is obviously not working with this young team. They had 13 penalties for 121-yards, one of which being a taunting penalty while losing by 10-points. At one point D’Marco Farr said on the radio broadcast after a penalty was called, “And the Oscar goes to…”, referring to the award given at the annual academy awards.
This is a quarterback oriented league. The days of winning with Kerry Collins as your starting quarterback and running the football without having the ability to make the necessary throws are over. Even the Seattle Seahawks have a franchise quarterback in Russell Wilson who can make the throws when his number is called upon. I understand your starting quarterback was out, but either you weren’t prepared for your “injury-prone” quarterback to once again get injured, or you simply were just not prepared.
Instead of taking a quarterback in the third or fourth round that may be able to take over a team, Fisher waited until the 6th round to take a quarterback that barely belongs on the practice squad.
Finally, I’ll say this about the Rams, Les Snead, and Jeff Fisher. I understand not wanting to throw your young guys in the fire and wanting them to gain experience and get ready, but the fact that ONE rookie from this past draft actually started week one and it was only because you had to start him, not because you wanted to start him, is disappointing.
Not to mention it was your sixth round pick. This either tells us that you don’t have faith in the guys you drafted, or that you know you messed up.
The Rams supposedly took the most dynamic player in the 2013 NFL Draft in Tavon Austin, but yet fail time and time again to use him properly. Instead, we see the dynamic receiver that we passed on, run for 102 yards against us. That’s not 102 yards receiving, 102 RUSHING YARDS.
That’s not to say the Rams didn’t try to use Austin in a creative way. For once we finally got to see Austin in the back field, however, our wonderful offensive coordinator Brian Schottenheimer decided it would be a good idea to run him right up the middle where our 22o-lbs running backs were having trouble finding room to run, let along the smallest guy on the team who is 5’8 175-lbs.
Finally we move down the players. First off, this team looked unprepared and unready to play. They failed to score a touchdown against the Minnesota Vikings who went 0-7-1 on the road last season. I can’t even imagine what would have happened if yesterday afternoon would have been the Seattle Seahawks or San Fransisco 49ers.
The problems with the play starts up front. The Rams offensive line, a place where the front office has spent a good chunk of money investing in, simply did not show up. The Rams allowed five sacks, the most in the NFL. They allowed Austin Davis, who only played one half, to get hit twice as he threw, the most in the NFL. The Rams were down to their quarterback who started training camp listed fourth on the depth chart, that’s when you know you have an offensive line problem.
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When you have a team whose main focus it is to run the football, and you can only come up with 64 yards between your top two running backs, it’s pitiful. The Vikings defensive line is good, but they aren’t good enough to simply dominate the Rams’ offensive line like they did yesterday.
D’Marco Farr and Steve Savaard who broadcast the Rams’ games compared yesterday’s offensive line performance to that of the Marc Bulger days, and those days were pretty bad. With how much the front office has invested in the offensive line, it only makes it that much worse.
Now if it’s one place the Rams shouldn’t have any problems, it’s with the front four of the defensive line. Overall they did ok, as they held Adrian Peterson to only 75 yards. However, they failed to set the edge and “Sack City” only got to Matt Cassel after a couple of botched snaps.
This defensive line was supposed to be ferocious and I didn’t see ferocious in Sunday’s game.The success on defense starts up front, and although Aaron Donald had a couple of good penetration plays, the front four did not look dominant like they should.
As a whole, the defense had the fourth most missed tackles in the entire NFL on Sunday with 16 according to Pro Football Focus. Gregg Williams was supposed to come in and fix the defense, instead we are having difficulties with the basics.
You can say what you want about the Rams being one of 16 teams who are starting the season 0-1, of which include the Packers, Bears, Saint, and Patriots, but honestly, the Rams don’t even belong in that category. The Rams failed to show up, and they failed to score a single point until the third quarter, and it was only a field goal.
Hopefully this doesn’t set the tone for the rest of the season, and we as fans shouldn’t abandon ship just yet. The Rams still have 15 more games to play, and to look at things on the bright side for the first time this entire article, it can’t get much worse than this one.