Los Angeles Rams’ Jeff Fisher has the NFL’s hottest seat

The Los Angeles Rams are back. With the dust finally settling after the news the team is leaving St Louis and headed back to California, the league’s attention is shifting towards a certain little event taking place elsewhere in the Golden State on February 7^th. Beyond that, it will time to begin the long look ahead to the 2016 NFL season.

As things stand, six NFL teams will go into next season with a new Head Coach. The Los Angeles Rams are not among them. Last year, some were asking whether 2015 was Jeff Fisher’s last chance to take the Rams to the postseason. Despite a promising start, a horrendous mid-season run paved the way for another disappointing campaign without a winning record, let alone a spot in the playoffs.

So why has the man who has failed to take the Rams over .500 despite a multitude of draft picks still in job? Could it be that in recent seasons the owner was more preoccupied with the prospect of relocating the team to Los Angeles than he was bringing success to St Louis? Stan Kroenke made no secret that part of his rationale for wanting to move was lower attendances. If you subscribe to a certain conspiracy theory that was suggested last year, the answer would be yes.

The idea goes that Jeff Fisher only kept his job because Stan Kroenke knew that having a losing coach would result in falling crowds, and that poor attendances would strengthen his case for moving the franchise out of St Louis. Whether or not you go for this (and I’m not convinced), what is undeniable is that Mr Kroenke has got his wish with the move to Los Angeles confirmed. So what now? Having moved the team to Los Angeles, what the owner must now want is the same as every other owner wants for their team – success on the field.

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We all know about the influx of players acquired from the Robert Griffin trade with Washington. We all know the Rams have a star running back in Todd Gurley and an explosive game-changer in Tavon Austin. We all know the team has an elite defensive front. The excuses are running out. The Rams find themselves, seemingly as ever, just a couple of key players away from a truly top tier roster, which this offseason can potentially address. Where the consistent failure lies is in poor coaching decisions. Over-reliance on trick plays which the rest of the league is now wise to, ill-advised challenges from the sidelines, the inability to adapt a game plan when the team falls behind, lack of discipline for penalty-prone players and an offensive playbook that has failed to really challenge opposing defences – these are the hallmarks of the Jeff Fisher Rams. None of these things are a recipe for success.

Stan Kroenke may have tolerated substandard production on the field while the Rams were still in St Louis because he had, if you’ll excuse the pun, a bigger fish to fry. Regardless of anyone’s opinion on the treatment of the St Louis fans, conspiracy theories about keeping a losing coach or the merits of moving back to California, the deal is done. Now that Rams are back in Los Angeles, Mr Kroenke will want to see that unenviable streak of losing seasons come to an end. If Jeff Fisher doesn’t deliver, he will be gone this time next year.