Hill to start Sunday

jimiramsboy wrote:

Breaking my retirement to announce this….Jim Thomas broke the story

Hey hey hey!

They start Hill and Jimi breaks retirement on THE SAME DAY.

Coincidence?

Jim Thomas @jthom1
Decided to go w/experience. Informed players at team meeting this morning.

Agamemnon wrote:

I figured that was coming. But the offensive line will remain the same.

Then, we’ll see if it’s true what some say–that a lot of the trouble with the blitz was the qb not just the OL. A veteran qb sees those things pre-snap and counters them, eg. with quick passes to hot reads or with audibles. To do that you need someone who makes quick decisions and can see the field. Someone more veteran.

That theory will be put to the test the next few games.

OK, you’ll all think I am just a coach basher.

But, this move was made a week too late.

It was clear after the KC game that Davis was off track and lacked the resources to get back on track. We were virtually condemned to lose to AZ when he started.

And nothing has changed after last SUN. He is this week exactly what he appeared to be last week.

So why wait? To live up to some pointless principle of not having a quick hook? The lameness of that principle is proven by the decision this week. He has still benched Davis. He just did it a week later.

And the COST of that delay is the sort of cost I have been bitching about all year. HE COST THE TEAM THE CHANCE TO SALVAGE THE SEASON! At 4-5, there is reason for hope and a chance to push for a winning season. At 3-6, 3 games below .500 with 7 games left, the season is over.

Which feels great to veteran Rams who have toiled on a bad team and never won more than they lost. And to fans who nurse their frustration and rising apathy.

Of course, I can’t promise that Hill would have beaten AZ. We don’t know what Hill has left in the tank.

I can simply say that the veteran Hill, who has a track record of being able to run a capable passing game, would have had a helluva good opportunity in a game in which our defense matched up superbly with AZ strengths and weaknesses and our offense precisely needed a guy who could read and beat blitzes. Looking ahead to the game, Hill HAD to have given us a better chance at the win.

Maybe it would have worked. Maybe not. But if it hadn’t worked, what would one say? A fair assessment would have recognized that Fisher made the tough call of going back to the proven capable backup he had signed to give us a better competitive opportunity if Sam went down than we had last year. That would have been a reasonable, defensible call. And it would have said to the team that Fish had the stones to make a tough call to give them the best chance of winning. And that the privilege of starting games depended on one’s ability to, you know, actually perform.

Instead, the defense played its best game of the year. And watched Davis tank another game, gifting AZ points that go on the D’s tab even though it was drinking Gatorade.

And Fish makes the move–too late to help–in a spasm of desperation after the season is lost beyond recovery.

I don’t understand how anyone can defend this guy. I don’t get how he skates virtually free of criticism. He has been flailing about all season. This is another chapter in a textbook case of failed leadership. Where are the villagers with the torches and pitchforks?

PA Ram wrote:

Maybe he got the sense that Davis is just mentally broken.

Maybe there were grumblings from vets, who knows?

And he didn’t get that sense the week before? Most of us did.

I doubt the grumbling from vets just began this week. And with a good coach it doesn’t take grumbling veterans to point out the need for a move as obvious as the Davis one was.

Sorry, Man. I don’t mean to be contentious with my friends here.

But that man is the walking definition of failure right now. He can’t even figure out how to give his team a CHANCE of winning!

jimiramsboy wrote:

Breaking my retirement to announce this….Jim Thomas broke the story

What ‘retirement’ ? You CANT retire.

Alrighty then.

Now that, THATS been straightened out,
it’s inter esting news about the
Return of Mr Hill.

The Rams continue to…uh…be
the Rams.
The last time we saw Mr Hill
he was throwin a Really bad INT
as i recall. Before that
he looked pretty good.

w
v

• This reply was modified 10 years ago by wv.

rfl wrote:

<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>wv wrote:</div>
The Rams continue to…uh…be
the Rams.

w
v

Ain’t it the heart-breaking truth.

Year FOUR. Its all about year FOUR 🙂
Or five. I forget.
Or six.

How cold is it in Minny?

w
v

• This reply was modified 10 years ago by wv.

rfl wrote:

PS. WV, remember when we could be proud of the team? Sure, they lost Conference title games. And they couldn’t match up with the Whiners in their glory. But they always played tough football.

No one thought SOSAR. We were the Rams. We knew how to defend and run the ball. Even when we lost, we did it with pride.

Damn. What would it feel like to think that people actually RESPECTED us? Can’t remember.

Well, yeah, it sucks, alright.

But Ram posters are still cool. 🙂

Its 30 degrees here. Winter
has arrived.

w
v

rfl wrote:

<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>wv wrote:</div>
Year FOUR. Its all about year FOUR
Or five. I forget.
Or six.

w
v

Yep. It’s like the sardonic slogans developed by war-weary GIs in WW II:

“Home alive in ’45”
(Can’t remember the ’46 slogan)
“Heaven in ’47”
“Golden Gate in ’48.”

I think a significant mistake
had to be the decision to go with
Jake Long, the former all pro,
but injured LT. It was a gamble
that cost them. Jake just
wasnt an allpro anymore
and was too inconsistent.

And i was all for the
signing at the time.

Ah well.

w
v

• This reply was modified 10 years ago by wv.
• This reply was modified 10 years ago by wv.

Well, you make a good point.

We’ve had injuries this year. But look at all the guys we depended on with injury histories?

Sam. J Long. Saffold. Joseph. Wells, a shadow of his former self. That’s a pretty big chunk of the offense right there. And all have been injured except for Joseph, who has not yet recovered his form from before his injury.

I supported the trust in Sam. Still think it was the right gamble. And we had gotten Hill. (Then we dumped him for a flash in the pan.)

But J Long shoulda been cut. And we needed a solid center and at least one more proven OG or OG.

FO decisions have consequences. Fish and Snead gambled on physically unhealthy players and they got burned in virtually every case. Gee. Who could have imagined that?

rfl wrote:

PS. WV, remember when we could be proud of the team? Sure, they lost Conference title games. And they couldn’t match up with the Whiners in their glory. But they always played tough football.

No one thought SOSAR. We were the Rams. We knew how to defend and run the ball. Even when we lost, we did it with pride.

Damn. What would it feel like to think that people actually RESPECTED us? Can’t remember.

I feel the same way.

============================
Laram

When your qb says himself “I’ve gotta quit looking at the rush, and keep my eyes downfield” That’s a problem!!

Hill is a veteran who has seen every blitz you can run IMO.

He knows how to identify blitzes pre-snap and where the free blitzer is. He can read defenses, and process information quicker.

In the NFL experience is invaluable, which is what I think the Rams need right now.

We’ve all seen Austin Davis now and know he’s not the future.

No reason to keep riding him now.

Bring on Hill.
—-
I’ve shown too many stills and posted game plans of what defenses would do to Davis.

When Davis played against any type of respectable defense, he folded.

He has thrown 4 Pick 6’s in the 4th qtr, and 2 fumbles returned for TD’s. That’s -42.

You can get a back-up off the scrap heap to do that.

I want to win games, I could care less at this point about trying to see if I have a freaking back-up on the roster.

I’ll worry about that in the off season, right now as a coach, you better be worried about W’s!!
=========================

zn wrote:

That wasn’t an “INT”–that is, he didn’t decide to throw to the wrong place with the result being a pick.

That’s when they found out the quad was bad. He tried to heave it out of bounds but didn’t have his legs so the ball had less power on it.

I dont remember reading that anywhere.
Therefore, you must by a vile lying liar.
Pistols at dawn.

w
v

Welcome Back, Jim!

To argue that Davis should have been replaced after his win in San Francisco seems rather absurd to me. Really?

I agree with LA that Arizona took away everything short and blitzed Davis every chance they got, much like SF did. I think Fisher understood that Davis’ mobility advantage over Hill is being negated by Davis’ indecisiveness and timidness in the pocket. There was no reason to think future opponents would have been able to do the same thing to Davis, and he obviously has shown that they cannot coach it out of him. Thus, this was the right time for the change.

Losing sucks. There is no doubt about it. And we have had to endure more than our fair share of it. But that doesn’t mean the organization is doing all the wrong things. A single illegal block call may have reversed the direction of the game. Brutal bad calls against Dallas and SF also swung the balance of those games. Not an excuse, and championship teams overcome that, but remember the Rams are playing with a third string QB, and it shows. That is the single biggest factor in how this season has gone, and the season was not going to be salvaged no matter what moves the coaches made. Take any 9-7 team, make them play an inexperienced undrafted free agent QB for the whole season, schedule Dal, @Phi, SF, Sea, @KC, @SF, @Ari, and Den in a row, and watch what happens to them.