RamView, 11/23/2014: Chargers 27, Rams 24 (Long)

RamView, November 23, 2014
From The Couch
(Report and opinions on the game.)
Game #11: Chargers 27, Rams 24

AND the maddeningly inconsistent Rams go right back to finding ways to lose, but this week, also rip their fans’ guts out with costly penalties and turnovers, including the worst-timed turnover of the season, one of three by the veteran QB who’s the starter because he supposedly wouldn’t commit costly turnovers. No. Joy. In. Mudville.

Position by position:
* QB: Shaun Hill (18-35-198, PR 54.2) was every bit the disappointment this week as he was a pleasant surprise last week, committing critical turnovers that cost the Rams the game. Hill couldn’t even get through the opening series without gifting the Chargers points. On 3rd-and-9, flinching from a blitzer Benny Cunningham had picked up and throwing off his back foot, having stared down Jared Cook all the way, Hill threw a pass with nothing on it that Brandon Flowers picked off easily to set up a Charger FG. There wasn’t an ounce of veteran composure in that play. Hill appeared to settle down but then didn’t get much help from his teammates. Lance Kendricks dropped an easy big gain. A Greg Robinson penalty took back another. But on 3rd-and-17, he hit Stedman Bailey on the sideline for a 1st down that set up a tying FG. Hill got the Rams back in scoring range in the 2nd with excellent work in the pocket. He hung in forever against a blitz and shot-putted a 1-yard pass that Tre Mason turned into a 26-yard gain. Then he hit Kendricks with a beautiful pass over the outstretched hand of a LB for 16. And those efforts led to… a blocked FG. Before halftime, Hill connected with Kenny Britt for a perfect 49-yard TD bomb… nullified by a line penalty. The partnership I said Hill and his line had last week was a Bizarro partnership this week. Robinson let Corey Liuget go right by him and blindside Hill for a sack/fumble/TD in the 3rd. Hill brought them back within 3 at the 2:00 warning with three clutch 3rd-down plays: a 20-yard rollout pass to Bailey, a 9-yard dumpoff to Cook and a 6-yard TD lob to Bailey after a TD pass two plays earlier was, yep, nullified by a penalty (on Cook). The Rams got a golden opportunity to win or tie the game, with the ball at the SD40 with 1:30 left, and Hill turned it to platinum with a 26-yard rainbow to Britt at the 6. And then he turned it to sh!t. He tried to force a pass to Britt running a crossing route along the goal line and threw it right to Marcus Gilchrist, killing the Rams’ chance to win OR tie the game. Britt was alreadfy well-covered the way it was, and Hill apparently did not see Gilchrist at all, even though he barely had to move three feet from where he was at the snap. Hill made it all of one week before getting back to what this team does best: finding ways to lose. And yes, receivers dropped balls and big plays came back for penalties. But Hill was made the starting QB because Austin Davis committed too many turnovers. If Hill can’t do better than three turnovers, if he can’t do better than giving the opponent ten points and contributing directly to the Rams losing more games, I don’t get the point of keeping him behind center. He’s 34, he’s not going to get any better than he is right now, the Rams (once again) are not going to make the playoffs, and I’m not interested in making excuses for him. Oh, Jeff Fisher will probably give him a mulligan, and taking the Denver game into account, he probably even deserves one. But keeping Hill at QB does nothing to further the franchise at this point.

* Offensive line: Or, if the Rams are going to keep Hill the starting QB because Davis makes too many costly mistakes, then Greg Robinson’s season should be over. Few words this side of “dreadful” can adequately describe Robinson’s play in San Diego. He nearly cost the Rams a FG in the 1st with a holding call that took a long gain away from Bailey. This is a technique issue with Robinson and it isn’t the first time he’s done it. He’ll get great leverage, get on top of a rusher and then yank him to the ground with two handfuls of jersey. Some coaching up on this, please. Melvin Ingram beat Robinson with a swim move to stuff Mason before the Rams’ blocked FG in the 2nd. Next drive, a TD bomb to Britt is taken off the board because of a face mask on Robinson and/or Joseph Barksdale. On the fumble return TD, I don’t know Robinson was even doing. Liuget had inside leverage on him, but then… Robinson simply stopped blocking him? Who did he think he was passing Liuget to? Who else was around for Robinson to be concerned about? If that’s a correct play for Robinson in the Rams’ system, then they need a new system. From here it looks like he completely brain-farted an assignment and cost his team ANOTHER TD. He failed to slide protection on a later play that got Hill flushed and throwing a crazy lob to Britt. At the start of the Rams’ final drive, Dwight Freeney smoked him to send Hill scrambling again. Robinson run-blocked well, but you CANNOT have a left tackle costing your team 14 points. I’m all about the youth myself and would get Robinson all the playing time I can, but it may be time to put Rodger Saffold, a pro-quality tackle, out at LT and move Robinson inside for the duration. If your young QB can’t start because he makes too many big mistakes, you sure can’t live with it from your LT. The rest of the line wasn’t perfect but played well enough. The sack/fumble by Liuget was San Diego’s only sack. Scott Wells had a second straight solid run-blocking game. He and Robinson did a good job getting outside to spring Austin for 15 in the 3rd. Mason’s 21-yard run later in the 3rd came off very good blocking by Wells, Robinson and Saffold. But Robinson’s pass-blocking was just too poor for the rest of the line to overcome.

* RB: Despite a game plan that didn’t turn him loose outside very much, Tre Mason (16-63, 1-26 recv) was productive in bursts. He got the first FG drive rolling with 3 carries for 23 yards: 6 off Cory Harkey’s strong block on Liuget and 13 on a draw off Davin Joseph’s pull block. He helped set up a FG try in the 2nd by slipping out of the backfield for a 26-yard catch-and-run. Mason hit a lull in the 3rd. The Rams opened the half with a 3-and-out when Joseph didn’t get much of a pull block and Mason got stuffed. Mason leaked out of the backfield wide open again later but dropped a pass. Tavon Austin (3-27, 3-11 recv) picked up some slack, getting the Rams’ 2nd TD with a 15-yard end-around and a 6-yard jet sweep for the score, as Brian Schottenheimer may finally be figuring out how to get him into space. Austin did little as a receiver but did draw a 30-yard DPI. Mason ended the 3rd with a 21-yard burst behind strong left-side blocking and a strong kickout block by Lance Kendricks. With the Rams throwing from behind a lot, Mason had a quieter game than expected, especially the 4th quarter. But he and Benny Cunningham (4-18, 2-11 recv) were solid in blitz pickup, better than Hill made them look at times. The main frustration with Mason’s game was that he was again called to run a lot straight up the middle. His line didn’t get him a lot of push on those and they’re not his forte anyway. Despite that the Rams had a pretty effective and balanced running game.

* Receivers: A breakout game for Stedman Bailey (7-89) and a gut-it-out game for Kenny Britt (2-37). Both were impressively resilient. When Bailey had a big 3rd-down catch-and-run called back in the 1st, he bounced right back the next play and worked his way to the sideline with Hill in trouble for a 19-yard catch to help set up a FG. Bailey came up big in the 4th. He fooled San Diego to perfection with an impressive move on a fake punt for a 1st down. He was wide open as Hill’s downfield option on a rollout 3 plays later for 20. Down on the goal line, Bailey seems too short to run a fade route, but he did and impressively leaped over his defender and pulled a pass off his back for a TD. Which got called back. So two plays later, Bailey made Gilchrist whiff on his jam with an explosive move off the line and outran him to the corner of the end zone for a TD anyway. Finally, this is the Bailey we saw getting open with sharp route-running in preseason. Britt had a tough day. He had a TD bomb taken off the board by a Robinson penalty and got hurt in the 4th trying to snag a sideline lob. But Britt rallied for as big a play as any Ram made all game, beating double-coverage and diving for a 26-yard completion that put the Rams at the 6 with about 1:00 left. Showing that kind of physical and mental toughness makes me happy with the idea of Britt coming back next year. The Rams still need more production from Jared Cook (3-27), but he blocked well on Austin’s TD run and threw a nice stiffarm to convert a 3rd-and-8 on the Rams’ last TD drive.

* Defensive line: With Phillip Rivers (29-35-291) firing a very effective hair-trigger, the Rams should have had trouble getting to him, but still produced three sacks. They got off to a solid start, ending the first Charger drive with a sack after Robert Quinn whipped King Dunlap and flushed Rivers over to Michael Brockers. Aaron Donald also drew a holding penalty that drive. In the 2nd, after Donald stuffed Ryan Matthews on a draw, Kendall Langford, with help from Quinn, held a 3rd-and-1 Rivers scramble to a loss for the Rams’ 2nd sack. Donald swallowed Brandon Oliver whole near the goal line right before Janoris Jenkins scored a pick-six. But the Rams couldn’t consistently shut down the Chargers, and a big reason is that it looked like Donald had his worst game of the season against the run. He got turned out of the hole several times to yield big Charger runs, including 9- and 12-yarders in the 1st and Ryan Mathews’ (12-105) killer 32-yard TD in the 3rd. And while Donald gets a lot of double-teaming, on the TD, he’s blocked out of there single-handedly. With San Diego down to a rookie 3rd-stringer at center, the Rams’ interior play was disappointing. Donald did land the Rams’ 3rd sack to give them one last chance to win. He got an inside rip on a guard, ran through a holding penalty, hit Rivers low grabbed his foot to trip him up. That’s the relentless Aaron Donald we’ve all become fans of this season. That’s the Aaron Donald who’d better be getting serious consideration for year-end awards. But he didn’t have his best game this week, and his teammates didn’t pick up the slack.

* Linebackers: The Rams played almost entirely nickel defense again this week, but neither LB they fielded had a good game at all. The last thing we needed was a regression game from Alec Ogletree, but his subpar tackling and failures to get off blocks were behind a lot of San Diego’s long runs. He got trucked well into the backfield on a 9-yard Mathews run in the 1st. Antonio Gates wiped him out to spring Mathews for 17 on a draw late in the quarter. Several plays later, Mathews went around right tackle for 20, with Ethan Westbrooks being held but Ogletree still getting wiped out again. San Diego’s 3rd-quarter TD drive was an Ogletree tour de farce. He whiffed on Mathews on a 10-yard reception out of the slot. He whiffed on Oliver on a 13-yard catch. Mathews’ 32-yard TD run was the worst play by the Ram defense this season. Brockers got stood up. Donald got turned to open a big hole. I don’t know what Ogletree and James Laurinaitis were even doing. They didn’t read the play at all, each just ran straight ahead into a lineman and got washed out. I think it may have been the worst blitz of all time. Then downfield, T.J. McDonald and Trumaine Johnson try to hack the ball out instead of tackle the man. Good grief, every Ram defender sucked on that play. The Chargers started the 4th pinned at their 7, and the Ram defense immediately went into anti-clutch mode. Laurinaitis whiffed on Royal on a 10-yard quick screen. Ogletree got blocked on a 6-yard run. Then Rivers really pulled a rabbit out of his hat, going up the sideline to Ladarius Green, for 28, beating Laurinaitis. Then, back to the dreaded bubble screen the Rams have apparently never seen before, a ridiculously easy 30-yard TD for Allen while McDonald got blocked, Laurinaitis got taken out like a little, um, girl, Ogletree stupidly tried for the hack instead of the tackle, and McLeod got crushed by a lineman downfield. Hey, at least he had an excuse. I don’t think the Rams were wrong to play as much nickel as they did. The problem was the guys they had playing nickel. Against the run or the pass, neither Ogletree nor Laurinaitis was up to the job this week.

* Secondary: I haven’t been his biggest fan – getting burned most every week for a long TD will do that to a guy – but you sure can’t blame Janoris Jenkins for this one, he played his butt off. Jenkins made two huge plays to turn the momentum of the game. The Rams were on the ropes early in the 2nd, giving up big gains on dinks and dunks and draw plays, but Jenkins, whom Rivers apparently never saw, jumped Keenan Allen’s hitch route at the goal line and brought the pass back for a 99-yard TD and a 10-3 Rams lead. San Diego looked like they would break the game open late in the 3rd. Rivers and Allen beat a 3rd-and-6 blitz, and after Jenkins and Trumaine Johnson blew tackles, Allen appeared to have a free run for a TD. Jenkins, though, won this week’s hustle award, getting off the ground and not only tracking Allen down, but stripping the ball out with a perfect form tackle, not one of those stupid attempts to hack the ball out that poses as a tackle attempt. Rodney McLeod recovered the Rams’ dodged bullet. The secondary, though, spent a day in frustrating soft zone coverage and didn’t make a lot of plays out of it. Unlike last week, when they seemed to jump every short route Denver ran, no one was usually in the neighborhood while Allen or Eddie Royal pecked them to death. Royal was especially a nuisance the last 2:00 of the 1st half, with 12, 10 and 7 yard catches, the last one all alone on the sideline and the only thing that put the Chargers in FG range. T.J. McDonald was probably a big reason Antonio Gates had just two catches, but he didn’t make any impact plays against the run. The secondary still made some plays, but they weren’t put in the best position to make more.

* Special teams: Maybe Jeff Fisher should have sent Johnny Hekker in at QB at the end of the game. The kid simply does not fail in the clutch. Down 10 in the 4th and appearing to have 3-and-outed, the Rams looked done, until Hekker struck again. The advantage of having a gunner who’s also a WR who runs great routes was seen when Bailey fired downfield as if in coverage and then stopped on a dime on a comeback route to take the pass from Hekker. Yes, the Rams were not only faking at that juncture of the game, they had the punter throwing a timing route! Perfectly, I might add. Maurice Alexander made another key special teams play in the 3rd, flashing by returner Allen attempting a fair catch and bringing a Charger along in his wake who unthinkingly ran into Allen to create a muffed punt. No, Alexander didn’t plan that, but there’s no substitute for hustle. Unfortunately, there was more bad news on special teams. Austin had about half a 75-yard punt return taken away in the final 2:00 by a holding penalty believed to have been on Alexander. And, most costly in a game the Rams lost by 3, they had a FG blocked after Darrell Stuckey leaped through a gap on the Rams’ left flank. Lance Kendricks ended up having to block two players out there; either he picked the wrong one, or I think more likely, as in the blocked punt in Philadelphia, the Rams failed to identify where the pressure would come from and didn’t shift their protection. For all the accolades John Fassell has gotten as a special teams coach, this kind of thing has happened too often this season.

* Strategery: Brian Schottenheimer draws a lot of play-calling fire, but the Rams’ least-successful coordinator this week was pretty clearly Gregg Williams. In fact, I don’t have much criticism for Schottenheimer at all. 60% passing might be high for the Rams, but is completely in line since they trailed the whole 2nd half. I’ve been banging the table for Mason to get more outside runs all season, but they did get Austin out there, and figured out some plays (FINALLY) to get him into space, all successful. The passing game used all parts of the field. Schottenheimer called all those big plays that got called back. Execution kept points off the board, not play-calling. Even the Rams’ final play is tricky to criticize, since Fisher said Cunningham was open and Hill didn’t see him. I don’t fault the decision to throw. You can keep running down there and try to make San Diego use up their timeouts, but down 3, that’s playing to tie, not to win. I appreciate that they took a shot at the win. I’m a big fan of play-action down there and I think it’s something else Schottenheimer doesn’t use enough, so I’ll just say I wish he would have gone that way.

Williams was creative; a Ryan-family amoeba look with 3 down linemen and 3 more, including Quinn and Eugene Sims, rushing from LB positions, was one I sure don’t remember seeing this year. But as the game played out, Rivers had Williams off-balance much more often then Williams ever got him off-balance. Whole Charger drives consisted of: blitz, fails to get there, Rivers checks off to receiver left open by soft coverage by 10 yards, first down, rinse, lather, repeat. It was opening day against the Vikings all over again. The Charger FG drive before halftime was especially frustrating: Rivers beat blitzes to get across midfield and then threw under too-soft prevent coverage to get into FG range. But this same strategy worked against Denver; what did Rivers have that Peyton Manning didn’t? A running game. And while I’ll have to apologize for failing to identify the draw play as San Diego’s favorite run in the preview last week, I’m not paid to know that. Williams is. Football 101 is to run draws and screens against a blitzing team, but Williams kept swinging that hammer and Rivers and Mathews kept ducking it. It’s as bad a failure to adjust as either Ram coordinator has had all season. Use the damn scalpel, coach.

The Rams’ maddening inability to put wins together under Jeff Fisher continues. His game management was fine, too. The fake punt was sublime, he made the right call kicking off deep at the 2:00 warning, and I have little problem with the decision to go for the TD on 2nd-and-goal at the end. What did Fisher and the Rams in is what’s done them in all season: penalties and turnovers. If they would EVER get consistently better in those areas, they might string together a win or two. Rams Nation might dare to dream for something better than a 7-9 season. It’s not going to happen with this team, for the third year running. Some would say that’s coaching.

Fisher has some interesting decisions to make down the stretch. Make them good, coach.

* Upon further review: I don’t know if Carl Cheffers called a bad game this week, but it was certainly confusing. Why did Robinson get called for a false start in the 1st when he had two Chargers leap at him first? On Matthews’ 20-yard run in the 2nd, why wasn’t holding called after Ethan Westbrooks was held much more obviously than Robinson’s hold that took away a big Rams gain earlier? Why did Jenkins get a celebration penalty on his pick six? Is slowing down on your way into the end zone a “choreographed celebration?” That would mean I “choreograph” every time I walk up a flight of stairs. How in the wide wide world of sports could the Rams have been called for being in the neutral zone on the blocked FG? As Fisher said, that’s not something that can even feasibly happen. And, most confusingly, who committed the hold on Austin’s long punt return at the end of the game? Cheffers announced “51”, Marshall McFadden, who hadn’t done a thing wrong, and the penalty was marked off from much farther downfield than McFadden ever was. Jim Thomas believes they meant to call it on 31, Alexander, so I’ll go with that. Some poor calls and some poorer communication made for a frustrating game. Grade: D

* Cheers: Another excellent job by Ronde Barber on color for Fox. He precalled the fake punt and almost predicted the Jenkins pick-six, noting a couple of plays before that the Rams “just don’t give up red zone TDs”. I also deeply appreciate his willingness to go after bad officiating. Sorry to pay Barber’s work short shrift, but I am more than a little steamed at Fox’s cheerleading to move the Rams to L.A. Exactly how well were all of those shots of fans with “Los Angeles Rams” signs supposed to play in St. Louis, Fox? You know you were showing the game here, right? We all know those are fans rooting to get their team back. I do not blame them or criticize them for that. Fox is not, however, obliged to give them free P.R. Ooh, look at all the Rams fans here in SoCal! They don’t show as many shots of Rams fans in -St. Louis- as they did of Rams fans in San Diego this week. Gee, it’s not like they’d have a vested interest in an NFC team moving to the nation’s 2nd-largest media market or anything.

* Who’s next?: Speaking of Los Angeles, the Oakland Raiders invade the Dome next Sunday. Some will see Oakland’s 1-11 record and expect the Rams to win in a cakewalk, but there are reasons to think otherwise. Oakland comes here with a couple of extra days of rest (Thanks, Goodell!) after playing their best game of the season, a solid victory over a Chiefs team the Rams couldn’t stay within four TDs of a month ago. And Jeff Fisher has laid an egg at home against an AFC team the past two seasons: Tennessee last year and the Jets in 2012. That Jets’ team’s OC? Tony F. Soprano, who’s now the Raiders’ interim head coach. Fisher was hardly hired here to lose to Soprano twice in three years, so he’d better have his team focused and cut down on mistakes.

The main reason to worry about the Raiders next week is rookie free agent RB Latavius Murray, who has really turned around their running game the past couple of weeks. Conventional wisdom all year was that the Raider running game was at the bottom of the league because their line wasn’t getting the job done. No, the problems have been that Maurice Jones-Drew is old and Darren McFadden has a football IQ of zero. Unlike MJD, Murray has the speed and acceleration to get to the edge and make big plays (see: 90-yard TD vs. Kansas City); unlike McFadden, he reads his blocks well and is decisive to the hole. Oakland would be foolish not to make Murray at least their two-down back going forward and use MJD on 3rd down. That is, if Murray’s recovered from a concussion suffered late in Thursday’s game. If Murray can’t go, the Raider rushing game is little to worry about, unless Oakland can figure out how to graft MJD’s head onto McFadden’s body. The Raider passing game isn’t much to worry about, either. Al Davis must be rolling in his grave; the Raiders may have the worst receiving corps in the NFL and have no one who can stretch the field vertically. They have no tight end threat to speak of. Rookie QB Derek Carr looks for Andre Holmes the most when he gets in trouble and forces plenty of passes his way. Put tight man coverage on Holmes and wish Carr good luck. Before the draft, critics said Carr couldn’t run a pro offense because all he did at Fresno State was throw screen passes. So what’s he doing in the pros? Throwing tons of screen passes, thanks to Oakland’s inability to stretch the field. We’ll note first of all that the Rams didn’t exactly handle that attack very well this week. Also, to Derek’s and his massive-but-not-much-else line’s benefit, and much unlike his battered brother David, the younger Carr brother gets the ball out fast and hasn’t been sacked often his rookie season. He’s also pretty nimble afoot and plays pretty well on the move when he does get into trouble. The Raiders, though, play with all the precision and discipline we’ve become used to. They commit dumb penalties (three words: Ray. Ray. Armstrong.). Receivers collide into each other running routes. Carr’s subject to rookie mistakes like blowing the exchange from center. They commit untimely turonvers. (Wait a minute, a lot of this is starting to sound familiar.) They lead the league in fumbles (21), Carr’s been picked off 12 times and they have the worst turnover differential in the league. And they really struggled with crowd noise in San Diego, so it’s possible the 2,500 of us who show up at the Dome can make a difference. The Rams, though, better prove they can stop Murray better than they did Mathews this week, or hope he’s hurt, so they can sit on the Raider’s three-yards-and-a-cloud-of-dust passing game.

With several prominent old players, you’d think the Raider defense was put together by Billy Devaney. They do not get to the QB often – 12 sacks so far. Justin Tuck (2 sacks) left his pass rush behind in New York. Past Ram-killer Antonio Smith (1 sack) hasn’t killed much, besides time. Though he’s in his 17th season, I’d probably have to go with safety Charles Woodson as the Raiders’ best defensive player. He’s very good in run support and is one of the team’s leaders in tackles. The Rams need to know where Woodson is at all times. The Raiders do have a solid young defensive foundation. 2nd-year CB D.J. Hayden is developing into a good cover corner. The Rams don’t have to throw away from him but likely will because the Raiders have much more inviting targets. The Chiefs made the Raider secondary look real good Thursday night by refusing to throw anything more than 8 yards downfield; the Rams will be much less predictable for Oakland since they actually try to stretch the field. Oakland will eventually have to blitz to get pressure on the QB, which is where this game will be won or lost. Woodson is a blitzing weapon, but the LBs, the strength of the Raider D, are likelier to shine here. Sio Moore leads Oakland in sacks with 3 and co-leads in tackles. A LB with safety speed, we should see him blitzing a lot, and he’s also Oakland’s best run defender. First-round draft pick Khalil Mack has only one sack, but it would be wrong to think he’s had a bad rookie season. He creates a lot of pass pressure with excellent speed that he converts to power well. The Raiders move Mack all over the place and he will force the TEs to be on their best blocking games. What it comes down to for the Raider defense, though, is that they don’t get many sacks and they don’t force many turnovers. Of all the weeks the Rams can’t let themselves get beaten in those aspects of the game, this week is the biggest. Don’t let Oakland in the game.

RamView, btw, is officially to be considered an artist, because I suffered for my art and watched TWO Raiders games to prepare this preview. What I saw was a team with a lot of bad fundamentals, but one that may be kicking its way back to life down the stretch. The Rams’ keys to victory are fairly simple and fairly classic: stop the run, protect against the blitz and win the turnover battle. If the Rams, in game 44 of the Fisher era, can’t get those done at home against a 1-11 team no matter how it’s playing, it won’t bode well for anyone’s future in Rams Nation.

— Mike
Game stats from espn.com