RFL's challenge to the board:

My take on the Oakland game is that the Rams did not prepare themselves with a specific, studied, game-planned attack against either the Oakland defense or the Oakland offense. They no doubt had a general idea of what they wanted to run, but for the most part, their intention was just to do what they said they wanted to do—watch young players under the stress of a game situation in order to make personnel decisions. I am not even sure how long the Rams defensive 1s were in the game.

In contrast, it looked to me like the Raiders almost certainly gameplanned the Rams defense. That is, they designed and practiced an attack with specific plays meant to counter that defense. That would be easy enough for them to do—not only do they have film on that defense, which of course is not different overall from last year;s, but they have the same offensive coordinator in place that they had last year when the Rams and Raiders played. Moreover, the Raiders kept their offensive 1s in for what looked to be virtually the entire 1st half.

Oakland would have a motive to gameplan, too—it’;s Del Rio’s first year and so it looked to me like they wanted to come out of the gate looking good in their first pre-season game.

This has come up before. The Rams tend not to go into early pre-season games with a specific gameplan designed to attack an opponent’s specific schemes and personnel. There’s no real film study or detailed gameplan work. They tend to do more of that kind of thing later in the pre-season.

So what I saw in that game, IMO, is what happens when a team with a good offensive line deliberately gameplans a defense in the pre-season, while the defense in turn doesn’t approach the game that way.

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rfl wrote:

zn wrote:

My take on the Oakland game is that the Rams did not prepare themselves with a specific, studied, game-planned attack against either the Oakland defense or the Oakland offense.

I’ll take that as a no.

There was no evidence.

But that can be explained by X, Y, and Z.

I would say it means more like this—for me, there’s nothing to base the question on yet.

rfl wrote:

wv wrote:

I also think its
fair to “expect” a top ten (or better) defense, given
the totality of the circumstances (talent, experience, etc)
that weve all talked about over and over.

Absolutely. We absolutely should expect it.

The question is … do we see it emerging? Will it become a reality?

I get what you’re saying about P/S games. But you know, I think they show you a lot. You see who the team is emerging to be.

Way, way back in time, the 80s, I think, I was looking idly at a Viking P/S game. They had been poor, but they had some new pieces on defense. I think John Randle was a key part of the package.

Anyway, they looked awesome in that P/S game. The defense did. They just dominated. I remember thinking, “Aw, don’t worry. This is P/S. It won’t mean much.” But you know, a completely mediocre team emerged that year as a dominant defense. What I saw in that P/S game was the goods.

Also consider last year. The Rams showed us in P/S what they would be for half the season at least. You could SEE it. It foretold the season on the defensive side of the ball. It really did.

My friend, here’s essentially my response to your basic point.

If you have a legitimate, Top 5 defense, people can SEE IT. Sure, P/S is weird, but the competitive character of a truly elite unit is there to be seen, at least as long as the players expected to contribute keep playing. There’s no mistaking an elite defense. I actually think all football fans know it, deep down.

Anyway, I appreciate your frankness. You say …

A) There was no evidence.

B) But the absence of evidence doesn’t say anything.

I agree with A but not with B.

Fair enough. Let us hope we see something beginning to emerge
in game two. I ‘expect’ we will.

w
v

not really too bothered at this point. but if these problems keep coming up in game 3, i’ll be disappointed.

but no. they did not look like a dominant defense in the less than 1 quarter that they played against oakland. not sure what that means though.

I do find it remarkable that one would argue that one should expect to actually SEE NO EVIDENCE WHATSOEVER of a unit that one hopes/expects to be emerging as a Top 5 competitive force. I find that remarkable indeed.

I did see elements of a top defense though I personally am not hung up on “top 5.” I just don’t think that basing anything on that game counts for much.

What I saw was this. Oakland deliberately gameplanned an attack on that defense while at the same time, the Rams defense itself was just lining up and playing. Plus of course the Rams did not keep their 1s in the game while Oakland kept their 1s in during I think the entire half.

If both sets of 1s had gameplanned, then, the Rams would have an attack designed to go after Oakland’s personnel and tendencies, and in addition, anything Oakland did, they would counter. As opposed to what did happen, which is that Oakland had an opening day, regular season attack prepared, and the Rams just lined up and played.

It’s as if one fighter just got into the ring to spar, and the other had studied his opponent and had a fully worked out plan of attack backed by detailed study.

I mean what can you tell about either side when it’s like that?

For example, there’s no way in a regular season game that the defense would just line up the same way with the same basic playcalling play after play and just LET the other team scheme Donald out of the picture that way. They would counter it in some way, plus have a plan of attack to go after Oakland. And the Rams weren’t doing that this time because…they didn’t care. They did not have a plan of attack worked out specifically to counter Oakland. They were in it to get a look at personnel. They just lined them up and got themselves some film to watch.

I think your question is fair, but not for that game. Not just because it was game one, but because Oakland pre-planned a 1st home pre-season game for its new coach knowing full well the Rams weren’t going to have the same kind of opponent-specific preparation. I think after game 3 it’s fair to ask the question. In this case, it’s like asking about the skills of the boxer who just entered the ring to spar against an opponent who prepared himself with a detailed plan of attack.

But either way…good discussion.

No, I don’t think we have seen “evidence” of a top D yet this preseason.

I also agree that I would feel a lot better if I AT LEAST saw guys dominating 1 on 1 match-ups and showing “flashes” – my impression is we have not seen that either. Therefore, I share your concerns after preseason game 1.

However, I also know everything in preseason must be taken with a substantial grain of salt simply because we do not know where “winning” falls on the priority list for either side. It would be easy for me to believe Oakland game-planned and prioritized winning much higher than the Rams for this game.

That’s why they say we won’t know much at all “until the real bullets fly”.

joemad wrote:

is this freaking serious? Evidence in preseason game ONE???? REALLY??????

Well, if it matters that much to you.

The last time that the Rams faced the Raiders to open up preseason and allowed 18 points, they won the Super Bowl.

Sweet! That settles it then!

Seriously though, that preseason WAS a foreshadowing of things to come – course it ended up being Warner leading the O instead of TG, but that offense was balls out in the preseason.

Steve Spagnulo…..

10-2 preseason record with RAMS….. how’s that for evidence?

i’ll also say this though. i saw evidence last season. particularly in the second half. that this defense can be dominant. there was a stretch where the defense was shutting every opponent down. i saw evidence that mcdonald and ogletree could become elite playmakers. the d line was completely transformed in the second half. so i think i’ve seen flashes for sure. just not this preseason.