press on the Falcons game including tweets, articles, etc.

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  • January 7, 2018 at 12:06 am #80028
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    Alden Gonzalez@Alden_Gonzalez
    The Rams’ amazing season is over. They ran into a Falcons team that dominated the time of possession, did an expert job of taking Todd Gurley away underneath and took advantage of a couple of special teams turnovers. Great ride by this team, but that’s the cruelty of the playoffs. Don’t cry because it’s over. Smile because it happened.

    Win or lose, Goff didn’t turn the ball over and did a nice job since the first quarter.

    Rich Hammond@Rich_Hammond
    Yeah, I’m not going with the “This wouldn’t have happened if starters played last week” angle. Let’s be better analysts than that. Atlanta’s defense got the job done and the Rams weren’t ready for this stage. Almost, but not yet.

    Ryan Kartje@Ryan_Kartje
    Robert Woods caught some passes today that no human should be able to catch.

    January 7, 2018 at 2:23 am #80036
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    Rams weren’t ready for all that happened when the Coliseum lights came on

    VINCENT BONSIGNORE

    link: https://www.dailybreeze.com/2018/01/06/bonsignore-rams-werent-ready-for-all-that-happened-when-the-coliseum-lights-came-on/

    LOS ANGELES — It was bound to get weird. That much was a given.

    A Saturday night in Los Angeles. The sun long set over the Pacific Ocean. A dark, cloudless sky ominously hovering above to create a sinister, menacing atmosphere.

    L.A. after dark, y’all. Yeah, it was bound to get weird. And it didn’t take long before the bizarreness began to unfold.

    Or for the Rams to figure out it was going to take more than the electric atmosphere provided by the biggest and most engaged crowd of the season and all those trips down memory lane, as one former L.A. Rams great after another was paraded onto the field, to overcome all the weirdness.

    Not to mention the experienced opponent standing proudly across from them in the defending NFC Champion Atlanta Falcons.

    When the sun went down and the bright lights turned on and curtain lifted and the strangeness commenced the Rams, well, were nowhere to be found.

    Not in the way we grew used to in the remarkable turnaround season they provided us with this season, anyway.

    All of which came to an abrupt, screeching halt Saturday night in a bitterly disappointing 26-13 loss to the Atlanta Falcons in which the Rams never quite found their way out of the darkness.

    Todd Gurley rushed for more than 100 yards on just 14 carries but, oddly, never even seemed a factor.

    The normally spectacular Rams special teams uncharacteristically contributed two killer turnovers on punt returns, resulting in two first quarter scores for the Falcons and a hole the Rams could never quite dig out from under.

    Pharoh Cooper, the Rams Pro Bowl punt returner, muffed one punt and coughed up another.

    He’s been steady all year while emerging as a dynamic weapon in the Rams return game. On Saturday he looked like a wide eyed youngster.

    “I’m sure he’d like to have a couple of those plays back,” said Rams head coach Sean McVay.

    Jared Goff, so poised and efficient during his bounce back from suspected rookie bust to second-year Pro Bowler struggled to complete 24 of 45 passes for 259 yards and just one touchdown.

    McVay, who masterfully stayed a step ahead of the posse all years with his game planning and play calling, could never quite figure out how to consistently generate positive yardage on early downs. The result was far too many off schedule second and third situations in which the Rams had to gobble up too many yards to keep the chains moving.

    A defense that played proudly and fiercely all season was unable to come up with desperately needed stops as the Falcons marched down the field on two time-consuming second half drives.

    The two scoring drives resulted in just a measly pair of field goals, but the Falcons erased more than 12 minutes from the clock while building a 19-10 cushion.

    And by the time they tacked on a fourth-quarter touchdown, their lead was 23-13 and the Rams, essentially, were done.

    It will take an entire offseason to figure out why and how a team that marched through the regular season while dropping more than 30 points on almost everybody they faced stumbled about all night like a guy trying find his way to the bathroom out of a pitch-black bedroom.

    Only to stub his toe, bang his knee and slam head first a couple of times into the wall.

    Was Inexperience a factor?

    It’s hard to just dismiss it.

    Only six players on the Rams have ever spent time on a playoff roster, none of them named Goff or Gurley or Robert Woods or Sammy Watkins or Cooper Kupp or Aaron Donald. Their young core, one of the greenest in all of football, had never experienced a winning season before this one, let alone stepped onto a stage as big as the NFL postseason.

    But that sounds more like an excuse. Especially with the equally playoff inexperienced Tennessee Titans — who the Rams decisively beat two weeks ago — strolled into Kansas City earlier Saturday and beat the Kansas City Chiefs.

    The fact is, the Rams just happened to pick the worst possible time to play their worst game of the year.

    “I don’t think this game was too big for our players,” said McVay said.

    And he’s absolutely right.

    Nevertheless, it would be a double waste of this remarkable season if the Rams don’t reflect back on the moment and not grow from it.

    “These are all learning opportunities and examples we can draw,” McVay said.

    The Rams are built to last, and as set up as anyone to carve out a nice future for themselves. They didn’t go out this year and rent a bunch of veterans to help get L.A. excited about them in their second season back home.

    They have a young core that, provided everyone stays healthy, should be around for quite some time together. Their coach is the youngest in NFL history. And while Saturday was certainly an end of sorts, more than anything it seems like a step along the way the something special.

    To better insure that, the Rams must learn what just happened.

    It got weird. That was to be expected when the sun set on Los Angeles on a Saturday night.

    But the Rams just weren’t ready for it.

    The hope is, someday soon they will be.

    January 7, 2018 at 3:09 am #80037
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    Vincent Bonsignore@DailyNewsVinny
    Crazy stat: #Rams rushed for 115 yrds #Falcons for 124. But Rams did it on 16 carries, #Falcons 39. And while those 39 carries added up to 3.2 yards per carry, they methodically stuck with it while running 39 times to passing it 30 and controlling possession 37:35 to #Rams 22:25

    Sam Farmer@LATimesfarmer
    Good thing they oiled the field tonight.

    slow-motion shots of Aaron Donald aren’t flattering for the officials.

    Albert Breer@AlbertBreer
    Sean McVay accomplished plenty in Year 1. Arrow pointing up on the Rams.

    One undersold fact about the Falcons: The defense is a lot better than the one that went to the Super Bowl last year. A lot of young guys have grown up.

    trey wingo@wingoz
    In their last 6 games Atlanta’s defense has given up only 16.3 PPG, against Rams, Panthers, Vikings, Saints twice and Tampa Bay. 5 of those games vs playoff teams

    Kirk Morrison@kirkmorrison
    First time all year that Pharoh Cooper has fielded a Punt at Night. All Rams games have been day games besides Week 3.

    January 7, 2018 at 11:52 am #80049
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    Cameron DaSilva@camdasilva
    I could set “Aaron Donald is a monster” to automatically tweet every 15 minutes and it’d be accurate every time.

    Football wouldn’t be fun to watch if they called holding every time Aaron Donald was held (it’s almost every play)

    January 10, 2018 at 10:05 pm #80151
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    Five reasons why the Falcons beat the Rams

    The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

    http://www.myajc.com/sports/football/five-reasons-why-the-falcons-beat-the-rams/DGGchHBtyZhPcH7Ecot8JI/

    Here are five reasons why the Falcons beat the Rams 26-13 in the wildcard round of the NFC playoffs:

    1. Screen game shut down. A staple of the Rams offense was their screen passes. They completed only 4 of 10 screens for 29 yards. Running back Todd Gurley, who was their leading receiver with 72 catches for 788 yards, caught four passes for 10 yards.

    Cornerback Brian Poole exemplified the Falcons commitment to open-field tackling against the Rams.

    Poole had four tackles and three were for stops, a solo tackle that results in a win for the defense, according to profootballfocus.com. He didn’t miss any tackles and has more stops in the passing game (24) than any cornerback in the league this season.

    Also, linebacker Deion Jones was strong against the run and in coverage. He finished with 10 tackles and was targeted on six pass plays.

    Jones allowed three catches for 24 yards, but only five came after the catch.

    2. Outside run shut down. The Falcons slowed down the Rams outside runs, too.

    The Falcons allowed just 10 rushing yards outside of the tackles all game. The Rams were averaging 46 yards on the perimeter.

    3. Line overcame. The offensive line didn’t have a good day trying to block Rams All-Pro defensive lineman Aaron Donald, who moved around the defensive line and whipped up all of the Falcons’ linemen.

    When rushing the passer, Donald beat left tackle Jake Matthews once, lelft guard Ben Garland eight times, center Alex Mack once, right guard Wes Schweitzer four times and right tackle Ryan Schraeder three times, according to profootballfocus.com. On 34 pass rush attempts, Donald won a whopping 17 snaps.

    But the line kept battling and eventually made some creases in the Rams’ defense for the running game.

    The 16-play, 76-yard drive to open the third-quarter showed the line’s tenacious and will to keep battling.

    “I think that was turning point,” Schraeder said. “At that point, we knew that we kind of had them on their heels. We wore them down a little bit. They fought hard until the end. But at that point, everybody realized that it was time to go.”

    4. Receivers got the YAC. The Falcons didn’t throw the ball down the field much against the Rams, by quartergback Matt Ryan’s wide receivers picked up yards after the catch (YAC).

    The Falcons had a season-low in average depth of target in the win over Carolina at 6.4 yards. The Panthers wild pass rush forced Ryan to get the ball off quickly.

    Basically, there was no time for any deep breaking routes.

    With Donald on the loose, Ryan had to get rid of the ball even quicker against the Rams.

    Ryan was even less likely to throw downfield against the Rams with a 4.3 average depth of target, according to profootballfocus.com.

    With the short passes, the Falcons relied heavily on the receivers getting yards after the catch and they had a season-high 70.6 percent of his passing yards coming after the catch against the Rams.

    Julio Jones caught all nine of his targets for 94 yards and had 13 yards rushing for 107 yards from scrimmage. Sanu has been targeted 19 games and seven times on third down over the past two games.

    Sanu had 52-yards after the catch on his screen pass that busted open the game in the fourth quarter.

    5. Freeman is back on track. Falcons running back Devonta Freeman, who had a troublesome three-game stretch, where he averaged just 1.75 yards after contact and had four fumbles, has pulled through his slump.

    In the last two games, he’s averaged 2.93 yards after contact per carry and hasn’t fumbled.

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