I am always optimistic till the bullets are flying (then I become more of just a hopeful realist). It all just seems natural to me. Just the way I see stuff.

But it’s qualified. For one thing I don’t do predictions…over the years, even I have learned that the most powerful thing in the world of predictions is the unpredictable …and that (surprise!) you learn about the unpredictable after the fact. “There’s always the unexpected isn’t there.”

Rams fans optimism to me just means you can see reasonable grounds for expecting the team to be good or better than it was.

So what do I think those grounds are this time?

* Coaches. Unlike many I like Schott. That’s a whole separate discussion in itself. Waufle and Boudreau are beyond compare. Fisher will field a fiesty group. Wms. really does improve defenses.

* Secondary. They were painfully young and probably misused. Wms will get the best out of them. Or I see him as capable of that, anyway.

* Front 7. This is a new era in Rams football, where the DL (and to an extent LBs) take the lead in determining games. Greatest Sacks on Turf.

* OL. If everyone is healthy, the OL has the potential to be absolutely first-rate. It has the depth to be good enough anyway, even with major injuries (though as I keep saying, past a certain point OL injuries just take a toll.) Really, I think the worst case scenario (barring catastrophic multiple injuries, something sadly enough a Rams fan can’t rule out….)

* TEs, WRs. Some good things there (Kendricks, Austin, maybe Bailey) but this is more a case where the coaches have to manufacture it out of scattered raw parts. So, it’s up to the coaches to weekly invent new ways to get something out of these guys, depending on the opponent. Obviously it would be better if they had a consistent, productive “The Guy” type guy to work with.

* QB. Based on my own quirky way of doing this, I think Bradford has already made it as a tier 2 qb. I base that on his production under Fisher when the Rams had both a reasonably healthy OL and a running threat. IMO if he doesn’t continue at that level, he has regressed.

* RBs. Not sure if they have a 16 game stud, but, they have lottsa guys who can run the ball. (I don’t know about Stacy for 16 games.)

* special teams. Best in the league.

Now what do I PREDICT based on that? I don;t know. When was the last time a young team emerged in a “best division in football” it shared with 2 consecutive conference champs? I am sure it has happened, but those are stern odds. Given that, there ARE reasonable grounds for optimism, but it’s also a young team with quite a few units in transition.

BUT. If a few of the things I think are good hold up, they should be better immediately.

I do NOT have a “3 year thing” though. I think Fisher has more than 3 years…he looks to me to be Stan’s Guy for the long haul.

Am I trying to have it both ways? Hopefully, yes. The realist in me sees how tough the situation is, and I am patient with that. The optimist in me sees plenty of places where they will be anywhere from good enough to exceptional.

I do think a team that can massacre three division winners with Clemens at qb (like they did last year)is on the rise.

,,,

PhxRam wrote:

Should I hold my breath waiting for an apology?

I said several times throughout the thread I shouldn’t have name-called you. Go back and look. Not sure what else you want.

But then in spite of your denial, I WAS blocked. So let’s begin one small step and see how it goes. X said I WAS blocked (like I knew I was). Did you know about that or not, and do you condone that or not now that it’s completely public?

Either X did it like he said, without your knowledge…which means you were running a site where someone could do that (plus read mod PMs and talk about them in public). Or you knew X did it. Or he’s just covering for you.

Did I ever know I was running a site where someone other than you was reading mod PMs and could block whoever he wanted? Did I know that was the deal I signed on to? How does that sit with you? We fell apart because of distrust. How does something like that contribute to distrust?

You could give an honest answer, or you could do more zn bashing. But that rings hollow because I asked you to partner up on a site in the first place because you had already invited me to front one for you (that happened when you were impatient with RM because at that point the huddle kept going down). You had known me since the herd. You had known me on the huddle. When my solution to the huddle wars was to make a new site, that was fine with you…and you saw the huddle wars while they were happening. (To the point where you even told me on the buzz that Arsenic was Pancake). Your idea, as you kept telling me, was to have the biggest, most advanced Rams board, and you clearly thought you could do that with me–you even said so, and praised the board (until you bought ROD). That’s all completely understandable, but as I said all the subsequent zn bashing rings completely hollow now.

Let’s see how this goes. Did you know I was blocked, and/or do you condone it now that it’s completely public?

zn wrote:

PhxRam wrote:
here I am lets do this.

I am PhxRam (Bob) sole owner of the ramsbuzz.com website. You got questions or concerns ask them now.

Okay but we follow all board rules or there’s no point in having them. We keep it civil.

That means we stick to the topic, which is–why did the buzz board get shut down suddenly with no prior notice. And then we either agree or agree to disagree and move on. I also don’t want people piling on just to pile on–that’s not fair and it’s never right when it happens.

We have a simple dispute and my hope is it can either be resolved or end in an eternal warless stalemate (like a benign divorce). Either way.

Agreed?

Okay, I will take agreement as being implicit and act accordingly. I don’t like board wars on good sites and have had my fill of them. But it is possible to air differences and either agree to move on or come to a better resolution.

My stance on this has been that you had a right to take the board down and that’s all I was going to say about it in public. I was content with that. But things obviously spilled over, and so it’s time to just move toward the agree or agree to disagree endgame then drop it.

First history, then questions.

History.

This linked post contains the entirety of the exchanges between us on he 28th which if memory serves is when you took the buzz board down: http://theramshuddle.com/topic/temporary-post-some-history/

That history will show this. I was blocked from both the buzz and ROD. By all appearances I was IP blocked. I even went to another network (by leaving home with my laptop) and had full access to the site from there.

I emailed you to find out why I was blocked.

I also went to another board and PMed a third party to ask if that third party knew anything.

The history post contains all of that.

Your response to my email was to deny you knew anything about me being blocked (you called it banned but I wasn’t banned). You reacted angrily to my 2nd, more impatient email which said: Come on man……if you have an issue just raise it, whatever it is, person to person. You don’t have to act like a dick and then expect me to guess what it’s about. That’s what ex-wives do. -:) Heck I never figured out why you blocked me from ROD the first time.

You then apparently took the site down. (I didn’t even know you had until the third party I mentioned said you did…I couldn’t access the site at all).

The Questions

If you were pissed at me, why not just ban ME…why blow up an entire site? These guys loved that site.

Also, think…why would I “make up” being blocked? I had nothing to gain from doing that, and it was frustrating as hell. Here I was managing a site I didn’t even have access to…with the very natural supposition I was blocked for reasons unknown.

If the situation had been reversed AND I HADN’T BLOCKED YOU, I would have just gone “calm down, we’ll figure it out.”

So you either blocked me and deny it OR you did not think about what it would mean for me to BE blocked…and how that NATURALLY led to frustration.

(Though in retrospect, regardless what you did or what I thought, I shouldn’t have called you a dick…that was just the frustration of being blocked from the site. You did build the site in the first place and give it an honest chance at first, even though you became very absentee after buying ROD.)

I think you know regardless what reason you think you had, blowing up a site without prior notice is not the best way to do things.

And remember–regardless what you say, I was blocked (still am at ROD). Now imagine the frustration of that. So either you blocked me OR you are not thinking very hard about how that would bother someone.

Then. I find out accidently and indirectly that one former buzz poster is at the ROD site asking where the buzz community was, and when I saw that–again, having to leave home to access it through another network because I was still blocked at ROD–no one would tell him. So I just urged people here to tell him somehow, so he would at least have a choice.

A lot of people wonder why the buzz URL re-directs to ROD now but I don’t care about that, myself.

I will wait for a response before saying more.

My goal is resolution and endgame. I hate board wars. They make the net ugly.

…