Can the Rams beat Seattle?

No.

We will out coach Seattle with more trickery on special teams. 😉

rfl wrote:

No.

Yes.

I mean, I disagree with
your No.

This team is capable of “anything.”

Quinn could get a strip-sack and the D
could get Six early…etc, etc.

Seattle does not have an Odell Beckham
or a Dez Bryant. I could see the Rams
staying close the whole game.

Probably not, but i could see it.

They’ll have to stuff Lynch,
of course.

And Ogletree will have to play
with his eyes open this time.

w
v

Seattle fans are scared to death that we will hurt their QB, like Payton seems to be hurt. Make the midget play QB from the pocket. When we do that, we beat seattle. 😉

sdram wrote:

Rams offensive line has to play well – offensively. If Rams can move the ball, score some points, not turn the ball over then the whole game won’t be on the defense to win or lose it.

Yeah, its about the Oline.

And after the last two weeks
I aint real optimisitc.

Rams 9
Seahawks 24

One pick 6,
and one Wells-snap over Hill’s head,
and one Tre Mason fumble.

w
v

Another oldie but goodie. How many is that Pete? 😉

• This reply was modified 9 years, 10 months ago by Agamemnon.

look for the rams to race out to a 21-0 lead in the first half.

and then blow that lead in the second half losing 24-27.

• This reply was modified 9 years, 10 months ago by InvaderRam.

I want to revisit the question beginning this thread. I think it highlights what I see as a helluva lot of illusion on this board about the current state of the Rams.

I said no–the Rams had no chance at beating SEA. Why?

Because they cannot COMPETE with the SEA.

Look at the posts in this thread. There are all sorts of calculations and comparisons of team strengths and weaknesses. They do see real strengths on the Rams’ team. But they completely miss the point.

As you saw in the game, we have the ROSTER to play with a team like SEA. We beat them earlier and could well have beaten them yesterday. The game was actually there to be had.

But we had no chance. Because they were playing for home field and they competed. All game long. Every player on that field competed as if life was at stake.

And they did so in sound deployments that minimized the damage we could do on both sides of the ball and opened up opportunities that they eventually exploited.

We played in spurts relying on a highly suspect jet package and only intermittently deploying a sound defensive front. Look at the TD we gave up on the ground. In the red zone and there is no freaking discipline in covering the gaps along the LOS. Look at the damn play and tell me that defensive front is well deployed.

That game featured freakish plays, each of which went against us and arguably decided the outcome. Well, every one of those plays featured a major blunder on our part and a highly competitive effort by a SEA guy. Every single freaking one. Kendrick’s ridiculous fumble. Hill’s insane inability to complete a pass to the ground. Actually, you can’t blame Cunningham for the near-TD, cause on 3rd down he was seeking the flag. But the effort to hammer the arm was superb competitiveness.

You know, we make plays like that. Occasionally. Intermittently. But nowhere near often enough.

We do not compete at SEA’s level! We simply don’t do it. Or at AZ’s level, as they proved beating us with a 4th string QB.

It isn’t about rosters and talent. Sure, we need a better OL and QB. But given our OL and QB we could EASILY have won 3-4 more games this year.

It’s about playing like talented losers. And that’s what we are. Much more talented than we were 3 years ago. But stuck in the habits of losing. A winning team does not have a veteran QB throw the ball to a DT on the ground in the RZ. We do that. We give up 10 turnovers returned for TDs during the year. We give up STs plays, big runs, momentum-killing long passes.

This team has shot itself in the foot in scores of plays this year. It has played like losers.

Now, I blame the coaches more than the players. Others may disagree. I actually could see a case for saying that we lack the LEADERS among the players who can lift the team into competitive discipline. (I don’t see a case for denying that the coaches bear a healthy portion of the blame.)

But the key issue is competitive discipline. And we as fans, if we value our sanity, have to remember that.

This off season will not primarily be about upgrading the talent on the roster. Actually, I rate Snead pretty well, and I’ll bet he improves us at some key places.

But don’t be fooled. Don’t project, and assume that a roster tweak here or there is going to make the difference. It won’t.

If we don’t come into next season ready to play the 1st game as if it counted, …

If we don’t learn how to compete across the field, play after play, …

If we don’t stop making game-losing mistakes …

If we don’t figure out how to put our talented guys in positions to flourish …

We will lose 3 of the 1st 4 again and slide into mediocrity and yet another lost season.

No amount of roster tweaking will change that. The draft. The FA market. Encouraging training camp reports. None of that will mean a freaking thing UNTIL this team learns to compete.

Right now, we trail SEA by a long, long distance in competitiveness. It’s not remotely close. We have no chance of catching them–or AZ–until we deal with our own losing mindset.

And if you’re smart, you’ll hold out on hope until you see the team empowering itself ON THE FREAKING FIELD.

Anything else is fan masturbation.

Mackeyser wrote:

My only admonition would be that others are free to feel, think and believe as they see fit without feeling attacked as having illusions or masturbating.

…

This is a great topic and will be talked about all off-season I’m sure. Let’s keep it fun since it’s gonna be s long off-season.

Well said, my friend.

I wondered about that line and wished I’d found a better way of expressing what I meant. I actually was thinking more of myself than of anyone else. As a fan, I imagine all sorts of things about the Rams. And the point is that it remains a mental construct–theory, fantasy, whatever–until it’s real on the field. I am as guilty as anyone else. I really expected something this year.

So, my intention was not to attack anyone. But, intention is one thing; action is another. And I apologize to any and all for any offense my expression might have caused. Mea culpa.

Now having said that …

I have been frustrated this year by the way the dialogue has shaped itself in our community. There has in my view been a lot of what I consider to have been unrealistic optimism and avoidance of the reality of what was happening. To the very end of the season, the board has tended to–again, IMO–avoid confronting deeply engrained patterns and trends that have not meaningfully changed in years.

I think we saw in preseason the clear evidence of a talented but unsound team that was going to mess up badly. Those trends continued throughout the year, until the last game. We gave up 1 TD to SEA’s defense yesterday, and that was a run against a ridiculously out of position D front. The very thing we were seeing in pre-season.

But, as far as I have been able to tell, the consensus of the board has been that things are better, that we’re a couple of breaks away from being contenders. And I think there’s a ton of evidence that this is far from being true. We are a long, long way from being where AZ, for example, is.

Well, one person certainly can’t dictate a consensus and I know I won’t be able to do that.

I just hope that, as we move forward, we take up in a serious way …

1. the difference between talent and competitive discipline

2. the responsibility of the coaching staff, especially Fisher and Williams

This is a community with almost 2 decades of more or less reality-based loyalty to the Rams. I hope we recover our grip on the persistent reality of the team’s inability to compete.

And I’ll do my best to minimize my tendency to beat dead horses.

a couple things.

the rams do have the ability to beat seattle. and in fact beat them at home earier in the season. they beat denver as well.

they’re just inconsistent. i think most of us realize this. and the optimism on the board i don’t think is necessarily being delusional. but part of just being a fan.

another thing. seattle is almost impossible to beat on the road. they’ve lost 2 games at home in the last 2 years. so it’s not just the rams who get beat badly at seattle.

arizona? they lost 19-3 at seattle this year. which is worse than the 20-6 beating that st. louis got. they then went to arizona and beat them worse than even that. 35-6. rams actually tied the series 1-1 this year.

i understand the frustration. and taking the season as a whole. the inconsistency of this team is certainly maddening.

but not without hope. i don’t think the disparity is as big as some people would like to believe. the rams are close. i really believe that. and i don’t think it’s blind optimism.

• This reply was modified 9 years, 10 months ago by InvaderRam.