little glints of optimism for the offense

I wish people had noticed this part.

I found it kind of striking, myself.

This:

zn wrote:

with that stabilized line and Keenum (who was just more steady than a melted down Foles), they averaged 22.75 points a game. That would have ranked 16th in the league.

In contrast look at the last 4 games Foles played. In those games the Rams averaged 10.25 points a game. I looked and the last time a team was NEARLY that low was the Raiders in 2006 when they had 10.5 points a game.

To me that suggests that if Foles had not melted down or if Keenum had played all season they would have won more games already.

And what THAT in turn suggests is that with Keenum/Goff—both better than a melted down Foles—and a more mature line and an improved Gurley, they could be a middle of the pack offense this year.

Which isn’t what we want ideally, but still, that’s enough to be start with for now.

….

InvaderRam wrote:

i believe that an improved oline and gurley is possible, but i don’t believe in a keenum over 16 games. i believe that once defenses have an offseason to figure him out that he will be neutralized. so the question for me is how good can goff be? and how soon? and then obviously how good can his receivers be? and those are some pretty big question marks to me.

I have more faith in Keenum than you do, but it hardly matters, because Goff will be starting sometime in 2016.

I think even minimally decent quarterbacking means more points and more wins.

Mackeyser wrote:

I read a few tweets, it was a Rams site tweeting. Basically…

“Rams OTA closed to media: Rams offense making forward strides.”

“Rams OTA open to media: Rams offense making backwards strides.”

The gist is that Fisher is engaging in happy talk yet again and when people look for themselves, it’s pretty evident that things clearly song look good.

It’s really early and I surely hope this team gets things turned around, but this isn’t the right way to start…

What backwards strides are being talked about? I haven’s seen anything. And because LA has so many more reporters, we get more on OTAs now then we ever did when they were in St. Louis.

Mackeyser wrote:

This was according to the Turf Show Times, notoriously a funnel for Fisher’s happy talk.

I am not sure I think of TST that way. Not that I think of them as objective. I think of them as being more neutral to anti- about Fisher.

zn wrote:

I keep hammering on this but IMO it means something. I did some of these numbers above but now I include the defense.

Last year, ostensibily, the Rams offense was rated <strong class=”d4pbbc-bold”>29th in Scoring. They clearly sucked on offense. BUT the Rams were 29th in offensive scoring last year because of a terrible stretch of 4 games by Foles. It’s his last 4 games. At the same time, that’s in the period when they were hit the hardest by OL injuries.

As I already said, in the final 4 weeks the OL settled down after the injury stretch, and Keenum started.

Take those last 4 games … how would the Rams offense have ranked in terms of scoring?

In THAT stretch they averaged <strong class=”d4pbbc-bold”>22.75 points a game. That would have <strong class=”d4pbbc-bold”>ranked 16th in the league.

In other words, it’s the old problem—season long averages can often disguise the real story. Because seasons include different moments. The Rams with Foles in meltdown mode in his last 4 games (where they averaged 10.25 points a game) is NOT the same animal as the Rams with Keenum.

And of course Keenum is no franchishe qb. He was just more competent and effective than a melted down Foles.

Plus of course the more settled down OL of the last 4 games was STILL a young, less experienced line. Now they are much more experienced plus will have a 2nd training camp under their belts.

And yet, in those last 4 games, the DEFENSE, with Quinn and Ogletree and McDonald missing, plus Jenkins missing at least 1 game, <strong class=”d4pbbc-bold”>allowed 18.25 points a game. In season-long terms that would have been ranked <strong class=”d4pbbc-bold”>5th.

In the previous 4 Foles meltdown games, the defense actually <strong class=”d4pbbc-bold”>allowed 29 points a game. In season-long terms that would have been <strong class=”d4pbbc-bold”>ranked 31st.

SO, not just in general but in directly relation to the Rams, offensive scoring (apparently) bolsters the defense too. If that’s just a truism, fine, but it is nevertheless one that plays out dramatically with the Rams last season.

It breaks down this way:

GAMES 9-10 & 12-13, FOLES IN COLLAPSE:

Offense: avg. 10.25 points a game In season terms, ranked below 32nd (looking back the closest I could find to that bad was Oakland in 2006, which allowed 10.5 a game)
Defense:avg. 29 points a game In season terms, ranked below 31st.

GAMES 14-17, KEENUM STARTING:

Offense: avg. 22.75 points a game In season terms, ranked below 16th
Defense:avg. 18.25 points a game In season terms, ranked below 5th

Now none of that PROMISES anything for 2016, BUT, it certainly bodes well. No question.

I submit that what we see from that is that with just decent quarterbacking and the Rams offense and defense BOTH do better in terms of points for and against.

Just some more things to develop the point.

Last year, even though CK played effectively (not GREAT but effectively) in the last 4 games, this is what they DIDN’T have then that they will have now:

* a Keenum who has actually taken reps with the 1st in the off-season…he has actually never done that before in his career

* a healthier, more experienced OL

* some kind of improvement at WR/TE though it’;s hard to say how much

* a Gurley who is a year away from surgery and therefore 100%

* an off-season with Boras & company coaching the offense (last year of course Boras was an in-season promotion, he did not have an off-season to do it his way)

So IMO Goff can take his time.

He will start, I don’t doubt it, but he does not have to be rushed into action.

canadaram wrote:

This is the most optimistic that I have been about the offensive line in a long-long time. Granted, the bar has been set pretty low in the last decade.

I disagree, a bit. The issue has always been injuries with the OL (and injuries past the NFL norm).

Just in the last few years, when the line was healthy from 2012-13 it did play well.

Unfortunately what hit it was injuries. The big injury periods are the first 8 games of 2012 and the last 4 or so of 2013.

2014 was a different animal. They got hit with injuries at every level and in the end were fielding a line with injured players, plus a green Robinson.

BUT when they were NOT massively over-injured, that 2-12=13 veteran OL performed pretty well. Numbers back that.

And I assume that this time, instead of a veteran line bought through expensive plus budget free agency, this new mostly young OL will have the same fate: when relatively healthy it will do fine. If it starts getting mowed down like the opening scenes from Saving Private Ryan, then…not so much.

Having said that yeah you are right. They added 8 young linemen from 2014-5 and I think this year that starts paying off…again, assuming they remain relatively healthy.

…

Agamemnon wrote:

It seemed that far a long time, the 5th starter on the line was somebody’s scrub player

Depends. Boudreau used guys that might be called scrubs, but he made something out of them. There is a long list of players who others cut who played better with the Boudreau Rams than they ever had before. A lot of them never played as well since, either (with others). Some were out of football after PB. One or two continued to do well after PB (Barksdale). I can think of only one real failure with that bunch—Joseph.

Agamemnon wrote:

I meant to highlight Richardson, not Dahl.

Turner and Richardson played better in 2012 than they had before or since.

I think it’s the same with Williams and Smith.

Barksdale played better since but not before.

They actually cut Ojinakka before the season in 2012 and then had to bring him back anyway because in week 1, Wells got hurt, Turner shifted to center, Watkins replaced Turner at guard and got hurt, and so they lacked a guard. They had Smith, Barksdale, and Williams but had signed them after the season started so at that point they couldn’t play. Saffold got hurt too, so in the 1st 8 games, they had 3 different LOTs: Saffold, Hunter (who then got hurt), and Barksdale.

In the 2nd half of the season they eventually got back Wells and Saffold, but Dahl got hurt. They replaced Dahl with a rotation of Wms and Smith. So just Dahl getting hurt meets my definition of “relatively healthy.”

In the 2nd half of 2012 they played pretty well in fact.

I think Hunter and Richardson played okay. Of the ones you highlight, the real dogs were Ojinakka and Joseph (though Joseph had his moments). So I said there was just one dog, and there were 2.

.

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TSRF wrote:

I’ll stop the world and melt with you…

-Nick Foles 2015

And yet, ironically, Foles was NOT The Cure.

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