Marshall Faulk: Grade the Rams' Front Office

zn wrote:

SF wasn’t flat twice aainst the Rams in 2012. I’ve run the numbers before on this regarding that span of games…Jackson 4.3 a carry, Bradford equalling the lowest sack percentage Warner had as a Ram. There was also a period there in 2013 when they had Stacy, Long, Saffold at guard, and Barksdale all playing, and the unit was good. PFF even had them ranked 13th.

Bringing in older guys is better than rookies. Do you think that Long at his healthy best as a Ram would rank below Robinson as a rookie?

If anyone looks around the league at how the best OLs are built, it is seldom just young high draft picks. For example, the Eagles have a good OL and their LOT is older than Long–he has 5 more years of NFL experience than Long does and entered the NFL the same year as wells. Their RG was drafted in 2005, 4 years before Long and 1 year after Wells.

Good OLs are made lots of different ways. Veteran FAs are part of it.

Young studs are also getting massively over-rated. In fact of all the linemen taken high in the 1st round the last couple of years, most have struggled.

Ah, that;s not really how I feel. I thought about it. Young high-picked stud linemen should be part of the mix, and here (in that post) I come across like I don’t believe that.

THOUGH interestingly, in recent drafts, the ones picked from the middle of round 1 through round 2 are (as a group) doing better than the high #1 picks.

An interesting thing. Twice now in 2 drafts, Rams almost took a guard. If Ogletree weren’t there in 2013, they would have taken Warford at 30. They were about to pull the trigger and trade up for Zack Martin. Both are doing really well. So…from what we can tell so far about the Rams interests in linemen, they seem to have an eye for it. That bodes well I think.

rfl wrote:

I see no evidence of any genuine improvement in the team as a competitive unit. None. In fact, this year we will actually REGRESS in our record, and it will be richly deserved.

Are those the same thing? Record, competitiveness?

I am disappointed by the loss too, but I don’t see it as darkly as you do.

rfl wrote:

zn wrote:
Are those the same thing? Record, competitiveness?

I am disappointed by the loss too, but I don’t see it as darkly as you do.

Well, I’ll tell you what. I’d like to see an argument to try to disprove the claim that our record this year reflects our competitiveness.

Generally, you are what your record says you are. Rare exceptions, yes. But we are what we saw today. That’s who we are. The good days are far more anomalous than today was.

Well I don’t want this to be semantics. So I will abandon the whole “record/competitiveness” thing, which though I initiated it, now sounds too dangerously abstract for me.

As for coming up with an argument, I have rarely if ever been in a discussion about a team’s whole season where there’s a single, simple, nailed-down answer and all the rest doesn’t measure up. I think what we have HERE is zn’s take v. RFL’s take, with neither one in a position to bet the farm on it. In fact I think the glory of these discussions is how different people see things different ways, and then you can see the range of insights. The range is more important to me than the author. Because, like quantum physics, there’s only so much you can really know…but it’s interesting to see what the RANGE is. (And as a fan of internet discussion, I honestly appreciate the process.)

But, today for example. The same thing reared its ugly head–a blown coverage in the secondary by a young player who gives up an easy TD.

That’s just when they pull within 7 and Hill and Mason are finally in gear. And–by his own admission–Joyner blows a coverage on the 80 yard Beckham TD.

First, injuries (Gaines goes out Joyner comes in). Then, the big game-killing mistake. That kind of thing has dogged this team all season–inopportune blown coverages by a young secondary.

It also doesn’t help that the OL is ragged and playing like it.

But take all the things people are complaining about–the chippiness, the undisciplined actions, and if their coverage were sound, they would still be in the game. In fact, the Giants committed more penalties than the Rams, and Coughlin was complaining about his own team’s chippiness, and they won. Heck the Rams offense scored 27 points and could have won even with the OL a mess right now (they are starting 3 injured players and a rookie LOT). You subtract the points by Beckham on the 80 yarder and the points they got after the Randle 49 yarder, and the game is tied.

Okay so why does the secondary make so many game-killing mistakes. To me that’s obvious. They’re young, a couple of them like McCleod are playing over their heads (and that’s not always sustainable), and they do not have this system mastered.

So some, perhaps you (if I read you right) see the mistakes and chalk it up to coaching. That makes it inherent, or so it appears. A team with Fisher and Wms, from that view, can never become stable and consistent. I see it differently. I don’t think it’s the coaching, I think it’s execution. To me, that means that once the players become synced in, their prospects improve. We get more games like the Denver game, and fewer games like the Giants and Dallas games.

Now SHOULD THEY be synced in by now? To me that’s just opinion. Should Wms have dialed it back? Should Snead have already given them an all-pro secondary? TO ME, just in my place on the range of opinions, THAT all sounds like impossible standards.

There’s more to say about this but this discussion, I suspect, will take months and include many voices, so…that’s enough from me for tonight, I think.