RamView, 10/11/2015: Packers 24, Rams 10 (Long)

RamView, October 11, 2015
Game #5: Packers 24, Rams 10

Jeff Fisher’s approach to winning football is playing strong defense and running the ball. The Rams did both of those more than well enough this week to beat even the Packers in Lambeau. But the Ram passing game, an abomination of poor protection and receiving and quarterbacking mistakes, became a black hole from which no good football could escape. Anyone got Stephen Hawking’s phone number?

Position by position:
* QB: Though it may have been induced by the beating the Packer defense gave him, Nick Foles (11-30-141, FOUR INT, 23.8 PR) seemed to play this whole game in a fog. The Ram offense was about as crisp as a tub of mashed potatoes, taking multiple delay of game penalties because they couldn’t get a play off, even on plays out of timeouts where they didn’t have to call a play in the huddle. No, Nick didn’t get much help. Jared Cook failed to catch a pass again to kill the opening drive. Foles got pummeled like a pinata by Clay Matthews, almost always unblocked, all game. One of those hits cost the Rams a TD in the 1st; Kenny Britt was open deep but Foles couldn’t make a good throw while being clobbered. That drive ended with Foles getting sacked and Britt dropping a pass. Foles failed to cash in on a rare Aaron Rodgers INT in the 1st by throwing one of his own, though it came because his receiver, Todd Gurley, fell. Foles took enough hits in just the first quarter for CBS to run a greatest hits package. Right after that, Rodger Saffold got hurt (surprise!) on a play that gave Mike Neal a free run at Foles, who rushed a throw for Cook, who bravely cut off his own route instead of running into the Packer defense, setting Foles up for another INT. The pick-six for rookie Quinten Rollins topped off as bad a quarter as the Rams have played all season. Fortunately, Foles could still hand off successfully, and the running game carried the Rams to a competitive 14-10 halftime score. But Foles wasted a great Gurley run in the 3rd by getting picked off in the end zone, trying to force a pass to Kendricks despite LB Joe Thomas being right there. Thomas deflected the pass to Hasean Clinton-Dix to deny the Rams a great opportunity. Someone will have to explain to me why Foles thought this throw had ANY hope. With 7:30 left, Foles had all of 54 yards passing, and the next drive typified his day. An awful drop by Brian Quick. Matthews coming in unblocked to force a throwaway, then coming in so fast on 3rd down from right over center that Foles couldn’t even drop back before getting sacked. When Foles hit Bailey with a 69-yard bomb in the final minute, he more than doubled his yardage for the game. And promptly crapped out with his FOURTH INT, right to Rollins, who I assume he never saw. That capped off a game to forget for Foles. His protection was terrible and he is not going to last much past the bye week at this rate. His receivers bumbled and stumbled their way to multiple drops and INTs. But Foles didn’t play well enough, either, even to get carried by a strong running game and good defensive play.

* RB: Todd Gurley’s (30-159) only problem right now appears to be finding somewhere to put his Rookie of the Year trophy. He started off slowly, and his slip helped created Foles’ first INT in the 1st, but he and his blocking rallied in the 2nd. Gurley started a Rams’ TD drive by popping off LT for 11. Tavon Austin (3-22) followed with 7 on a jet sweep, led out by Cook (!). Gurley followed with a super cutback on a wrap run right for 6. He just reads those better than the rest of the Ram RBs. He also definitely breaks tackles better than Tre Mason (2-8). Austin closed the drive with a 5-yard TD “catch” that was basically a jet sweep he cut back inside. Steady work for Gurley the next two quarters resulted in plenty of 3, 4, 5-yard runs. He bounced right and stiff-armed Nate Palmer to the ground to get 5 and a first down late in the 3rd. That was just the warmup act, as Gurley exploded for 55 yards off the right side on his first touch in the 4th. That put him over 140 yards for the 2nd straight week. He added 12 off the right side on his final touch to finish the game with 159 yards. In just two weeks, Todd Gurley is already the Rams’ workhorse and the focal point of the offense. He runs with power and vision the Rams haven’t had since Steven Jackson, and with more speed. If Jackson was “Train”, Gurley is Bullet Train. He had a ridiculous 30 carries this week and you wish he would have had more (especially a blown Austin jet sweep on 3rd-and-2 in the 3rd). Benny Cunningham (2-28) converted a ball muffed by Quick into a diving catch in the 1st and had several solid blitz pickups, but he’s just a passenger on a Bullet Train the Rams need to ride and see how far he can take them.

* Receivers: Few spectacles in sports are as pathetic as the Rams receiving corps. The most clutch receiver this week was special-teamer Cody Davis (1-20). Foles threw away pass after pass because he didn’t have an open receiver. I shouldn’t pick on Brian Quick (1-10). This was his first meaningful action in a year. He started with a sweet leaping sideline catch in the 1st. But beyond that, he was a joke. His biggest play was the ball that clanged off his hands in the 1st that Benny retrieved with a diving catch. He played a ball as badly as possible in the 4th, leaving his feet for it when it was only head-high, and, classic Quick, letting it into his body to clang off and hit the ground. Ram receivers were 2nd in the league in drops coming in but made a strong run at #1 this week. In an eventful first quarter, Kenny Britt (0-0) was open for a bomb, but Foles didn’t have time for a good throw. Britt then killed a drive by dropping a very catchable slant pass, and later injured his hand while blocking, making the Rams receivers even more useless than they were already. Stedman Bailey (3-73) had the lone highlight, in the final minute, burning rookie Quinten Rollins for a 69-yard bomb. The highlight being a Ram receiver actually got open and actually caught a football. The Rams have no receiver right now doing either reliably. That is a BIG problem.

* Tight ends: Wash, rinse, repeat for the awful Jared Cook (1-8). He let a ball into his body to kill the opening drive on 3rd-and-8, and even if he’d made the catch, he only ran a 7-yard route anyway. Seriously, does Cook understand what those markers on the sideline mean? Does he even know they’re there? Was anyone surprised Cook cut off his route on Foles’ pick-six? Hell, avoiding possible contact’s the most reliable thing Cook does! Cook’s key play was to draw a pretty questionable 32-yard DPI from Clinton-Dix that set up the Rams’ TD. Cook is at least blocking these days. He and Lance Kendricks (2-16) led out on a couple of Austin’s runs, and Kendricks sprung Gurley a couple of times. Kendricks and Corey Harkey had troubles in pass pro. Nick Perry beat Harkey to get part of Green Bay’s first sack and Julius Peppers ran over Kendricks for a sack/fumble in the 3rd. As useless as they’ve been downfield, it might be best to just station these guys in the backfield as full-time escorts for Foles. Maybe there they’d do him some good.

* Offensive line: Run-blocking started slowly but found its footing. Gurley was limited to short gains early on because the line didn’t sustain blocks. Rob Havenstein, Jamon Brown and Greg Robinson were all guilty of that in the 1st. I hate to say it, but I think the turning point for the running game was Rodger Saffold getting injured (shoulder, surprise!) in the 2nd. With Garrett Reynolds at RG, and the Rams sending Gurley left more often, the running game erupted. On the TD drive, Gurley got 11 off a strong Robinson block and cut back for 6 behind mauling work by Havenstein and Reynolds. Austin got a pancake block from Brown on his TD play. The line really got to mauling after the fake punt in the 3rd, with Gurley ripping off 5- and 7-yard runs, but they settled for a (missed) FG after a zone blocking fail left Robinson blocking two guys and getting Gurley stuffed. Reynolds had the key block at the line, though, to spring Gurley’s 55-yard run. But as good as run-blocking got, pass protection was far, far worse, and stayed that way. Clay Matthews opened a can of whoop-ass on Foles, with 1.5 sacks and at least 4 hits. Foles was sacked 3 times and took at least a dozen hits. Saffold let Foles get whacked a couple of times, one by Letroy Guion, who joined an unblocked Matthews to thump Foles just as he tried to go deep to an open Britt. That drive ended with Foles getting sacked. They tried to swing protection to the right, but Nick Perry beat Corey Harkey, and Matthews came in unblocked, on the left side. Foles’ first INT was rushed because Peppers ran over Robinson, who’d ended up limping the previous play. A screen pass blew up in the 2nd after Foles tripped and Tim Barnes, who mainly got thrown around in the middle, let his man through clean. On Foles’ pick-six, Saffold went down like he’d been shot, leaving Havenstein to block two Packers, and he ended up just ushering Mike Neal back to the QB. Havenstein did make the long DPI drawn by Cook possible with a late scrambling block. That set up a TD, but Brown returned the favor the next drive with a red-zone false start that bogged the Rams down for a FG. Feats of Clay continued in the 3rd as Matthews beat Robinson AND Benny with a spin move to force a throwaway and kill the Rams’ opening drive. Peppers steam-rolled Kendricks later in the 3rd to sack Foles and push the Rams out of makeable FG position. The Rams drove across midfield in the 4th, but Matthews saved his best for last. Unblocked AGAIN, he came hard at Foles to force a 1st-down throwaway, then on 2nd down, UNBLOCKED YET AGAIN, jumped the snap count and sacked Foles before Nick could even get into his drop. The o-line missed enough blocks, but the major concern is the number of times the opponent’s star player hit Foles without being so much as touched. I think that’s the Rams’ scheme getting beat, not the players, and that scheme needs serious fixing in the coming two weeks.

* Defensive line: In holding Aaron Rodgers (19-30-241, PR 83.8) to very pedestrian numbers, and Eddie Lacy to just 27 yards, the Ram defense did more than enough to win the game. This despite not getting off to a strong start. Rodgers got too much time to throw throughout their opening TD drive, scrambling for 18 through a lane Michael Brockers vacated and hard-counting Nick Fairley offside on 3rd-and-11, with a TD pass following on 3rd-and-6. After an INT the next drive, though, the Rams seemed to have Superman’s kryptonite. To open the 2nd, Aaron Donald flushed Rodgers for little gain, repeated by Brockers and Eugene Sims the next play to force a punt. They flushed Rodgers several other times and got a second INT. Rodgers couldn’t get anything done at the end of the half, flushed once by Quinn and throwing a poor screen pass under pressure from Quinn and Donald, coming at him from the ground not unlike a downed zombie. If not for a Packer defensive TD, the Rams would have led at halftime, even with Chris Long forced to the locker room after a knee-to-knee collision. Rodgers burned a blitz for a long TD out of halftime, but that was almost the last serious scoring opportunity the Packers got. Will Hayes flushed Rodgers on 3rd-and-4 for a 3-and-out. Late in the 3rd, Fairley nearly got a third INT, followed by Robert Quinn tomahawking Rodgers from behind to get the Rams the ball back on a sack/fumble. Brockers sacked Rodgers to open the 4th after Sims flushed him. They only had those two sacks, but the Rams had Rodgers on the run a lot. Quinn got consistent edge pressure. Brockers had a fine game despite Gregg Williams again deploying a lot of 3-man lines. Sims and Hayes stepped up well in Long’s absence. They didn’t deliver the pounding the Packers did to Foles, but teams that have Aaron Rodgers on the run as much as the Rams did, and limit him to the numbers that he had, are often going to beat him. The Rams should have been one of those teams.

* Linebackers: Just when you think sports can’t be more unpredictable, Rodgers’ long streak of home games without an INT was not only snapped, the deed was done by Rams LBs. Mark Barron blitzed and tipped a quick throw at the line, and James Laurinaitis made a diving catch. Laurinaitis was solid against the run. He and Hayes stuffed Lacy for a loss in the 1st. James stopped James Starks twice to keep Green Bay from getting anywhere at the end of the half, and blew up a Starks sweep in the 4th. Barron blew a tackle that let Starks get away for 19 on a screen, but that looked like his only bad miss. He broke up a short pass for Starks to force a Packers 3-and-out in the 4th. Blitzing was where the Ram LBs needed to be more effective this week. Akeem Ayers missed a sack in the 4th, the one time I noted a LB close to Rodgers. Obviously they miss Alec Ogletree in those situations, but Ayers needs to take this opportunity to step up.

* Secondary: Take away a couple of plays and the Ram secondary would have been co-NFL defensive players of the week. The Packer gameplan appeared to call for a lot of deep throws, but Rodgers struggled to find receivers. Lamarcus Joyner was a blanket on Randall Cobb (just 3-23) and also recovered a Rodgers fumble. T.J. McDonald was a big part of the run D. He undercut Lacy with a diving ankle tackle on 4th-and-1 in the 1st to give the Rams the ball. Trumaine Johnson made a super anticipation play and diving catch for a second INT of Rodgers in the 2nd. I’m not sure Rodgers completed a pass on Janoris Jenkins, who was solid in deep coverage. The Ram secondary was in control of the game. Except for two plays. When Ty Montgomery (4-59) motioned into a stack during Green Bay’s opening drive, both TruJo and McDonald stayed with the outside receiver and left Montgomery wide open over the middle for an easy 31-yard TD. The Rams blew the stack again in the 3rd. Joyner picked up James Jones (2-77) correctly, but tripped just as the ball arrived, and Jones took off for a 65-yard TD after Rodney McLeod took a poor angle and couldn’t bail Joyner out. (McDonald got beaten deep by TE Richard Rodgers later but was bailed out by a Ram-quality dropped pass.) The Rams did almost everything right in the back. McDonald and Joyner were solid against the run. Tackling was good and coverage was good. Only those two plays turned the game.

* Special teams: Rarely a dull week on special teams, is there? Johnny Hekker returned to his role as the Rams’ most clutch QB on a fake punt in the 3rd. They didn’t fool the Packers, though. Hekker’s first option, Chase Reynolds, was well-covered, and now Hekker’s running around, and this looks like it’s going to be a total disaster, but Hekker and Cody Davis worked together better than Foles and any of his receivers for a 20-yard completion on a cross-body throw. Davis also had nice coverage that got Hekker (45.2 avg) 51 net yards on a punt in the 3rd, which made up a little for a poor kick he plonked in the end zone in the 1st, even after taking an intentional delay of game. Greg Zuerlein’s nice FG run came to a crashing halt with a 1-for-4 game. He had a 50-yard attempt partially blocked before narrowly missing 53- and 63-yard attempts. That doesn’t deserve to be called a meltdown, but we’ll have to cross our fingers it doesn’t lead to one.

* Strategery: Frank Cignetti had a couple of interesting twists in play this week, but let’s not beat around the bush; Packers DC Dom Capers and Clay Matthews handed him his, um, hat. Capers moved Matthews around like a chess piece, but Cignetti was playing checkers. The number of times Matthews simply came at Foles unblocked were all scheme failures imo. Matthews only had to beat a blocker once to get a hit on Foles. All the other times, checkmate. The Rams’ zone-blocking is proving very painful to get installed successfully, especially for Foles. The Packers exploited it so hard this week I wonder if the Rams should even be trying to run it. Foles’ first sack, the play appeared to be run as designed, but the Packers had Matthews and Perry unguarded on the back side. On 3rd-2 in the 3rd, and with Gurley rolling, Cignetti tried an Austin jet sweep behind Cook that ran into five Packers, none of whom Cook could block. It took too long to get Austin involved this week anyway. Foles never seemed to have an underneath target on the many throws he had to chuck out of bounds. That’s some classic B.S. offense right there. Cignetti’s got two weeks to fix quite a lot of the Ram offense. I hope he started on pass protection schemes on the flight home.

Interesting strategic decision by Gregg Williams this week: let’s leave the middle of the field wide open! Seriously! Williams concentrated on taking outside throws away from Rodgers, which has to earn some of the credit for holding down his production. But it came with risk. A couple of Rodgers’ scrambles came right up the middle through lanes DTs had just vacated on a stunt. The Montgomery TD came on a blitz that took Barron and Laurinaitis out of the middle of the field. I felt at halftime that Williams should have expected Green Bay to work the middle of the field more, but the Jones TD came with Barron, Laurinaitis and a third Ram blitzing and the middle vacated again. Not that Williams had a bad game at all, holding a potent offense to 17 points without conceding over half the field like he’d done the past couple of weeks. It’s just that you’d like to take a move back every now and then.

I don’t know what Jeff Fisher was thinking trying a 63-yard FG in the 4th. A Packer injury timeout gave him the opportunity to, as they say in poker, “think long and think wrong,” and Fisher sure did. Converting on 4th-and-7 seems the better percentage play vs. asking your kicker who’s already missed twice to hit from near-record distance. It also looked like nobody on the team was ready to play in the 1st quarter, in which the Rams committed five penalties and fell behind 14-0. But if Fisher can keep the team on an even keel, they’ve got a shot to go above .500 right after the bye week. Don’t blow it.

* Upon further review: Brad Allen and crew didn’t match their praiseworthy efforts from two Rams games last season. Fisher had to challenge to get an obvious touchback in the 2nd – the Packer’s whole darn leg was in the end zone as he slid and grabbed the ball inside the 1. That call was so easy, even Mike Carey in the CBS studio got it right. The Ram TD was set up by a DPI on Clinton-Dix that didn’t look like much at all. At the end of the half, Sam Shields got away with a lot more defending an end zone pass to Quick, but got no flag, and the Rams settled for a FG. I’m still confused that TruJo’s INT stood, but I didn’t pay enough attention to the rule tweaks inspired by Dez Bryant’s playoff non-catch last season. I think that was in play there. They were willing to call holding when the Rams got held, which is unusual, and got a couple of tough spots right, but also missed that James Jones wasn’t down at the end of his TD. Grade: B-minus

* Cheers: I’m still confused why this game was on CBS, and disappointed in the absence of Waterboy references while Dan Fouts is working a game. Did Nick Foles not get the poop knocked out of him? (Poop?) Ian Eagle did mention early that the Rams had tipped them off to the potential for trick plays, so that good show prep meant they weren’t caught off-guard by the fake punt. But when Eagle tensely noted the Rams’ lack of offensive urgency down 11 late in the game, it seemed as though he hadn’t watched a Rams game in at least three years. Oh well, he’s usually AFC. Fouts came down hard on the o-line, which wasn’t undeserved, but Matthews wasn’t beating blockers, he simply wasn’t getting blocked. Analysis of that would have been helpful (especially for the Rams’ coaching staff).

* Who’s next?: For proof there is no bye week effect in the NFL, look no further than the Rams under Jeff Fisher, 1-1-1 after a week off. An early bye was no help last year, as the Rams fell behind Philadelphia 34-7 and eventually lost. The Cleveland Browns will hope for some Rams bye lag in two weeks, and possibly also some AFC home game lag, thinking of past eggs Fisher’s Rams have laid in the Dome against the Titans, Jets and Chiefs. The last time the teams met, the Rams won 13-12 in Cleveland courtesy of the Browns snap-hooking a late chip-shot FG attempt.

Cleveland’s luck hasn’t changed a lot. Fans, and apparently teammates, have called for Johnny Manziel to start at QB, but HC Mike Pettine has left the job with veteran Josh McCown. McCown rings up numbers – 341, 356 and 457 yards his last three starts – but that hasn’t added up to wins. He forces throws and his accuracy is inconsistent. Where McCown’s dangerous is his Aaron Rodgers-very lite ability to keep plays alive with his feet and fire the occasional laser-accurate pass. Co-leading receiver Travis Benjamin is nothing special as a route-runner, unless you count go routes, where he’s a Torrey Smith-like deep threat. He’ll also be dangerous on punt returns. If healthy, Brian Hartline (ribs) is a big-body WR hard to defend on quick slants. And though the “compares to” in his scouting report more than likely says “Billy Bajema”, the Rams better keep an eye on co-leading receiver Gary Barnidge at TE. Cleveland’s got talent in their backfield. Isaiah Crowell has very good burst and outside speed and rookie Duke Johnson Jr. is a very good receiver who’ll keep the Ram LBs on their toes. Their problem, which may sound familiar, is the blocking in front of them. No, not all-pro LT Joe Thomas, but their H-backs provide less help in the running game than even the Rams’ do, and fullback Malcolm Johnson looks overwhelmed in a poorly-schemed offense that relies on him for key blocks. The Browns get pushed around in short-yardage situations and let a lot of unblocked LBs into their backfield. Aaron Donald will be a lot for the guards, including long-ago Ram John Greco, to handle, and, if it counts, Robert Quinn has gotten the better of Thomas in past preseason games. RT Mitchell Schwartz looks like the weak link of a Brown o-line that hasn’t protected McCown well lately. The Rams will serve themselves well by limiting Cleveland on the ground, and not get too cute from there.

Cleveland’s plan this year was to win games with defense, but the highest-paid D in the league currently comes in last overall on the strength, er, weakness of a 31st-ranked run defense that gives up 141.5 ypg. The Browns’ problems are right up the middle. We’ll see if Tim Barnes can do it, but teams have been able to handle top draft pick Danny Shelton 1-on-1, and, for Oakland, at least, the Brown DTs were easy to turn and lost handily at the LOS. The inside LBs didn’t fill gaps well and it didn’t look like there was a good tackler on the team. OLB Paul Kruger looks more interested in playing for sacks than run-stopping, which might be all right if he had more than a half-sack this year after getting 11 in 2014. Most of Cleveland’s sack production has come off the bench. You’ll remember Armonty Bryant, the current leader (2.5), from Sam Bradford’s last play as a Ram. They’ll also get a boost once DE Desmond Bryant returns from a shoulder injury. The secondary has just 1 INT and misses Pro Bowl FS Tashaun Gipson, who has 11 the past two years but is currently out with an ankle injury. That really exposes the step-at-least that Donte Whitner has lost and could be a big reason the Browns looked grade-school-easy to beat with Oakland’s startling new offensive concept called “crossing routes”. The Browns use man-to-man coverage almost exclusively, which Joe Haden and Tramon Williams can make stand up, but they’ve busted 2014 draft bust Justin Gilbert down to kick returns, and losing appears to be getting to Haden, who made himself a late scratch last week due to a broken finger. Seriously? The Rams should be able to attack Cleveland successfully just by staying true to themselves, with a lot of Gurley, a lot of play-action and a lot of combo routes. The wild card will be how much healthier the Browns will be in two weeks.

So, in two weeks, the Rams will face what sadly has become their most dangerous opponent under Jeff Fisher: one they’re expected to beat. A bye week and a struggling opponent give them an opportunity they can’t waste. They may have a week off, but the Rams should know by now the NFL never takes one.

— Mike
Game stats from espn.com