RamView, 10/26/2014: Chiefs 34, Rams 7 (Long)

RamView, October 26, 2014
From The Couch
(Report and opinions on the game.)
Game #7: Chiefs 34, Rams 7

Leave it to the Rams to not leave their fans feeling good for long, remaining 0-for-St. Louis against the Chiefs in a meek, mistake- and injury-filled 34-7 loss. No offense, no defense, no special teams… no good.

Position by position:
* QB: Austin Davis (15-25-160, PR 75.4) got off to a strong start before the entire team fell apart. His second pass was a 43-yard bomb to Kenny Britt, and from the Chief 2 a couple of plays later, he made a play that’s been his calling card. His first option, Cory Harkey, was covered in the flat, so he rolled right, held the ball forever and still found Lance Kendricks in the back of the end zone to put the Rams up 7-0. Mobile and heady play. And, thus endeth the offense’s highlight reel. Davis’ next pass was really stupid, a bomb chucked up into double coverage that he really should have known better than to throw. The Chiefs didn’t allow many more chances. Brian Quick got hurt, offensive linemen started dropping like flies, and Davis had to run for his life every time he dropped back. Inside the Chief 10 before halftime, he ran around like a chicken with its head cut off and lost 14 yards, which seemed non-fatal, Greg Zuerlein should still make… oh. Never leave anything up to a kicker. The Rams were down 10 by the time Davis next touched the ball after halftime, and they wouldn’t get anywhere in the 2nd half until garbage time. Davis was besieged with seven sacks. His receivers could not get open. His long passes got less and less accurate under pressure and he did not have the pinpoint accuracy to force balls into the hands of blanketed receivers. He got the Rams a delay of game trying to audible out of one play. The Rams’ random running game didn’t keep the Chiefs honest. Davis could have prevented a couple of his sacks with smarter scrambling. On the sack before halftime, he’s got to realize when a cause is lost and just throw the ball away. Maybe then Zuerlein makes the chippie. Who knows. On the last one he took, he cut up inside, and right into Vance Walker, when he appeared to have had a lot of running room had he bounced outside. Eh, telling Davis to run smarter is like telling Mrs. Lincoln she needed to keep a better eye on the door of the Presidential Box. Davis made mistakes and couldn’t pitch the Rams out of trouble this week, true. But he had a ton of trouble to pitch out of.

* RB: Jeff Fisher is a head coach who once handed off to Eddie George fifteen times in the first quarter of a preseason game. What the hell is he doing now? Who is the Rams’ lead RB? Bentrezac Von Stausthamson? Benny Cunningham (4-27) got the opening carry and took it 9 yards, so who gets the next carry? Of course, Tavon Austin (2-7)! It’s Austin at RB to open the next series until last week’s star, Tre Mason (7-32), finally takes the field with a sublime 14-yard run, bouncing outside right and marking one of the few times all day any Ram took advantage of Justin Houston knifing hard inside every snap. Then, unless my scorecard is wrong, and I wish it was, the Rams decided to pound Mason up the middle, and he got nowhere. Wasn’t that Zac Stacy’s job? Wait a minute, here’s Zac (5-17) now, dashing off 14 yards on 2 carries when he finally entered the game in the 2nd quarter. 3rd-and-2 that same drive, though, it’s a middle run for Cunningham, who can’t get the 1st. The Chiefs began running away with the game after halftime, though the Rams didn’t give up on the run right away. They tried slamming Mason up the middle some more. Cunningham got them briefly off their goal line in the 3rd with a 16-yard run on 3rd-and-13. That and Tavon Austin’s downfield block were almost the highlight of the day. The Rams went no-huddle late in the game, and now, their best receiver out of the backfield, Cunningham, is out of the game, with his job being split by Stacy and Mason. I thought the Rams used their RBs a little too predictably last week, but a) they won, and b) this week they hardly used any of their backs to do what they do best, and no one got any chance to establish a rhythm. This isn’t running back by committee, it’s running back by whim. Even with the decent numbers I don’t get how it’s supposed to work in an overall offensive strategy.

* WR: It looked like it would be a good day when Kenny Britt (2-52) got behind the Chief secondary, which got lost trying to decipher a bunch formation, for 43 to set up a TD on the Rams’ opening drive. Then, however, Brian Quick (1-10) injured his shoulder on a sideline catch in the 2nd, and you never heard from the Rams’ receivers again. With Quick out, the Rams really needed Britt to step up, but as usual, there’s little evidence he even got open the rest of the game. The Rams needed their speed receivers to step up, but Stedman Bailey (2-33) has been little other than a garbage-time receiver, and Tavon Austin (2-12) has been little much of anything at all. Two quick screens was it for the guy who was supposed to be the Rams’ most explosive player. Isaac Bruce ain’t walking back through that door, fellas. Torry Holt, neither. Not even Danny Amendola. Somebody in this group has to step up.

* Tight ends: That doesn’t exclude Jared Cook (1-11), who got paid $35 million to step up in games like this but was invisible instead. He didn’t even have a catch until garbage time. If Lance Kendricks (1-1) hadn’t caught the Rams’ ONLY TD, the tight ends wouldn’t have needed their own section this week. In Cook’s defense, I believe he eventually had to be kept in to help pass-protect, where he was actually pretty good. He also got in Cunningham’s way, though, to mess up a 3rd-and-2 run in the 2nd. Corey Harkey missed blocks a couple of times to get Mason stuffed on middle runs. Cook wasn’t helped by the complete lack of pass protection any more than Davis, I suppose, but somehow the Rams have got to get a lot better out of him than to be completely outplayed by Travis Kelce.

* Offensive line: The offensive line was an unmitigated disaster. Three starters were lost to injuries during the game: Scott Wells with an elbow injury, Rodger Saffold (surprise!) with a shoulder injury the play after the Rams lost Quick, and Jake Long, likely for the rest of his forgettable Rams career, with a re-torn ACL. (I hope the Rams’ staff has learned now not to rush players back from ACL injuries; they’ve certainly gotten a very expensive lesson on it in 2014.) And even with all the injuries, which moved Greg Robinson to LT, Mike Person to LG, Barrett Jones to center and Davin Joseph to RG, the worst lineman on the field was the guy who stayed healthy and got to play in the same spot all game, RT Joseph Barksdale. John McCain would hold up better 1-on-1 against LeBron James than Barksdale did this week against Justin Houston, who beat him for three sacks and constant pressure on Davis. It’s not like Houston had to re-invent the position to destroy Barksdale, either, he just beat Barksdale repeatedly by going at his inside shoulder and out-leveraging him, and Barksdale was never able to adjust. Barksdale and Saffold run-blocked well while they were both in there, and the Ram line really moved the Chiefs around down-blocking. Maybe they should have stuck with that. Straight middle runs tended not to go anywhere. On a big 3rd-and-2 in the 2nd, inside handoff to Cunningham, Wells whiffs his block and Cook, pulling from fullback, is slow getting to his counter block and mainly gets in the way. The offense 3-and-outed in the 3rd as suddenly nobody could block Dontari Poe, and he stuffed two runs. The line survived the first half with just Barksdale allowing a sack and Davis running into another, but now the dam broke. With Davis all but trapped in his end zone late in the 3rd, Long went down like he’d been shot and he wasn’t there to block the Chief who eventually beat Davin Joseph for the sack. After that, we’re basically in the 2nd half of a preseason game up front. An already bleak future looked even less bright in the 4th when Robinson looked terrible against Dee Ford, whom he must outweigh by 100 pounds, but he and Person got tossed around anyway giving up the 5th Chief sack and another 3-and-out. The game ended about the way you thought it might. Personal foul on the kickoff. Houston beating Barksdale every down. Robinson called for holding, on a legal block, by a referee who hadn’t called holding all game. Houston burned Barksdale inside yet again for his third sack and K.C.’s 6th, then Davis ran into a seventh. To borrow a word from soccer commentary, the state of the Ram offensive line coming out of this game is shambolic. It’s 60% inexperience and 40% veterans who can’t play. Holy cats. Where do they go from here?

* Defensive line: On the local Rams TV postgame show, they seemed to think Robert Quinn had a good game because he had two sacks. Those were two excellent plays. Just before halftime, he ran through Eric Fisher holding him and chased Alex Smith down from behind for a sack on 2nd down, and followed it with another the next play. William Hayes whipped Ryan Harris and whiffed, Michael Brockers bull-rushed the RG and whiffed, but Quinn, on a rare stunt move, beat Rodney Hudson inside to clean it up. Great work helping hold K.C. to a FG. But a large problem with the Ram defense is still Quinn. Where is he on the big plays? Red zone 3rd-and-6 early in the 2nd, he runs himself out of the play, no pressure on Smith, Rams get killed by a simple screen pass. Quinn’s two sacks were preceded by Fisher manhandling him and forcing him inside while a Ram blitz failed yet again and Smith passed the Chiefs into FG range. On a 3rd-quarter FG drive, Smith scrambled for one (dubious) first down after Quinn first got pinned inside by Mike McGlynn, then whiffed on him downfield. Then, 3rd-and-6 AGAIN in Ram territory, Quinn gets washed out by McGlynn again while blitzing LBs vacate the middle of the field for a big gain for Jamaal Charles. Quinn had a 3rd sack lined up in the 3rd but fell down before he could get to Smith. In the 4th, Charles ran for 10 past Quinn getting pancaked by a tight end, then ran for a 36-yard TD with Quinn getting dominated by Fisher again. Final Chief TD drive, Rams blitzing on 3rd-and-10, Quinn gets flattened at the line, Smith hits Dwayne Bowe for 16. You would think blitzing would make Quinn more effective at pressuring the QB, but he’s getting repeatedly wiped out during blitzes instead. And he has been a shadow of the run defender he was last year. Quinn had two sacks, but for the other 58 minutes of the game, he really wasn’t that good. Hayes did have several solid run stops, but was rarely a pass-rush factor. Aaron Donald continues to be the Rams’ best defensive player. In the 2nd, he exploded off the line, buried Jamaal Charles in the backfield and forced a fumble that Hayes recovered inside the 10. Unfortunately, that was a game-changing play because the Ram offense could not even turn that gift into points. Hard to fault Donald on K.C.’s last TD drive when he blew up a couple of handoffs. By that time, though, the Chiefs knew they could afford to double-team both DTs because the DEs weren’t even capable of getting off their blocks. This unit was supposed to lead the team even when the battered offense and secondary were healthy. It had to step up this week and carry the rest of the team. They almost had no choice. But it kind of looked like they stepped aside instead.

* Linebackers: Another low-impact week from the Ram LBs. They continue to accomplish little as blitzers. A failed blitz in the 3rd exposed Jo-Lonn Dunbar in coverage and Charles burned him for a 30-yard catch-and-run to set up a FG. He also whiffed in the hole on Charles’ 36-yard TD run. Alec Ogletree was blitzing on the first play but got wiped out by Eric Fisher, and was taken out of the TD run by a TE. Alec also committed two personal fouls and helped fullback Anthony Sherman get loose with a screen pass for 24 in the 3rd with a Keystone Kops collision with James Laurinaitis. Laurinaitis broke up a brewing big play in the 3rd by deflecting a pass on a blitz. That was his only effective blitz of the day (maybe the season), though; he spent a lot of the game getting run over by Knile Davis or Travis Kelce or failing to get off of blocks. A defense needs playmaking ability from its LBs but the Rams are hardly getting any. Ogletree is in a sophomore slump for the ages. I wouldn’t doubt Laurinaitis is still battling his ankle injury from preseason. I’m not sure how you salvage this group right now. Maybe turn Ogletree loose as a blitzer and keep the other two back to mop up behind him. They’re sure not getting to a QB any time soon.

* Secondary: Alex Smith completed 86% (24-of-28) of his passes, but the Ram secondary didn’t have a fighting chance, either. With both Janoris Jenkins and Trumaine Johnson out, the first three corners were all rookies, including a 6th-round pick and an undrafted free agent. The front seven had to do a far better job than they did of getting to Smith and pressuring him into bad throws. Instead, the Rams were stuck playing soft coverage and ended up playing a losing game of pitch-and-catch. E.J. Gaines all but gave the Chiefs their first TD. He failed to recover a fumble Quinn forced on the first play, then kept the drive alive with illegal contact on 3rd down, then so woefully missed a tackle on a screen pass to big Travis Kelce, who ran down inside the 1, I have little choice but to revive the Massengill Play of the Week award. Instead of even trying to hit Kelce low, Gaines tapped him on both shoulder pads and careened off into space. Lamarcus Joyner did an excellent job shutting down DeAnthony Thomas on a couple of quick screens. He also had tight coverage on Bowe at times, but not tight enough to discourage an unrushed Smith from firing the ball in there anyway to beat ineffectual blitzes. Joyner actually had to report to safety for a while after injuries to both Rodney McLeod and Cody Davis. I think they ended the game with Jeff Fisher atop the depth chart at nickel. A group with this many injuries and so little help in front of it isn’t in for a fair fight in the near future.

* Special teams: Like last week, special teams turned the tide of the game. This week, though, in a bad way, with Gagatron Zuerlein throwing away any points the Rams could have gotten out of a gift turnover in the 2nd by biffing a 38-yard attempt. Just like last week’s miss, he kicked a straight ball that was headed outside the uprights the moment he put a toe to it. Where the hell are you aiming? What is wrong with trying to kick a ball, you know, down the middle? Gagatron then, by all indications, choked on the 2nd half kickoff, kicking a poor, bouncing but easily returnable kick to Davis at the 1, and 99 yards, a couple of uncalled holding penalties and a pathetic whiff by Zuerlein later, the game was pretty much over. That’s a 13-point swing in the space of about 6 minutes lost by your placekicking game. Intolerable. And while Zuerlein is missing chip shots and shanking kickoffs directly to dangerous returners, Chiefs kicker Cairo Santos nailed a 53-yarder Right. Down. The Middle. before halftime and literally put one kickoff into the stands. As he’s a rookie free agent, this might be a good time to remind Zuerlein you can in fact find a decent kicker anywhere. Maybe that will get him to pull his head out.

* Strategery: I try to cut coaches some slack under game conditions like these. Injuries forced the Rams to field three rookie corners. The offense lost three starting linemen and the team’s best WR. Brian Schottenheimer called a heck of an opening series, throwing deep on 3rd-and-1 and throwing from the goal line with the heavy run-blocking package on the field. The injuries made it highly difficult to call a cohesive game plan. I do still think there was more he could have done. I didn’t get expending any of Mason’s precious few reps on middle runs. More downblocked counter runs would have been welcome. Barksdale didn’t appear to get any badly-needed help blocking Houston, who got away with jumping inside near every play without Schottenheimer making him pay for it. Sweeps and screens in that direction would have helped Barksdale as much as any chip blocker. He appeared to get none of those. I wouldn’t have expected Schottenheimer to make chicken salad out of, um, substandard ingredients. He’s never been able to before. I did hope he’d still do better than sort of crapping the bed.

Gregg Williams, though, had a healthy, veteran front seven to work with, and still continues to get the least out of it. I’ve pointed out that Quinn’s struggles are part of the reason Williams’ blitzes fail. Another reason is that Williams calls crappy blitzes. 3rd-and-6 near midfield before halftime: DB blitzing over RT picked up easily; Dunbar blitzing inside picked up easily by the RG; Ogletree is spying Smith and not applying pressure, so Williams has managed to leave the middle of the field wide open and not bring more guys than the Chiefs can block. 14-yard pass to Dwayne Bowe. Similar situation in the 3rd: Rams use only three down linemen, blitz Ogletree off LT and Laurinaitis in the middle. Ogletree was pancaked by Fisher, McGlynn washed out Quinn, and the Chiefs picked up Donald and Hayes on a criss-cross perfectly. So much for that fancy shift. And the LBs leave the middle of the field empty for Charles to burn Dunbar for 30. Why ever blitz Laurinaitis when he’s never going to get there? 3rd-and-10 in the 4th: NO! Why are you blitzing on 3rd-and-long in the first place? And Williams’ blitz is painfully slow by design. There’s a dog blitz by Dunbar; what good is that supposed to be as quickly as Smith and every other NFL QB has gotten the ball out against the Rams this year? Slowinitis is coming again, and has TWO Chiefs waiting for him, and in case this play isn’t slow enough already, the lineman Williams has stunting is Michael Brockers. Way to put the “Z” in blitz, Williams. What was the point of this blitz even supposed to be? 16-yard pass to Bowe. And why does Williams’ defense look continually unprepared for mobile QBs? They about turned Smith into Colin Kaepernick this week. Didn’t we use to play Alex Smith twice a year? Why don’t I remember Tim Walton or, gasp, Jim Haslett, having this much trouble containing running QBs?

Jeff Fisher’s cut players this season for dumb penalties and missing team meetings. Time to hold any coaches accountable yet?

* Upon further review: How in the blue hell has Jeff Triplette held a NFL refereeing job for 18 years? You knew what we were in for on the Chiefs’ opening series when the Ram defense had to call a false start for the zebras. Luckily, Triplette managed to wake up before the play was completely over and threw a flag. The whole crew came out sleepy again after halftime. Two Chiefs held Cody Davis, and Rodney McLeod was even more blatantly held, on Knile Davis’ 99-yard return. The call? TD. The key play of the next Chiefs drive, for a FG: Smith scrambles away while Donald is blatantly held. He slides for a first down while Gaines barrel-rolls over him and makes slight contact with his hip. Call it back, right? Holding? No, count the run and give Gaines 15 more yards for… leading with his head?!?!? Are you blind? Jeff Triplette literally cannot tell a man’s head from his @ss? That explains quite a bit, actually. 25-yard dumpoff to the fullback on a later TD drive, Dwayne Bowe arguably got away with a pick and a block in the back. Got called for neither. Triplette did finally call a hold late in the game. On Robinson. Who pancaked his man legally. Screw you, Triplette, and screw you, too, Dean Blandino, or whoever’s responsible for sticking the Rams with the worst referee in the league for the second time in seven weeks. Grade: F’s all around

* Cheers: Please tell me we’re not getting Donovan McNabb for games the rest of the season. Please. He was awful on NFL Network and wasn’t much more insightful as an analyst here. He blamed Davis for not running on plays where he had no place to go. He blamed Davis for not throwing to receivers who were covered. He blamed him for underthrowing a pass that was a back-shoulder throw that Chris Givens could have caught had he not slipped. That’s SUPPOSED to be thrown short! And predictably, when the Rams’ hurry-up offense finally managed to move the ball against K.C.’s prevent, McNabb blamed the Rams for not running it earlier in the game. Listening to Donovan McNabb do a game is like spending three hours sitting next to a not particularly-knowledgable fan. And y’all have got me for that, without calling Knile Davis “Niles” or the Rams’ starting TE Jared “Cooks”. And I will pelt Dick Stockton with toasted ravioli myself if he returns to the Dome this year after he threw to a commercial by saying “Kansas City is leading SAINT LOOIE”. Saint Looie THIS, Stockton.

* Who’s next?: The Rams-hater who drew up the Rams’ 2014 schedule outdid himself with next week’s game; not only will the Rams draw the 49ers as their second straight road opponent, heading into this critical division game, while the Rams butted heads with the Chiefs, the 49ers got THE WEEK OFF! They should be in a bad mood, too; after handing it to the Rams 31-14 in St. Louis, they got it handed to them 42-17 in Denver. Though there’s the very real possibility that Denver is just 42 points better than the Rams, the question we’ll ask here anyway: what did they do against the 49ers that the Rams didn’t?

On defense, Denver showed you can in fact get to Colin Kaepernick with blitzes. The Rams should have been able to get to him in St. Louis. Denver sacked him twice just in the first quarter only bringing an extra man. Frank Gore continued to be far from his old self in blitz pickup. The Ram blitz simply had no excuse going 0-for-60 minutes against the 49ers. It’s well past time for Gregg Williams to pull his head out and find some blitzes that work. Denver generated pressure up the middle with stunts and blitzes that should be especially effective against the 49ers now, with center Daniel Kilgore, who was having an excellent season, on injured reserve. Blitz Ogletree, loop Donald behind him and say hello to Colin for me. Shockingly, and Williams will tell us this is flat-out impossible, Anquan Boldin did not have 100 catches for 1,000 yards against Denver, either. The Broncos play very good MAN coverage and are extremely disciplined in zone. When Kaepernick beat their coverage, he had to do it with near-perfect throws. That’s probably something the Rams can’t duplicate. Their secondary is too young and hasn’t been COACHED UP nearly as well. Denver also has two elite edge pass rushers, where the Rams have rarely showed signs of having even one this season. That has to change. Robert Quinn has to show up every down and Hayes has to take the extra pressure off him. Hayes has been pretty quietly stealing a paycheck here this season himself. Get it done. Make up for that first fiasco. Another helpful hint: Colin Kaepernick can run! At least act like you’re going to try to keep him in the pocket, huh?

What did Denver have on offense the Rams didn’t? Well, duh, Peyton Manning. But one of the keys to the Denver offense, and the reason they’re probably going to beat us by 40 when they come here next month, is Peyton getting the ball out quickly. Austin Davis didn’t do that in the first 49er game. He was admirable in looking to get the ball downfield, but he let the rush get to him over and over without getting rid of the ball or scrambling. Of course now, he might not even have reliable targets for the short, quick passes he’s going to need to throw. Another strength Denver had was the middle of their offensive line. Their tackles weren’t great, but the middle of their line was pretty much a wall. Yeah, that’s going to be a problem. Even if Patrick Willis isn’t back for the 49ers, we’re still looking at Justin Smith vs. Mike Person, which can’t end well. I’d like to say the answer would be to do a lot of pounding behind Barksdale, their best run-blocker, but he’ll be across from Ahmad Brooks. That’s still going to have to be a big part of the answer. The Rams are going to have to somehow dictate a clock-grinding running game behind their tattered offensive line and play the game at a pace that allows them to keep it close. Maybe that’s where the running back randomizer strategy will come in handy.

Can Jeff Fisher pull off another division surprise ala the Seattle game? I’m not holding my breath. They’re so far away from what Fisher has done that works, whether it’s the diffuse running game or the poorly-schemed defense that can’t pressure the QB. It’s kind of like Napoleon’s march back from Russia. It’s a difficult trip back and the troops are in awful shape. And there’s a long, hard winter ahead.

— Mike
Game stats from espn.com