RamView, 8/23/2015: Titans 27. Rams 14 (Long)

RamView, August 23, 2015
Preseason Game #2: Titans 27, Rams 14

As hard as it is to make preseason football worse than it already is, Jeff Fisher’s Rams did it in Tennessee, with uninspired and uninspiring performances by all three units making for a homecoming about as much fun as Carrie’s. I don’t know what direction this team is heading right now, but it isn’t forward.

Position by position:
* QB: Basically one game away from opening day, I -still- don’t know what the Rams have in Nick Foles (3-7-18, INT, PR 10.7). His second pass was a mistake every way a pass can be a mistake. He flinched with moderate pass rush on him and threw without setting his feet. And he tried to force it to Kenny Britt, who didn’t run a great route, and Perrish Cox jumped it pretty easily for a pick-six. Foles later took blame for the throw and said he should have thrown it away. The body of evidence for Nick Foles in a Rams uniform is not making a strong case so far. We’ve seen mostly short passes, his pocket composure hasn’t been great, he made a disastrous mistake here… it’s a replay of the QB play of last year. Foles has yet to look like the difference-maker the Ram offense needs. Case Keenum (7-16-164, PR 102.1) had easily the best night at QB and put a death grip on QB2. He hit Stedman Bailey perfectly in traffic early for 30. He did well to throw the ball away when he had nowhere to throw. He closed his case in the 3rd; I’d wondered about his deep ball last week, but he uncorked a perfect 50-yard throw to Chris Givens that became an 80-yard TD, and he did it with a DT bearing down on him. Keenum also beat a blitz perfectly with a screen to Trey Watts for 33. The job is his. Austin Davis (1-2-21) barely got into the game, just one 4th-quarter drive, and he showed why he likely isn’t making the team, getting sacked and missing an open slant route mainly because he just doesn’t read the defense and the field well enough to make the right play when it needs to be made. More up-tempo dumping off for Sean Mannion (8-9-93, TD), who looks pretty comfortable at it. The main highlight was Keenum’s play; the main concern, frankly, is Foles.

* RB: The Rams’ best player was probably Trey Watts (9 touches, 99 yards), who made a strong case to get invited back to the main roster after his suspension ends. He showed much more “juice” than either Isaiah Pead (3-11) or Benny Cunningham (6-16). Watts broke tackles, made nice cutbacks, flashed a spin move and was effective as a receiver. He banged out 8, 10, 12 and 18-yard runs and had a 33-yard screen play. Meanwhile, down at the Rams’ goal line in the 2nd, Cunningham missed a couple of golden opportunities to take advantage of defensive overpursuit and cut back into huge gaps, including on a failed 3rd-and-2 conversion. Tre Mason (3-6) would have popped one or both of those for big gains. Tonight Watts would have, too. Muddying the RB picture further is that Malcolm Brown (8 touches-101) is making himself pretty hard to cut. He made a nice tackle covering a punt, and made a couple of statement plays in the 4th. He got decleated and dehelmeted by Yawin Smallwood on a 6-yard catch but hung on to the ball. A couple of plays later, a safety tried to clock Brown, but he spun off that hit, headed up the sideline, broke an ankle tackle and ran off for a 54-yard TD. That’s playmaking the Rams can use, in September if not beyond.

* Receivers: Way too quiet game for the Ram receivers. Kenny Britt (2-15) didn’t help things much on the pick-six by running a pretty soft route. Jared Cook’s only catch was a 3-yard out, on 3rd-and-7. Tavon Austin (0-0) never got open. The Titans perfectly jumped the same play he beat the Raiders with last week and forced Foles to throw it away. Chris Givens, though, tightened his grip on WR5 with an 80-yard TD bomb, a deep post where he just blew past the Titan secondary. And Stedman Bailey made a big play for 30 before halftime, showed off his hands on a nice sideline catch and played well on special teams. Corey Harkey and Justice Cunningham both blocked well, while Alex Bayer has had a much quieter preseason than he did last year. The highlight of the night here was probably Sergeant Dan (Daniel Rodriguez) running 40 yards downfield on Brown’s late TD looking for somebody to block. How can you not root for this guy? Otherwise, though, things are quiet all over the Rams receiving corps. Too quiet.

* Offensive line: Likely affecting everything else on offense is that the line is a work in progress. They’ll help themselves out when they ever settle on a center, and I doubt it should be Demetrius Rhaney, who played the whole first half. He looks like Tim Barnes did last year; just not enough anchor. He gets knocked a yard off the line at the snap to mess up run plays, or, as on the pick-six, gets bull-rushed almost right over his own QB. What I saw of Barrett Jones looked a lot better than last week, so we’ll see what he does with his likely chance to claim the starting job next week. I think they would have been better off anointing Barnes after last week and removing a variable from the line’s chemistry equation. Brandon Washington continued to be a liability in pass pro. Karl Klug flat-out ran over him to force a Foles 3rd down throwaway, and Washington let a blitzer come through untouched to force a Keenum throwaway in the 2nd. The Rams tried to run more behind the right-side rookies this week but it wasn’t really happening. Rob Havenstein also let Derrick Morgan get around him much too easily to pressure Foles on the pick-six. It looked like he let up and might have been expecting a chip block that didn’t happen. Havenstein also got called for a hold the previous play to put the Rams in the hole in the first place, but got a raw deal on the call, I thought. The starting line does not look hopeless but hasn’t meshed, which will be difficult with Rodger Saffold out all preseason and the Dial-A-Starter plan at center. Still, they gave up just one sack all night, coming when a blitzer sneaked behind Isaiah Battle while Davis held the ball too long. The whole unit needs to improve on preventing those backside plays, and also sustaining their blocks. Several running plays didn’t pop bigger because the Titan linemen got off good initial contact and regrouped. Battle didn’t have a bad game and looked good run-blocking. Andrew Donnal and Travis (Treetop) Bond made a very effective combo in the second half. Donnal continues to show he can really run-maul. Bond had some very good seal blocks on Watts’ longer runs. Also, their protection on the 80-yard TD bomb was immaculate. The Rams haven’t taken over either preseason game at the line of scrimmage, but they’re showing talent and they’re showing depth. They’ll come together, though you have to wonder if it’ll be in time to prevent the patented Jeff Fisher Slow Start.

* Defensive line: Well, I hope Sack City is at least enjoying its summer vacation. There’s little evidence they’ve come to play yet. In his second professional game, Marcus Mariota play-faked and hard-counted the Rams’ front like he was Aaron Rodgers. Good thing the QBs in the Rams’ division never use misdirection! The Rams also failed again to sack the opposing QB, gave him all night to throw and again gave up a bunch of big ground gains. Bishop Sankey (6-45) probably matched his output from all of last year, largely because Rams couldn’t get off blocks. Chris Long and Aaron Donald on Sankey’s first carry, for 18, and Robert Quinn on a carry for 19 in the 2nd. Quinn, though, at least whipped Taylor Lewan a couple of times to stuff Sankey runs and force a punt on Tennessee’s first drive. Quinn taketh away, though, with a disgusting, undisciplined play the next drive, taking a dirty cheapshot at Mariota’s head while James Laurinaitis held him up (the closest the Rams got to a sack all night). Quinn deserves a hefty fine for that bullcrap, and the Rams were lucky to get away with just 3 points damage after that stupid penalty extended the drive. The Titans settled for a FG only because of a dropped pass in the end zone; a three-man rush on that play put zero pressure on Mariota. Bend-but-don’t-break defense from these guys doesn’t exactly send tingles down my spine. BBDB is fine if you can rely on your offense to control games. The Rams are clearly not built that way. Just like Eugene Sims is clearly not built to avoid stupid personal fouls, like the one he committed before halftime with a helmet-to-helmet hit he should know enough to avoid after last season. As a unit, the d-line committed half the team’s 10 penalties (Sims’ was offsetting). Matt Longacre and Louis Trinca-Pasat were up-and-down against the run, which is at least an improvement for Longacre, but nothing too exciting happened up front in the second half. Kind of like the first half.

* Linebackers: You’re not going to find LBs getting off blocks during the Titans’ long 1st-half runs, either. James Laurinaitis blocked on Sankey’s 18-yard run. Alec Ogletree blocked on a 7-yard run. ALL THREE LBs blocked on Sankey’s 19-yard run. Ogletree played a bootleg well, though, to help slow the Titans down in the red zone in the 1st. Mark Barron blew up a screen with a blitz in the 2nd but blew an INT a couple of plays later, mistiming his jump. It continued downhill for Barron from there. On a 40-yard Hakeem Nicks catch-and-run, he tried to tomahawk the ball out instead of tackling and did neither. That set up a TD pass where Chase Coffman inside-outed Barron, who then got splattered by Jo-Lonn Dunbar while Zach Mettenberger threaded the needle. Barron wasn’t the only one with coverage mistakes; Dexter McCluster fooled Ogletree to get open at the goal line in the 1st but dropped the certain TD. Gregg Williams blitzed LBs all night, often all three at a time, but the only time anyone got close to a sack was Laurinaitis grabbing Mariota’s foot after coming on a dog blitz in the 1st. There’s a baseball statistic called WAR (Wins above replacement); the Ram LBs need to get some TAR going. Tackles above replacement.

* Secondary: Why don’t I start with some good news? Have you noticed QBs (including Foles, in practice) don’t want to throw at Janoris Jenkins so far? And he even tackled well tonight when called upon. That was the exception more than the rule in the secondary, though. Rodney McLeod whiffed on the opening play, a 16-yard Kendall Wright catch in front of Trumaine Johnson’s soft coverage. Looks like last week was just a hometown performance for TruJo. The next play, Sankey got half his 18-yard run because T.J. McDonald went for the shoulder blast instead of the wrap. Two plays, two missed tackles. FOCUS! At least Lamarcus Joyner ended that first drive with a nice pass breakup, bailing his DC out of a stupid blitz decision in the process. It took the Titans about a second to get moving again the next drive. Craig F. Stevens released downfield from the inside of a double-TE set and got behind McDonald and TruJo, who both bit hard on a play-fake. That led to a FG. In the 2nd, now it’s Joyner trying to shoulder-tackle instead of wrapping to let Dexter McCluster loose for 8. Hakeem Nicks then beat a blitz for 40 thanks largely to Marcus Roberson arriving way late and then slipping. That set up the first Chase Coffman TD. It was the Dorial Green-Beckham show for Tennessee’s late 1st-half FG. Mettenberger picked on Cody Davis three straight times and also got help from Imoan Claiborne blowing a tackle on DGB. (Maybe he should have just punched him in the face.) Christian Bryant flashed a couple of times in the 2nd half with big hits to break up plays, one forcing a fumble. McLeod and Joyner did well getting up to support against runs and short passes, but the story of this game was the epidemic of missed tackles in the back. The DBs just can’t do that when their mates aren’t getting the job done up front.

* Special teams: The kicking game was yet another part of the team that was about as sharp as a trash bag full of Jello. What the hell is wrong with Johnny Hekker? His first two punts were flubbed for 35 and 23 yards. Your punter should not be able to throw farther than he can kick, should he? If Hekker wasn’t just working on kicking short-but-high, there’s something wrong. Greg Zuerlein missed pretty badly right from 53 in the 2nd; Michael Palardy missed wide left from 46 later. Though kick coverage was good, not much of anything happened on returns. I still have faith the Rams can be at the top of the league in special teams in 2015, but it’s getting tested pretty hard the past couple of weeks.

* Strategery: Not many positives tonight for Jeff Fisher. No injuries is definitely good, and though there were 10 penalties, there were only three accepted in the first half, and for a change, most of the penalties this week truly were by players who will struggle to make the team. The whole team, though, looked about 1/1,000th as prepared or intense as Fisher’s Titans did when they embarrassed the Greatest Show 30-3 on national TV during the 2000 preseason. I don’t understand tonight’s performance at all. The team had every reason to be motivated. National TV. Coach’s first time back in his old team’s stadium. The need to redeem a poor performance in Oakland. The regular season looming a couple of weeks away. But instead of playing in a way that would start any momentum for the regular season, the whole team regressed. The offense was flat, the defense was flat and undisciplined, special teams were not sharp. The Fox crew suggested the team was tired from practicing in Oxnard during the week. Oh, we LOVE that excuse here in St. Louis, believe you me. Assuming the veterans don’t play against Kansas City, Fisher’s got one week to make this team look ready for the regular season. These first two games have inspired zero confidence he can pull it off. Yeah, I know, preseason doesn’t mean anything. And it didn’t back in 2000. Of course, that Rams team was coming off a Super Bowl championship. This team is coming off 6-10. And (still) playing mostly like garbage.

How many times has Gregg Williams blitzed these two games? 40? 50? Still no sacks. Blitzes were burned, though, on the 40-yard pass to Nicks in the 2nd and the late TD bomb to Coffman, a blitz called on 3rd-and-11. Even less impressive was the call on the pass McCluster dropped in the end zone, with Williams rushing just three and dropping Westbrooks in coverage. That’s not even a zone blitz, it’s just nonsense. So was leaving a gaping hole in the middle of the formation on David Cobb’s draw play down to the 3 in the 2nd. And while the Ram defense remained unable to figure out dreaded play action, the rest of the NFL seems to have taken one week to figure out the smoke pass to Tavon Austin, at least the version of it where Austin’s stationary before the snap, which should not be a surprise. Keep him on the move, please. Hopefully, though, this play will set up a double-move route for Britt out of a similar look.

* Upon further review: Mostly props to Walt Anderson and crew. The QB barely has to move laterally to be “out of the tackle box”, so I think the non-grounding call on Mariota’s throwaway in the 1st was proper, and the accompanying roughing call on Quinn was even more proper. Ken Whisenhunt challenged a bang-bang 3rd-down play in the 3rd but the crew nailed the spot, inside a yard short, and it held up under review. I don’t know why Keenum wasn’t granted a timeout before a delay of game in the 2nd, though, and Havenstein didn’t hold on that holding call in the 1st. The Titan lineman tripped over Washington and it looked like a hold the way he flopped to the ground. Probably not an intentional flop, but it did Lebron proud all the same. Grade: B-minus

* Broadcast news: The TV broadcast’s main aim was to spotlight Mariota; the Rams were basically a worse-playing version of the Washington Generals as far as Fox was concerned. Pam Oliver did at least do a sideline interview with Foles. Lack of talk about the team moving was a welcome respite. Fisher got a standing ovation from Titans fans after a scoreboard tribute to him was played in the first half. Don’t expect any of those in the Dome next weekend.

* Waiver bait: Jay Hughes, for giving up a 56-yard TD to Coffman at the end of the game with a combination of a bad tackle and a failed attempt to make a play on the ball. Jacob Hagen got stiffarmed to the ground like a little, um, girl on a run in the 4th. I’d hoped he’d emerge as much more of a playmaker. I’d advise Austin Davis to ask for his release and see if it’s not too late to get into camp with the Browns or Jets. And when the camp leg’s 0-for-2 on FGs, I’m thinking he can go ahead and make other plans for September 1st.

* Who’s next?: The Rams will host the Indianapolis Colts for what I’m SURE will be a stoked capacity crowd Saturday night. This is traditionally the time of preseason where the starters play into the second half, and goodness knows the Rams need the work. Robinson and Havenstein will both be challenged by very good veteran pass rushers. Barrett Jones can win the job at center by playing well against… Kendall Langford. (The other two centers must have drawn short straws.) Foles needs to make good decisions and get back to completing some darn downfield passes. Slack City simply HAS to generate pass rush; the secondary’s hands will be full with Indy’s bevy of good receivers and will get carved up by Andrew Luck even if he’s under serious heat, let alone the lukewarm Rams pass rush of August so far. More than anything else, it’s time for the Rams to show up ready for a game. I think it’s a big problem to have to ask for this after two preseason games. Jeff Fisher needs to deliver this season, and to do that, this team has to be firing on all cylinders September 13th, not a month later. With jobs tangibly on the line now and going forward, it’s time for this whole organization to step it up.

— Mike
Game stats from espn.com