RamView, 9/14/2014: Rams 19, Bucs 17 (Long)

RamView, September 14, 2014
From The Couch
(Report and opinions on the game.)
Game #2: Rams 19, Bucs 17

IT’S ALIIIVE! The Rams go from worst team in the league to tied with the Seahawks and 49ers, winning in Tampa in about the weirdest way possible, and their season has life again. IT’S ALIIIVE!

Position by position:
* QB: Hee, the Rams have a quarterback controversy, don’t they? Austin Davis put on one of the guttier performances in recent memory, with nice numbers to show for it: 22-29, 235 yards, PR 99.1, eight different receivers, no interceptions. Say what you will about the kid but he was clutch. He kept the Rams’ opening TD drive alive, stepping up in the pocket on 3rd-and-4 after both tackles had gotten beaten and dumping off to Benny Cunningham. He saved a FG in the 2nd by falling on Scott Wells’ poor shotgun snap. That play could have been a lot worse. Down 14-10 in the 3rd and immediately and unavoidably getting sacked back at his own 5, Davis and the Rams easily could have crumbled. But he hit Jared Cook with a nice pass up the sideline to convert 2nd-and-15. Then Davis stayed cool with edge pressure closing in and hit Austin Pettis (!) on an out route to convert 3rd-and-4. Lovie Smith isn’t usually much of a blitzing coach, but with the green Davis behind center, he brought it like he was Gregg Williams. But Davis kept hanging in there and hitting passes with defenders in his face, finding Kenny Britt (!) for 17 on 3rd-and-10 to set up a FG. (Could have been more, but Pettis dropped a well-made pass on the next 3rd down). Driving again in the 4th, Davis took another unavoidable sack, from William Gholston, but again, it’s a play that could have been a lot worse. Davis could have run around and lost more yardage, or heaven forbid, forced up a pass that would have been ripe for an interception. Instead, he made the smart move, ate the ball, lost only five yards, and lived to fight another down, on which he hit Cook for 9 on a slant and got Zuerlein into friendlier field position to make the score 16-14, Rams. With under 5:00 left, and trailing 17-16 now, you suddenly got the feeling the whole season could be riding on Austin Davis right now. And when Quick DROPPED a splendid bomb from him on 2nd-and-1, you worried the whole team would sag. But no, on 3rd-and-1, Davis rolled right, and with a blitzer right in his face, threw across his body to Lance Kendricks for 12. Then 16 more to Quick at midfield. Then it looks like the Rams have bogged down, 3rd-and-9. Davis, under pressure, a man in his face again, lets one rip down the seam for Pettis. An impressive throw, a better catch, and the Rams are in game-winning FG position. No, Austin Davis is no Kurt Warner in the making. He had hiccups with a couple of wild throws and probably got away with a couple that better defenses would have punished him for. But he’s also not Keith Null. He ran the Ram offense well, spread the ball around, used his feet very well, minimized his teammates’ mistakes, didn’t make any glaring ones of his own, hung tough in plays over and over, delivered in the clutch, and most of all, won the Rams the game. I don’t have a beef with anybody who’s on Team Shaun, but this here Rams fan’s on Team Austin.

* RB: With a little push in front of him, Zac Stacy (19-71) returned to his usual form this week. Behind tough-guy blocking from Joseph Barksdale and Rodger Saffold, Stacy set the tone with a 7-yard carry up the middle and finished off the Rams’ first drive with their only TD, banging out 14 yards on 3 carries for paydirt. After a punt block, Stacy popped off 12 yards on 2 carries to give Greg Zuerlein a chip shot to finish off the half. Stacy opened the 2nd half with an unfortunate fumble caused when Dane Fletcher, I’m sure quite legally, kicked him in the face. That set up a Tampa TD, but Stacy helped the Rams get three back with 18 yards on 2 carries the next possession. 12 of those came on a rare journey outside where Zac basically outran the pursuit around the edge. Something to tuck away for the future. Benny Cunningham (6-15) did not ring up big numbers, obviously, but the Rams were excellent at picking up the surprising volume of Buccaneer blitzes, and he was part of that, though he got beaten fairly easily by William Gholston for one of Tampa’s two sacks. The young RBs more than did their job, though, helping the Rams maintain balance on offense in the running game while helping keep Davis upright in the passing game.

* WR: He benefited from a lot of soft coverage again this week, but it still looks like Brian Quick (7-74) is on his way. He’s playing with confidence and has become a money receiver on quick slants. He got the Rams a couple of first downs on their TD drive and third FG drive. The final FG drive probably should have been a TD drive, though, but Quick let a perfect bomb from Davis go through his hands and clang off his facemask. Austin Pettis (3-46) kept the 2nd FG drive alive with a sideline catch but dropped a good pass later to end the drive. Pettis’ biggest play came on a 3rd-and-9, just inside of 2:00 left. Running a simple go route down the seam, he went up high to snag Davis’ pass, brought it down knowing a big hit was coming, and absorbed the blow for a 26-yard catch that put the Rams in winning FG range. Tavon Austin motioned and took a flip from Davis 18 yards on the opening TD drive, but took an awkward hit right before the 50-minute storm delay in the 2nd and did not return due to a knee injury. Kenny Britt (1-17) converted a key 3rd down on the Rams’ 2nd FG drive and kept the 3rd FG drive moving with a well-run end-around. Looked like he would get pinned deep in the backfield but he set up his block well and got turned upfield for 12 yards. The Rams are not stretching the field much at all so far this season, and Quick is by far getting the majority of the WR targets, but credit the WRs with a winning team effort this week.

* Tight ends: Credit to Jared Cook (4-46) for being a reliable option this week. He was Davis’ outlet to beat a couple of key blitzes, including a 9-yard catch in Tampa territory to set up the Rams’ 3rd FG. He also got the Rams out of a 2nd-and-long hole with a nice sideline catch for 17 to spark the 2nd FG drive. Lance Kendricks (3-25) converted two 1st downs, including a key one on the game-winning FG drive, but his missed cut block let Stacy get kicked in the face for a fumble in the 3rd. Both Kendricks and Corey Harkey (2-8) had good games picking up the blitz on a day when it was crucial. Plus game for the tight ends.

* Offensive line: By the end of the first quarter, the Rams were basically going up against Tampa’s 2nd-string defensive line, so they should have won up front, and did, especially in the running game. The Rams did a ton of down-blocking this week and did it well. Joseph Barksdale got Stacy going for a couple of nice early runs. His linemates jumped in on Stacy’s TD run in impressive fashion. Davin Joseph, who mauled some of his ex-teammates this week, pancaked a Buc and Rodger Saffold drove his man across the goal line as the Rams answered a long Buc opening TD drive with one of their own. They got Stacy rolling again at the end of the half. An 8-yard run got him into the red zone off strong driving downblocks by Jake Long and Scott Wells, along with another Joseph pancake in the hole. But Wells, who is not off to a strong start in 2014, sabotaged the drive with yet another bad shotgun snap that Davis had to fall on to save the FG attempt. If that was a sack, charge it to Wells. And charge him with what looked like a big sack that buried the Rams near their own goal line in the 3rd, as he let Clinton McDonald just run right by him. Wells’ level of play really has me wondering if he’s playing too hurt, and if Tim Barnes wouldn’t be an improvement, even with his limitations. The Rams rallied from that rut, though, and with the game on the line in the 4th quarter, the line did a nice job picking up Tampa’s steady stream of blitzes. Davis was sacked another time, by William Gholston, on a play where things started breaking down with Barksdale missing an assignment. But the o-line by and large did its job. When the tackles got beat on the edges, and Long did seem to struggle out there against a Buc sub in the 2nd half , Davis still had room to step up in the pocket. They made up for any pass pro shortcomings with a very impressive ground game, with Barksdale, Joseph and Saffold all having run-blocking games worthy of game balls. Playing the run as well as they did allowed them to be, charitably, less than perfect in pass protection.

* Defensive line: Sack City’s a lot closer to being Suck City when you give up an unfathomable 144 yards rushing to Tampa BACKUP RB Bobby Freaking Rainey and sack Josh McCown a total of once. The Rams took two plays to start stinking against the run, with Rainey taking off for 24 as William Hayes got manhandled at the line and Kendall Langford and Robert Quinn blew downfield tackles. It also took the Rams two plays to commit their first penalty, and six plays in, they already had THREE, and will somebody PLEASE tell Eugene Sims that it is NOT legal to pull a guy down by the back of his collar, a stunt the Rams’ worst run defender pulled TWICE this week. Penalties and bad run defense fueled Tampa for a long TD drive and a 2nd long drive that fortunately ended in a turnover. The Rams got some control back in the 2nd by 3-and-outing the Bucs a couple of times. A double-DB blitz trapped McCown in the pocket for a sack for Aaron Donald (!), and on 3rd-and-2 the next drive, Quinn blew up a pitch left to Rainey for a big loss. The Rams didn’t generate a lot of heat on McCown without blitzing, so it hurt after halftime when Tampa got a big blitz picked up, allowing McCown to hit Vincent Jackson for 20 yards. In the red zone, Rainey carved up the Rams again, for 10, with Langford getting pushed around and Michael Brockers unable to get off a block. Tampa quick-snapped on 1st-and-goal, and needless to say, the Rams were not ready, but were now behind 14-10. It’s 14-13 when Sims, in typical fashion, overruns the play and leaves Rainey a big hole for 18 to put Tampa in the red zone again, but Donald, shades of training camp, exploded out of his stance the next play, shot the gap and stuffed Rainey for a 3-yard loss. That helped force a FG attempt that the Rams blocked. Late in the 4th, the Rams weathered some awful refereeing to hold Tampa to a FG, stuffing a critical 3rd-and-2 with I believe all 11 men in the box. The front four hasn’t been the Rams’ worst problem against the run (stay tuned), but they can do a lot more, particularly the ends. They’re not setting enough good edges, not getting off enough blocks and they’re running themselves out of too many plays. The pass rush is just an afterthought right now. It’s not going to become effective until the Rams get to stopping the run a whole lot better.

* Linebackers: Two weeks into the season, who thought Jo-Lonn Dunbar would be the Rams’ best LB? Not only that, he saved their bacon a couple of times this week. He was blocked out of the hole on Rainey’s game-opening 24-yard run, but at the end of the next drive, he blitzed at McCown like a madman and scared the veteran QB into throwing a terrible pick to Rodney McLeod, saving the Rams at least 3 points. The next two drives, both 3-and-outs, were started by Dunbar stuffing Rainey for a loss. Dunbar was the unlucky victim of an awful roughing-the-passer call that let Tampa drive for a brief 17-16 lead late in the game, but he was probably also the Rams’ most consistent front-7 defender. And now, two weeks into the season, who thought Alec Ogletree would be the Rams’ worst defensive player? What has happened to last year’s promising rookie? I really think he’s being used up on the line too much and he can’t use his speed to get away from blocks. McCown fooled him with a very unconvincing pump-fake he never should have bit on in the first place to score Tampa’s first TD. Ogletree spent the rest of the game getting mauled up on the line. Rainey had 7- and 20-yard runs in the 2nd where Ogletree’s immediately blocked out of the play. This is a recurring theme of the game, Ogletree getting blocked easily up at the line while Rainey goes by for a big gain. Ogletree didn’t compensate by tackling well, either, especially on a woeful diving effort that let Rainey spring free for a 32-yard draw late in the game. Having another quiet game, James Laurinaitis was picked off at the 2nd level to also break that play open, but at least he made a couple of other run stops. All Ogletree has done this season so far is get washed out.

* Secondary: Up against an offense not trying very hard to stretch the field for the second straight week, the Ram secondary, minus two starters with Lamarcus Joyner down with a back injury, was not given an acid test. T.J. McDonald made the play of the game on the final play, a big hit on a too-open Mike Evans that delayed Tampa from getting off a game-winning FG attempt. Fellow safety Rodney McLeod also delivered some big plays. Tampa was driving for a second straight easy TD in the 2nd until McLeod picked off McCown’s ill-advised pass at the 2-yard line. His containment was key to Donald’s sack, and he made a bigger play in the 3rd. Rainey was close to getting loose on a 3rd-down run inside the Ram 10 but McLeod forced him back to the LBs to force a (missed) FG attempt. Vincent Jackson was really only a factor on Tampa’s 2nd TD drive, with 3 catches, including a key 20-yarder over E.J. Gaines despite skintight coverage. Coverage issues this week were due more to failed blitzes or lack of pass rush than anything. Sterner tests lie ahead, and I’m not sure they’re ready, but they’re doing all right on the pop quizzes.

* Special teams: McDonald didn’t just save the day on defense: with two blocked kicks, he also saved the day on special teams. He knifed inside and blocked a punt in the 2nd to set up the Rams’ first FG and made a similar move to block a chip shot FG attempt in the 4th. The Rams don’t win without both of those plays by the likely NFC special teams player of the week. Greg Zuerlein’s first kick out of FG formation was a chip shot wide right, but Jeff Fisher had gotten a timeout in ahead of it, and Zuerlein went on to make that and three other crucial FGs, the longest a 46-yarder in the 4th. And though Zuerlein showed clearly enough leg to blast everything out the back of the end zone, the Rams decided to get cute with bouncy kicks instead, and nearly got burned when Chris Owusu took a short kick back 60 yards at the end of the 3rd, as Marcus Roberson and Maurice Alexander both looked out of their lanes as Owusu flew by a pile-up they got into. Some tightrope-walking here, and a non-existent return game, but the Rams got away with it.

* Strategery: Coaches are expected to be able to think of what to do in every possible situation, which is of course impossible, especially with 50,000 people screaming and the chaos of an NFL game and an NFL sideline going on around you, but somewhere in those margins, this week’s game was won and lost. I believe Jeff Fisher was milking the clock before halftime before calling timeout right before the snap on Zuerlein’s first FG attempt. I’d have gone off on Fisher for freezing his own kicker had Zuerlein not pushed the attempt wide right. After the timeout, Zuerlein drilled it true to put the Rams up 10-7 at the half. Did Fisher psychically save the Rams three points? Spooky.

That was a time management win for Fisher, giving Tampa too little time to answer, and so was the end of the game. The Rams managed the clock as well as they could have on their final FG drive, claiming all three of Tampa’s timeouts. With time running out, the defense successfully forced Tampa to use the middle of the field and keep the clock moving, but playing WAY too soft let McCown hit Mike Evans deep over the middle at a spot that would have set up about a 50-yard FG. Hitting hard like he’s been coached to do, trying to break up the pass, McDonald had Evans shaken up, and I do not blame the rookie one bit for putting his hand up to say he needed to come off the field. Tampa’s got to get lined up around Evans somehow and spike it, but when the trainers hit the field, they ended the game. Can a coach prepare his team for that situation? Well, I know the trainers are part of the 2:00 drills when Fisher runs them in practice. Seems like most teams would do that. It’s against your basic instinct to help a fallen man, but your trainers have to know they can’t hit the field in the last ten seconds. And most teams don’t have a player who’d know what to do there, like in the last similar situation I can remember, Halloween 1999 in Tennessee, when Marshall Faulk propped up a shaken Az Hakim to keep the Rams from having to take a penalty. If Tampa’d had one, they might have won the game.

Quick short-changing of the rest of the coaching: thanks to Tavon’s injury, Brian Schottenheimer didn’t get much of a chance to misuse him this week. I hope he will note Austin’s most successful touch, an 18-yard run, came when he got the ball on the move. Schotty did mix run and pass really well this week, and let’s give him credit for having Davis as well-prepared as he was. Shoot, I think Schotty may be the Rams’ Coordinator of the Week. Instead of letting Zuerlein just blast every kick through the end zone, John Fassel decided to get cute with ground-ball kickoffs and very nearly got the Rams burned for it. Kickoffs are very simple in the modern game, coach. Let them be. Gregg Williams rattled McCown successfully with blitzes, including his bad INT in the 2nd, but Rainey and Vincent Jackson later burned blitzes for big plays. My main problem with Williams’ scheme right now is that I still think he’s misusing Ogletree, playing him too close up on the line of scrimmage where he’s easier to find and block right out of running plays. As I see it, giving Ogletree more room to breathe would help the run defense.

* Upon further review: Jeff Triplette thankfully got the ten-second runoff right at the end of the game; the NFL’s 2nd-least competent referee didn’t get much else right all day. On the opening series, he tried to give the Bucs a first down after a Rams offsides on 2nd-and-6. The right tackle false started clear as day on McCown’s first TD run. No call. Triplette attempted to hand the game to Tampa in the 4th. The last of several Tampa holds he failed to call was a brutal one on Quinn that surely saved McCown from being sacked on 2nd-and-5. Then, McCown got hit as he threw for a 3rd-and-5 incompletion, but Triplette decided Jo-Lonn Dunbar had roughed the passer by… hitting him in the shoulder? Since when is the QB’s shoulder protected? McCown was not touched anywhere near his head, was not touched by a Rams’ player’s head, was not hit anything close to late. Nope, to Triplette, that’s a penalty. But Zac Stacy can get KICKED IN THE FACE on his fumble and Triplette has nothing to say about it. Grade: D-minus-minus

* Cheers: The Rams’ official Fox broadcast team, Dick Stockton and Kirk Morrison, were both inoffensive enough, though Stockton misses as many spots as I do, had Gerald McCoy playing for the Rams and was surprised not to see Austin returning kickoffs. Um, weren’t you at last week’s game? The big disappointment to me was that Morrison wasn’t all over Triplette’s roughing-the-passer call on Dunbar in the 4th. For a former defensive player, the number of replays making it abundantly clear Dunbar had done nothing penalty-worthy was an engraved indication to let the officiating have it. And where the heck was Mike Pereira, when this was the only game going on at the time? Fox dropped the ball there as much as Triplette did. Also, LOL at the stat that Davis is the first Ram QB to win his first career start since… Scott Covington in 2002? Covington gets pulled after the opening series because he’s “looking at the sideline like the play calls are in Japanese” and gets the win? That wasn’t a quality start, that’s for sure.

* Who’s next?: The Rams’ next game will be back home against the Cowboys, and we can probably boil down the preview into three words: Demarco. Freaking. Murray. The Rams have been completely humbled by Murray in their two encounters with him. He rolled them for 175 yards in a 31-7 Dallas win last year, and two years before that, a team-record 253 yards in a 34-7 Cowboys win. Murray has 15% of his career rushing yards from two games against the Rams. Demarco. Freaking. Murray.

As the Ram defense just gave up 144 yards to BOBBY FREAKING RAINEY, Murray could be in for another epic game. He got 118 off the 49ers, a top-5 defense from last year, and gouged the Titans this week for 167. And Jerry Jones has actually put together a good, young run-blocking line in front of him. 4th-year tackle Tyron Smith, 2nd-year center Travis Frederick and rookie guard Zack Martin moved the 49ers effectively in the run game. Meanwhile, Robert Quinn had a rare bad game against Dallas last year, and Chris Long will be just as effective on crutches next week as he was failing to ever get off a block by now 101-year-old TE Jason Witten. The Ram ends can’t give Murray huge lanes by getting caught too far up the field all the time or by failing to get off of blocks. The Rams had better do something, anything, ever, to encourage Dallas to throw. Smith was mistake-prone against the 49ers and Martin was one of many rookie o-linemen Aaron Donald schooled at the Senior Bowl. In week 1, Tony Romo, who saw little preseason action in the wake of offseason back surgery, was the only player in the NFL rustier than Jake Long, throwing three awful interceptions into multiple coverages, handing San Francisco most of their points. Romo’s forcing passes, feeling pass pressure that isn’t there and throwing off his back foot. Going back to last year, most of his deep balls are underthrown, and if the Ram DBs maintain inside leverage on deep sideline routes, they should get a pick or two. Granted, the Rams have another thing coming if Romo picks next week to knock off the rust, and a big part of his problems in week 1 was an injury to all-world WR Dez Bryant. The benefit of taking Bryant away from the Cowboy offense, when it’s possible, is obvious. The Rams, though, have made the mistake of directing extra DB attention to Bryant, instead of to Murray and the running game, before, and paid for it dearly. And right now they CAN’T EVEN STOP BOBBY FREAKING RAINEY. Gregg Williams needs not only to pick the correct approach to defending Dallas, he has to find one that will work even a little.

This could be a battle of two steamrollers, because Dallas did not handle the power run very well themselves against the 49ers, who gashed them repeatedly right up the middle behind a backup RG and a center making his first start. The Cowboys had significant offseason losses in their front seven – Sean Lee (injury), Demarcus Ware and Jason Hatcher (free agency) – and haven’t replaced them well. Their LBs aren’t fundamentally sound and are poor at run fits. If Brian Schottenheimer’s all-middle running, all the time attack doesn’t work against Dallas, it’s never going to. On the edge, underrated pass rusher Jerome Mincy and Tyrone Crawford generate good pressure, but withstand that and you’re attacking as bad a secondary as there is in the NFL. They’re also fundamentally bad players, bad tacklers, and they screw up zone coverage assignments so often you wonder why DC Rod Marinelli ever calls any. That defense sounds like a winning formula for the Ram offense, provided Murray hasn’t already run them off the field, which is kind of what happened to Tennessee this week.

In the NFL, the road to redemption and the road to nowhere are both expressways. The Rams and the Cowboys both found their way back onto the good road this week, rallying for mild road upsets after extremely embarrassing home openers. Now that they’re both back on the open road, it’s time to open up the throttle and see what they’ve really got under the hoods. With a bye week already right around the corner, the Rams especially need to step on the gas. Coasting into the bye week with a victory will be much better than sputtering and running off the road again.

— Mike
Game stats from espn.com