RamView, September 21, 2014
From Row HH
(Report and opinions from the game.)
Game #3: Cowboys 34, Rams 31
In a tale of two games, it was the worst of times yet again for Rams fans, as the home team blew a three-TD lead with critical mistakes, ineffective and overrated defense, and the road team always getting every call from the officials. The hallmarks of losing football just never seem to go away around here.
Position by position:
* QB: Like many of his teammates, Austin Davis (30-42-327, 3 TD, PR 98.0) had a strong game that would have been a winning game if not for a couple of key mistakes. Out of the gate, the Rams were the height of offensive confidence, driving on Dallas for nearly nine minutes for the opening TD. Davis converted three third downs on the drive, making a clutch throw across his body to Zac Stacy for one, and a well-thrown sideline flare route to Austin Pettis for another. Davis has made a habit of hitting these tough, short sideline throws, and you know what? He throws them better than Sam Bradford. He did it again for the TD, waiting forever for Lance Kendricks to get the tiniest amount of separation so Davis could fire him as good a one-yard pass as you’ll ever see, a seeing-eye pass that found Kendricks barely in bounds and just inside the pylon. And young Davis was just warming up. Next drive, after barely missing Kenny Britt with a long ball, he threw a perfect sideline bomb to Brian Quick for a 51-yard TD. The Rams were up 21-0 in a blink, and Davis didn’t stop driving them, getting them across midfield before halftime before Scott Wells botched a snap for a turnover, getting them into the red zone after halftime before a run failed on 4th-and-inches and getting them back downfield to start the 4th with what should have been a TD and dammit, Jared Cook has to catch that ball, but the FG still made it 24-20. The Ram defense undid all those heroics and let the Rams fall behind by three, setting Davis up for a fall. Deep in his own end and with a Dallas blitzer breaking through, Davis, who’s been fearless and consistently tough with a pass rush in his face, got a little too fearless, put a soft pass over the middle and got picked off by LB Bruce Carter, who I doubt Davis ever saw, for a crushing TD that put Dallas up 10. That deflated the home crowd, but not Davis, who methodically drove the Rams 80 yards to get back within three. As he’s done for two-plus games, Davis did a nice job stepping up in the pocket and keeping plays alive with his feet. At the goal line, he rolled away from trouble and gave Pettis enough time to pop wide open in the corner of the end zone for the TD. Davis got the ball back with a chance to win or tie, but settled for too much short stuff and had to force a long pass that Quick didn’t get to for a game-ending INT. But by all looks, Austin Davis has got “it”. Seriously? 75% completion rate and over 300 yards? Bradford’s had three games in his career in that neighborhood. Davis looks fearless under pressure, keeps plays alive, shows excellent accuracy on sideline throws, has a deep ball to keep defenses honest, has put together a lot of solid drives, has his defensive teammates standing up for him on the sideline… what more do you want? Austin’s picks this week may cause Jeff Fisher to shy away from keeping him as the starter. Shaun Hill may look better on the practice fields at Rams Park. Davis, though, has looked much better, and given the Ram offense a much-needed spark, on the field that matters. He’s earned at least the chance to test his luck against the stiffer competition to come.
* RB: A surprise of the game was the Rams’ move to a three-headed rushing attack, even as Zac Stacy showed the all-around game (12-67 rushing, 5-54 receiving) to be a workhorse back. With some mauling cooperation from his offensive line, Stacy banged out 12 yards on his first carry and wasn’t slowed often, adding a key reception to keep the opening drive alive and churning for 8 yards down to the 1 to set up the first TD. The 9-minute drive would have been a 3-and-out, though, if not for Benny Cunningham’s (9-29) dive for the down marker with a short 3rd-down pass. Stacy made all the feature plays, though. A 17-yard screen pass loosened up the Cowboys for a long Brian Quick TD. Early in the 3rd, he hit a spin move in the hole and banged up the middle for a run reminiscent of a couple of legends who proceeded him. Later, he popped outside for 16 and then pounded up the middle for 9 to help set up a FG. Stacy and Cunningham also did a fine job throughout the game in blitz protection. And not to forget the third head, the surprising Trey Watts (5-24), who added a nice small-back change-of-pace to the mix. 12 carries seems too few for Stacy, but it may be just right in the end. He made the most out of every touch he got.
* WR: Stacy and the TEs took a lot of targets away from the WRs this week, but they still caught two TDs. Brian Quick (2-62) hasn’t been known for deep speed, but he burned Morris Claiborne down the home sideline for a 51-yard TD bomb. Quick’s targets were way down compared to the first two games, so Kenny Britt (5-69) picked up some slack. Britt had one great catch and several near-misses. He made an outstanding 38-yard sideline grab in the 3rd of a ball that went between Claiborne’s hands. Britt showed some shortcomings, though. He was a step slow on one long ball and had another go off his fingertips that he really should have pulled in. The Rams got Britt to stretch the field and need him to do better at making these kind of plays. Austin Pettis (3-28) was his usual self, popping up for a couple of clutch catches, including the last TD. Surprising and disappointing, though, that Stedman Bailey wasn’t even targeted. Hopefully the bye week will provide enough time to get him back into his preseason groove. He’ll make the Ram passing game even better adding his sweet intermediate route-running into the mix.
* Tight ends: TEs were a critical part of the offense, reliable enough to get Davis out of trouble many times, but again, mistakes were critical. Lance Kendricks (6-29) opened the scoring, providing the eye of the needle for Davis to thread a pass into at the pylon for a 1-yard TD. Excellent hands, footwork and persistence by Lance on that route. Along with Kendricks, Jared Cook (7-75) was a reliable short-range option most of the game. The two kept the sticks moving and were effective against Dallas with a number of flare routes out to the sideline. Until Davis went to Cook down on the goal line early in the 4th, that is. Cook’s got Bruce Carter beaten, and Davis’ pass is perfect, but Cook turns it into a tragicomic juggling act instead, costing the Rams 4 points in a game they lost by 3. As a bonus, TV showed Cook getting mad at Davis on the sideline afterward, with William Hayes then appearing to step in to defend Davis. Cory Harkey had a good run-blocking game but was bad on the blitz that spooked Davis into throwing his pick-six. I don’t think they’re called tight ends because they tighten up in the clutch, but…
* Offensive line: The o-line appears to have come together, and had easily its best game of the season this week, but not without a couple of critical mistakes, of course. Great downblocking like last week’s and Jake Long’s resurgence as a dominating run-blocker keyed the Rams’ opening, nearly-nine-minute TD drive. As in much of the game, protection for Davis was solid, too, especially in the middle. On the 2nd TD drive, Rodger Saffold and Scott Wells did a great job leading a 17-yard screen to Stacy, and the middle line picked up a blitz on the TD bomb to Quick. Long must be getting his knee problems behind him. He dealt with speed rushes better than he’s done in some time and had a mostly good game picking off outside blitzers with some real speed mismatches on him. Stacy popped outside at the end of the 3rd off a great block by Jake. Wells was pushing people around, plowing open running lanes with Saffold, and having one of his best games as a Ram. Then, right before halftime, he committed a turnover that was a minimum six-point swing in the game. You’d think a center would sort of know if the QB is lined up under him, but no, Wells short-snaps one with Davis in shotgun and Dallas pounces on the loose ball. Yet another mental error by Wells this season, and a costly one. If that didn’t turn the tide of the game, the failed 4th-and-an-inch in the 3rd did. Wells got a really strong block there; too bad it was a handoff instead of a QB sneak. The Rams somehow haven’t figured out yet that Davin Joseph is too slow to be a good pull blocker; that gave Dallas LB Anthony Hitchens plenty of time to shoot the gap and stuff the play, with Saffold and others failing to get a hat on him early. Plenty of pressure came from Long’s side on Davis’ pick-six, but Harkey’s missed block was the worse problem there. The Rams ran well, protected Davis, who wasn’t sacked, well, and had their best game this season. Their biggest mistakes this week were just too big.
* Defensive line: Unlike other units that had a good game except for a critical mistake, the #SuckCity pass rush was poor from the coin toss till the midfield prayer circle. The Rams are probably last in the league in sacks, with ONE, and failed to sack Tony Romo, or even pressure him much, this week. Scheme plays a role. Dallas had a couple of big plays, including Romo’s 4th-quarter 3rd-and-13 scramble, with the Rams foolishly dropping defensive linemen into coverage. But that doesn’t account for all the 4-man rushes that got nowhere and the endless number of blitzes that did little more than lap at the Dallas o-line like waves breaking on the beach. William Hayes made a couple of fine run stops but has been no replacement for Chris Long in pass rush. Eugene Sims got work at both ends but provided little more than a QB pressure. (He did have a sack unjustly taken away at the end of the game.) The tackles were particularly poor, their lack of penetration most pass rushes allowing Romo to step up comfortably and make plays. On a number of plays, no Ram lineman so much as pushed his counterpart back across the line of scrimmage. Robert Quinn has apparently used his new wealth to hire a double to pass-rush for him, and that guy is nowhere near as good as Robert is. (Was?) Story of the game was Dallas driving to take a 27-24 lead in the 4th. They let Romo scramble for a 1st. A 3rd-and-long blitz does nothing while Romo hits Terrance Williams for 20. A couple plays later, no pressure on Romo again despite bringing a blitz, TD to Williams is child’s play. No pressure at all on the long TD to Dez Bryant, either, or on the 3rd-down play right before it. Romo can play like a knucklehead sometimes, but not at pitch-and-catch. If the Ram pass rush has died in the name of shoring up the run defense, it’s died a little bit in vain. The Rams did look like the ’85 Bears in comparison to their past games against Demarco Murray, who “only” totaled 100 yards this time. Hayes and Quinn stuffed him early, and Donald blew up a handoff to set up another big loss. But with the Rams up 21-0, pffffft. Huge lane for Murray for 12 because Quinn and Michael Brockers were little more than swinging gates. 20 more the next play thanks to a terrible whiff by an overpursuing Quinn. Easy TD followed. On a play Dallas telegraphed before a timeout and then ran anyway, Murray swept for 40 off a dreaded toss, with Sims overshooting upfield and a lot going wrong downfield. So much is wrong in #SuckCity I don’t know where to start. Quinn has been mostly ineffective and I don’t think he even gets double-teamed that much. The tackles aren’t getting push, the play-calling is bad and they miss Long more than seems statistically probable. Maybe improved pass rush will flow from the slowly-improving run defense. But this defense didn’t have to be “fixed” before this season. It sure needs to be fixed now.
* Linebackers: Rams LBs are starting to make some plays. Alec Ogletree and James Laurinaitis combined for 19 tackles, though it’s not a big surprise that Jo-Lonn Dunbar has been the most effective LB so far, since he’s played for Gregg Williams. He made a perfect fill to set Hayes up to stuff Murray for a 5-yard loss in the 1st and stuffed Murray himself in the 3rd to make Dallas settle for a FG. Ogletree made a key play early. Murray ran off with a screen pass for a first down but Ogletree ran him down and tomahawked the ball out from behind for a fumble. At the same time, the Rams had trouble on a couple of big plays. On the 40-yard toss to Murray, both safeties got flattened out on the edge, Laurinaitis got suckered by the fake end-around and Ogletree got blocked out of the play by a WR. Ogletree seemed to have a shot at stopping Romo’s key 3rd-and-long scramble but inexplicably whiffed at the end, skating past him without even seeming to try to grab him. Maybe Romo deked him into thinking he was sliding. The arrow’s pointing up for the Rams LBs as they’re starting to make some plays. They still need to make more.
* Secondary: The secondary flowed right along with the flow of the game, a strength most of the first half before becoming a mistake-riddled liability. Support on runs and screens was good. Janoris Jenkins blew up a screen to Bryant right before Murray’s fumble. E.J. Gaines slowed Murray up on another screen to 3-and-out the next drive. Up 14-0, Jenkins appeared to stick the dagger in Dallas with a perfectly-played pick-six, sitting on the pass to Bryant he knew the Ram blitz would induce and prancing in with an easy TD. But the DBs ended up dropping the dagger on their own foot. Dallas’ first TD was set up by clownish coverage by Lamarcus Joyner and Rodney McLeod, who had Cole Beasley double-teamed in the end zone but flailed at him for a DPI anyway. They did a good job on Bryant until leaving him open by 20 yards for a 68-yard TD in the 3rd. I’m not sure why Jenkins let Bryant leave his sight with a blitz on, but he dropped Dez off to McLeod just as Rodney decided to jump a crossing route. Dallas took the lead after a long DPI by Jenkins on Bryant, followed by a blitz-burning 13-yard TD to Terrance Williams where Gaines had little chance of getting around a double rub in time in man coverage. They’re hurt by the front seven’s overreliance on blitzing, but the major mistakes this week were just killers, one of the many ways games are lost.
* Special teams: Quiet week here. The Rams accounted for Dwayne Harris well on kickoffs, though I still don’t know why Greg Zuerlein’s kicks aren’t all through the back of the end zone. The key play was a holding penalty Jenkins got that started the Rams’ final drive in a hole and forced Davis into flinging deep sooner than he might have had to. Clutch penalties, another hallmark of losing football.
* Strategery: There’s still 14 weeks, but right now the award for most overrated hiring in the NFL this season belongs to Gregg Williams in a landslide. The complete absence of pass rush these first three weeks has Rams Nation pining for the return of Tim Walton. Like politicians throwing money at problems, Williams’ solution for everything is to throw a blitz at it. That worked to perfection for Jenkins’ pick-six, an all-out LB blitz play as pretty as can be drawn up. It was also about the only effective blitz of the day. The Rams blitzed and failed on Bryant’s TD. Dallas’ drive to take their first lead starred bad defensive calls. Romo could scramble for a 1st down on 3rd-and-13, because, stupidly, Kendall Langford is dropping back into coverage instead of plugging the hole Romo ran right through. My favorite play. A few plays later, 3rd-and-14, a down you have no business blitzing, Williams throws the kitchen sink, it bounces off the side of the house, Romo steps up and hits Williams for 20. 3rd-and-2 at the 12, Romo and Williams burn a blitz again for a TD. The blitz forced the Rams into man coverage and Dallas had a perfect play set up to burn it, a double-rub route the Rams could only have handled in zone. Rod Marinelli did not blitz much in comparison, but when he did on the pick-six Davis threw, it was far better disguised than anything Williams did all day. Williams’ blitzes weren’t terribly difficult to see coming. His blitzing is hurting the team more than it’s helping. He’s been all sound and fury and has signified nothing.
Brian Schottenheimer’s weird. He has little idea what to do with a weapon like Tavon Austin. Task him with running an aggressive pass-first offense for Sam Bradford and it blows up on the launching pad. He shows little clue how to use speed. Bailey and Givens barely even got looks this week, while Cook and Britt (who does run them well) were handling end-arounds. Give him a 3rd-string QB and a bunch of plodders, though, and he’s fine. He’s had ideal game plans for Davis, using his mobility, mixing run and pass really well and not being near as afraid to go downfield as he seemed to be with Hill. The one play we’d all like to have back was the stuffed 4th-and-an-inch with the Rams up 24-21. From time immemorial, the worst thing to call in that situation has been a slow-developing run. Hell, the Cowboys barely even had anyone lined up over LG; Davis could have fallen down for a first. But no, let’s pull with slow Joseph and open up a lane for the LB to burst through while we do what looks like a delayed handoff to Stacy. I’m fine with the Rams going for it there, but they needed a much better play call.
But in the end, the NFL’s all about results, right? Is Jeff Fisher making enough of a difference? He’s lost to Mike Zimmer coaching his first career game, barely beat a Tampa team that looks as badly-coached as any in the league, and lost this week to Jason Freaking Garrett and Scott Freaking Linehan. I was really hoping to avoid saying Freaking this week, too. Is this why Fisher gets paid the big bucks? Can we at least start warming his coaching seat up a little?
* Upon further review: This game wasn’t refereed as much as it was bungled, and the Rams continue to be the rare home team in sports that gets consistently screwed over by officiating, getting called for 119 penalty yards to Dallas’ 15. Clete Blakeman handed Dallas three points (the winning margin) before halftime with a ludicrous call on Sims for roughing Romo, calling a blow to the head for touching Romo’s shoulder, just like Dunbar got called for (and even more ridiculously, fined for) last week. Davis was roughed up worse than that a couple of times without a call, not that I would have called it, but Blakeman should have, if he was planning to treat both #9s fairly. Later, Britt got called for holding a DB who went to the ground completely on his own. Sims got a holding call late in the game when he should have gotten credit for a brilliant sack of Romo. He was completely within his rights holding up the receiver at the line. Sims didn’t do anything Jeremy Mincey didn’t do on Kendricks’ TD catch. The game was called neither evenly nor competently, and the main job of Blakeman’s crew appeared to be making clutch calls to keep the Cowboys in the game or ahead. Grade: F-minus-minus
* Cheers: There has long been a very large Dallas fan contingent in St. Louis, going back to twenty-odd years of the Big Dead’s sucky play. Dallas figured to represent well, and I didn’t notice any problems with the Cowboy fans in our section. It’s getting pretty demoralizing and disgusting, though, watching about the entire lower bowl fill up with the other team’s fans while Rams fans trek four escalator flights up to our seats. It’s become a caste system where the visitors get all the good seats. Something is very wrong with that picture. The 50-60% of the pretty full house there to support the home team gave Romo a ton of difficulty getting audibles called, and stayed to the bitter end. We did our job. Somebody else do theirs.
* Who’s next?: So, that was the EASY part of the Rams’ 2014 schedule. After the bye week the fun really begins: eight straight games against playoff and winning teams from last year. On the whole, I’d rather be in Philadelphia. Or not, as the defending NFC East champs bat leadoff in this Murderer’s Row stretch of the season, and the Rams have lost four of five meetings since the NFC Championship in 2002. The last time the Rams played in Philadelphia, Scott Linehan “led” them to an opening day 38-3 loss.
At first glance the Eagles look like the last team you’d want the Rams to face. They’re no-huddle, up-tempo and often take only 20 seconds between snaps. They spread the field horizontally, attack your edges with screens and sweeps and try to catch you leaning the wrong way with a misdirection or a cutback, which sure looks like a successful formula against the underachieving Ram defense. The Eagles are like the Saints, except if the Saints also had the league’s leading rusher. Nick Foles is a quick-thinking, quick-throwing QB who doesn’t make many mistakes. He’ll surprise as a runner on read options, and look out for play-action when he’s under center. LeSean McCoy is a gifted runner, lethal on cutbacks, great at getting small in the hole and making people miss and is a dangerous receiver. And, speaking of the Saints, then comes Darren Sproles, quicker than McCoy and an even better receiver, and if the Eagles get him iso’ed on a LB, you are hosed. McCoy’s and Sproles’ receiving facets make up for WRs that have been nothing special minus now-Redskin DeSean Jackson. I think Jeremy Maclin dropped as many as he caught against the Colts, but watch out for deep shots to Riley Cooper. What has made the whole Eagle attack work is the best offensive line in the league. They’ve struggled at RT early, but just in time for the Rams, they’ll get Lane Johnson back from a PED suspension to become whole again up front. And, let’s face it, you apparently don’t need much of an offensive line to stop the Ram “pass rush” any more anyway. With the Rams likely needing to drop extras into coverage and rely on 3- and 4-man rushes, can we expect Robert Quinn to generate credible pressure on Foles against fellow Pro Bowler Jason Peters? Because he has to.
Who’s starting at QB in Philadelphia? I doubt it will be a big deal when his most important job against Philly’s high-powered attack will be handing off. The Rams will want to work the clock, keep the Eagle defense on the field. If Brian Schottenheimer has any in the playbook, the Rams should be able to give Philly a taste of their own medicine with screens and sweeps. Their ends slant in hard and get caught overpursuing a lot. The Colts were wildly successful with some of the jumbo formations the Rams have been using recently, but especially and deceptively, overloading one side and countering to the other. If Trent Richardson can look good against somebody, the Rams sure ought to be able to establish a ground game against that same team. It’ll be important for the fullbacks to get a hat on Mychal Kendricks. The Eagle pass rush is almost as bad as the Rams’, with three sacks in three games, but they’re a really smart blitzing team with an exceptional feel for the right time to bring it. They like to bring pressure right up the middle, so the Rams’ interior, which’ll have their hands full with Fletcher Cox anyway, will need to be ready. The Eagles make up for any perceived shortcomings up front with a strong secondary. Cary Williams and Bradley Fletcher, who has actually played a season-plus without a knee exploding, looked like lockdown corners against the Colts, who aren’t exactly chopped liver at WR. Malcolm Jenkins is playing very well at safety. (Look for blitzes when he’s lined up in the slot.) Hey, they’re a playoff team. They don’t have a whole lot of weaknesses. The Rams will have to get quite used to this the next eight weeks.
Jeff Fisher has a good record recently (6-1) coming off of bye weeks. I’ve called the Eagles similar to the Saints several times, and the Rams beat the Saints last year, though it took Fisher reportedly taking over defensive play-calling to do it. Something significant has to be done during the bye to get this defense that’s supposed to be carrying the team back on track while there’s still time to keep the season on track.
— Mike
Game stats from espn.com
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