This game was painful to watch. Very, very painful.

zn wrote:

Rams43

I finally re watched the Chief game…This game was painful to watch. Very, very painful.

I can only recall 2 highlights. One highlight was the first drive by Davis. It was flawless and very impressive, resulting in a TD.

The other “highlight” was when Hekker went in on a 4th down apparent punt situation. But he came up to take a snap from under C which forced Reid to call a timeout. It made me chuckle to see that.

That was about it as far as highlights for us, though.

We never scored again, allowing 34 unanswered points. Points were scored by the Chiefs in every possible way with the exception of a safety, and they came within less than a yard of accomplishing that, too.

Where to start? BTW, these are just a few observations of lowlights, NOT an attempt to itemize every single Ram mistake or challenge.

We started the game with backups for already injured players and it snowballed from there. For example, 3 rookies had to start at CB. They were Gaines, Joyner, and Roberson. Later, McLeod was hurt and replaced by Cody Davis. Then Davis was hurt and replaced at S by Joyner. I missed exactly which player replaced Joyner at nickel. That’s a lot of injuries forcing the play of 4 out of 5 of our normal secondary players. Not good.

Then there was the OL injury disaster. Saffold was replaced at RG by Joseph in the mid 2nd quarter. Then Long gets hurt, forcing GRob over from LG to LOT and Person to come in at LG. Later, Wells gets hurt and Jones comes in to finish at C for him. That left only Barksdale at his normal position. And, frankly, he hardly distinguished himself at ROT. Houston owned him in this game.

Then there was the season ending Quick injury. Sigh…

Did I mention that we started the game with a former 3rd string QB?

What a nightmare of matchup disadvantages!

Davis looked superb in that opening drive. But as the game progressed he appeared to become increasingly rattled. For example, his deep ball is not his strength but he still threw one deep to a double covered and perfectly bracketed Britt. Naturally, it was intercepted. He was even throwing behind some receivers. Even Bailey couldn’t handle some of them thrown his way.

I stopped counting when the Chiefs got their 6th sack. Plenty of blame to go around to account for that. OL getting dominated, Davis getting rattled, Schotty play calling becoming one sided, you name it…

We couldn’t run inside once Saffold left the game. For example, still early in a game tied 7-7 there was a 3rd and 1 and Stacy hit the middle as he does so well. But both Wells and Joseph missed their danged blocks. BOTH of them. So Stacy gets stuffed and we have to punt. How do two vet, and former Pro Bowlers, both miss their blocks there? Another play I saw Joseph completely whiff on players coming on either side of him. I mean, he never even touched them. It looked like he had closed his eyes at the snap of the ball. I’m serious. Naturally, those 2 Chiefs buried Davis.

Our ST got into this disaster movie by allowing a 99 yard kickoff return for a TD. This transformed a close 10-7 game into an eventual rout.

Back to Jones, the real reason I forced myself to watch this hot mess of a game. I wanted to observe him as objectively as I could after the heat of the season had passed. It was a mixed bag, IMO. First of all, there were few, if any, opportunities to see him run block. Schotty had abandoned the run by this time and was calling passes almost exclusively. Given the score, time left on the clock, and the abysmal condition of our patchwork OL, I can’t say I really blame him. It was a kinda pick your poison situation by then.

But I will say that Jones played respectably in pass pro. He seemed very comfortable in making his line calls. I didn’t see him getting “walked back” into Davis as I did see Wells earlier. So I have to say that Jones looked fairly effective in his limited role in this game. Bearing in mind that the run game had been abandoned and the Chiefs knew it. Also considering that he was playing in the middle of an overmatched OL behind 34-7 on the road. Probably not the best scenario for him to get his NFL debut.

Naturally, this game has now forever been deleted from my DVR. And good riddance! Lol.

That game bothers me so much.