Wagoner: Rams middle of the pack in Future Power Rankings

zn wrote:

Coming at No. 17 represents a five-spot fall for the Rams, a slip that comes mainly as a result of a drop in the rankings of front office and coaching and, to a lesser degree, drafting.

You know, I glanced at this the other day and thought it was a typically silly article.

Idly reviewing it a moment ago, I noticed the above. And damned if I don’t have a respect for the article.

I think there’s a general consensus around the league and among pundits that our roster has improved and there are pieces that suggest high possibilities. Last year, we were pretty widely seen as a team on the rise. And our talent may be better this year.

The ISSUE, the biggest reason to doubt this team, is the recent track record of Fisher’s leadership. It has not been good.

Trouble is, Fisher has had a deeply grounded reputation for being a top shelf coach. For years. He’s been an influential guy, routinely assumed to be a good coach. When he came to us, the universal reaction was that he would raise the team. Its talent level was low when he came, but I think everyone figured he would start lifting its competitiveness. I know I did.

Now, I dunno who the “NFL Insider Team” is, really, or how connected they are. But here’s a way one could read Wagoner’s description of the drop in expectations about the team:

* Last year, people looked at the improvements in ’13 and figured that in Year III, Fisher would pull the team together and consolidate the competitiveness that we had been showing in brief stretches during years I and II.
* Then, the season started. Bradford was hurt, but any neutral observer looking at the first 6 weeks of our season would be wondering who was coaching the mess?
* The disappointment would have focused most tellingly on our defense. Everyone could see the talent, everyone knew who Quinn had been the year before, and the explosiveness of the DL. But its performance was so erratic, so ill-disciplined … this is the best Fisher and Williams could do?
* Then came the late season improvement, several weeks of brilliance, albeit against poor teams. And, again, if you’re a neutral observer, you have to wonder how a coaching staff led by a guy with Fisher’s reputation could fail so miserably to have activated that defense’s capacities for a third of the season.
* So this year, if you’re a neutral observer, you figure the talent level has at least held pretty steady if it hasn’t improved slightly. Apply Fisher’s traditional reputation, and you’d probably project a team knocking on the door of contention … AS PEOPLE DID LAST YEAR!
* But, Fisher’s reputation is not where it was. People figure he got less from that team last year than he was expected to. And they aren’t sure that he won’t under-perform again this year. His track record shows a lot of mediocre years with a couple of anomalies. Maybe that’s who he is. Neutrals are not going to repeat the mistake of predicting contention for a team led by a coach whose team was a competitive shambles last year.

OK. I know. This is pretty much my definition of the Rams’ situation, and you probably figured I’m projecting it into a couple of ambiguous and indeterminate sentences. Your reading of those sentences and of the team probably differ.

But I do think that Wagoner is indicating that Fisher’s reputation has dipped.

And I strongly suggest that, thinking of next year, you temper your expectations of what our talent can do by an awareness that coaching matters and that Fisher’s coaching of the Rams has not in 3 years demonstrated the ability to lift the team’s competitiveness to the kind of consistent level that a team needs to be any better than a mediocre.450 or .500 team. It needs to be a concern … IMO of course.