You know, believe it or not……..

Quick is on pace for over a thousand yards…and really he’s just scratching the surface.

Winnbrad wrote:

The Rams are better now than they have been in years.

I guess this is about language and about perception. What does one mean by saying a team “is better”? What is one seeing when one says it? How do meanings and perceptions differ for someone like me who deeply disagrees?

I think it’s clear that we have better “talent.” We have a number of guys on both sides of the ball who can make plays and sometimes do. More so than we have had in a long time.

But, see, for me, that doesn’t mean a helluva lot in itself. Lots of teams put talent packages out there that make some plays. Lots of teams that do that lose a lot of games.

The question in the league is not about talent level. It’s about winning games. You don’t win games, and talent packages mean nothing.

And, frankly, some teams that know how to win have lower talent levels. When it comes to competitiveness in winning games, I would personally rate our ’12 team over the current team. That team played as tough as it could. It gritted out very difficult wins against tough teams.

Right now, we have a team that is competitively inept. Despite its talent, it is losing games badly. It was not competitive against MN. It barely eked out a win against a lousy TB team. And after a dream 1st 25 minutes, it completely collapsed and pissed a game away to a very limited DAL team. That is competitive weakness. In comparison with your read, mine is that this team is “worse” than the teams from the last 2 years. It is competitively weaker.

Now, notice the tense of my sentences. I am trying as I have been for some time to describe what IS. I am not saying that the team can’t find a competitive edge. Given a higher talent level, it COULD conceivably become a “better” team than we have had in a while.

But what are the odds of that? I note your comment:

Winnbrad wrote:

A few less penalties, and turnovers, and this team is in the playoffs.

Not only do I disagree with that read, but I think it is a dangerous kind of thinking. I mean, obviously what we think and say on this board has no effect on games. We’re just fans.

What does matter is how the team thinks. And what bothers me is an absence of evidence that the team is getting it. In how they play and in what they say after games, I see a team that sees itself as being “better” without grasping what it takes to be competitive and to win games. I think this is especially true on the defensive unit. They play without discipline, and talk afterward without demonstrating any real awareness of how unacceptable their play is. Some of it is, of course, coaching. And I can’t stand the happy talk that comes from coaches after these wrenching losses. But players play, and I see or hear no evidence of a defensive unit that takes genuine pride in or responsibility for stopping opposing offenses. This is a unit that was talked up leading into the season as the reason the Rams would knock on the playoff door. But it has not taken up the responsibility that goes with that assessment. On the field or afterward.

By contrast, the offense came into the season with very low expectations, especially after Sam went down. That unit is building its level of competitiveness. It is outperforming expectations and beginning to hold its own in the challenge of winning games.

But, I am not sure that any of us thinks that the offense, even with an emerging M Quick and A Davis, really is “good enough” to carry the bulk of the responsibility for winning games. The offense has raised its profile, and it probably shows promise for being becoming the best attack we’ve had in years. But I think we know it has a ways to go to get there. Hope I’m wrong.

But the defense? Man, with all due respect are you really sensing that “a few less penalties” are all that is holding the defense back from being playoff-worthy? Really? I find it hard to believe that a seasoned football fan would actually make that assessment of our defense. It’s certainly not my read.

As the talent has risen I have seen a steady competitive decline. The ’12 defense was tough. The ’13 unit started off horribly, then toughened up some in some marginally significant games, but then faded again as the opportunity to get above .500 and into the playoffs flashed, then dissolved.

This year? Obviously, I’ve been harping on this since the pre-season. Despite its “talent,” this unit has turned in quarter after quarter of soft, uncompetitive, weak football. It played 2 weak, soft games, lucking out against one of the worst attacks in the league. And then what happened?

Against DAL, it played 25 minutes of superb football. How shall we see that? The attractive reading is to say, “Hey, the light bulb is switching on” and we almost won the game despite mistakes. With this sort of reading, one can think that, with a couple breaks on flags, we coulda, woulda, shoulda …

That is not my reading. Mine is much direr. Yes, we showed for not 2 quarters that we have the “talent,” the “potential” to be a really good defense. But what happened then?

Consider those 2 running plays that turned the tide. The 2 plays are bad enough in themselves, one after the other. But consider as well how completely the defense collapsed after that. Consider how quickly the DAL offense got control of the game, how little resistance the Ram unit showed the rest of the way. That isn’t just about a couple of flags. It’s about a non-competitive unit.

Somebody on another thread took some exception to my referring to the Ram D a “disgusting, gutless, ill disciplined, rabble.” But, see, that’s what I think they demonstrably are … at least currently. It is precisely BECAUSE they have talent and potential that I read their failures as being gutless and uncompetitive. It’s why I think we are “worse” than we were in ’12 and probably last year. It isn’t enough to make a play now and then or even to show well for a quarter or two. If you lie down and die most of the time, rarely managing to get decisive or critical stops, then you are not playing winning football.

Again. I have no idea if or when our defense will get its act together and start playing tough football. Maybe the 1st half against DAL is the first sign of good things to come. Maybe there is still time even this year to learn to play winning football while the games are still meaningful. I hope so.

What I think can be SEEN in this team’s play, consistently over 7 games now, is that it has long, long way to go to start playing competitive football. A long way not necessarily in terms of time–who knows?–but qualitatively. The defensive unit in particular has a lot to learn about the kind of committed consistency that is needed to control the league’s high powered offenses. Despite their talent limits, the ’12 defense understood that and played tough. That year, I figured this is what Fisher teaches, competitive discipline. But ever since, his Ram defense has been all about talent and potential and improvement and NOT about doing the job, at least not when games or seasons are on the line.

So, my friend, we see this very differently.

I long for the day when this sorry ass team figures out that, to win games, it has to climb out of the rut play by disciplined play. At that point, we’ll all be happy.

quick and cook have been very good. i think the offense and defense both have the potential to be even better than their current rankings.

now it’s easy to say that, but they gotta actually go out and do it.

but this isn’t an old veteran team where you suspect they’ve actually maxed out their abilities.

on defense they need to tighten up that run defense. get some more turnovers.

on offense they need to get tavon more involved. the offensive line needs more cohesion. hopefully robinson can make an impact soon.

and then yeah. cut down on penalties. and this team could make a run at an above 0.500 record.