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Billy_TParticipantWilliams is a keeper. Great vision and contact balance, as ZN is wont to say. Makes a ton of good decisions on the fly, and tacklers miss him going through the whole. Lacks home run speed, but the Rams don’t really need him to do that. That’s just a bonus when it’s there. But I do think he can continue to give the Rams a lot of chunk plays . . . six, eight, twelve yards and a cloud of dust.
Gurley was a legit track guy, like Dickerson. They had it all. Like Sayers, Bo Jackson, Jim Brown, Sanders, Faulk, etc. Sometimes, though, the truly elite backs don’t always work on the little stuff, and backs with fewer athletic gifts, like Williams, do. Strikes me as “natural” that the naturally gifted rely more on those gifts, and the players without them, if they have serious want-to, compensate enough to almost make up for it.
Unicorns are the guys with relentless want-to plus those elite natural gifts. They’re not satisfied with playing up to their naturals. They want to set a new paradigm. Hoping I get to see some more unicorns playing for the Rams before I hang up the old cleats.
Billy_TParticipantThe Rams made it a lot closer than it needed to be. Most everyone likely agrees about the play-calling in the Red Zone not being effective, the two out-of-character fumbles by Williams, and a dropped pass here and there as main culprits.
Kendricks really needs to be upgraded this offseason. He’s a backup, really, and probably better suited to safety if he can bulk up. Just not fast enough to play corner, and I think he knows it. Which is why he gambles on getting flagged so often. I think the Rams also know this, which is why they’ve been trying so hard to claim Kyu Blu Kelly off waivers, but keep missing. He’s a better athlete than Kendricks, but has his own issues. The Rams brass must think they can coach him up, though.
Stafford might be playing better now than he did when they won the Super Bowl. Also really like how they’ve incorporated Robinson into the mix. He’s a good receiver, and brings a good combo of size and speed. They now can claim three true starters at wideout again, and I hope they find a way to re-sign Robinson if he’s affordable. Age 30 season next year might help them do just that. The O-line is really playing well, too. If they can beat the Saints Thursday, they’re almost a lock for one of the Wild Cards.
Billy_TParticipantI think if teams were able to do a redraft today, many would pick Nacua in the 1st or 2nd round. If they’re receiver-needy, it’s a 1st.
He does need to work on his hands, especially when it comes to “easier” catches. But given his obvious intangibles, he’ll work like a madman to get better and better each year. He’s basically the Rams’ missing 1st rounder in 2023.
Now, they just need to do a better job with their actual early round picks to go with those late round gems. If they can put all of that together in the 2024 draft, and hit on a coupla free agent pickups, they’re back in the hunt.
Billy_TParticipantThis line comes from the AI policy for Tom Brady’s Ole Miss education class. His students discussed the strengths and weaknesses of the tools (“strong in summarizing, editing and helping to brainstorm ideas”; “poor at creating long segments of text that are both topical and personal”), put those in the context of academic honesty and devised the rules themselves.
That one line sums up the point: AI is not meant to avoid opportunities to learn.
What’s most important to Ole Miss faculty members is that students use these tools with integrity. If the university doesn’t have a campuswide AI honor code, and so far it doesn’t, individual classes should. And no matter whether professors permit all applications of AI, as some teachers have tried, or only the narrowest, students should have to disclose just how much help they had from robots.
The next concern is that students should use AI in a manner that improves not only their writing but also their thinking — in short, in a manner that enhances learning rather than bypasses the need to learn at all.
This simple principle makes for complicated practice. Certainly, no one is going to learn anything by letting AI write an essay in its entirety. What about letting AI brainstorm an idea, on the other hand, or write an outline, or gin up a counterargument? Lyndsey Cook, a senior at Ole Miss planning a career in nursing, finds the brainstorming especially helpful: She’ll ask ChatGPT or another tool to identify the themes in a piece of literature, and then she’ll go back and look for them herself.
These shortcuts, on the one hand, might interfere with students’ learning to brainstorm, outline or see the other side of things on their own. But — here comes a human-generated counterargument — they might also aid students in surmounting obstacles in their composition that otherwise would have stopped them short. That’s particularly true of kids whose high schools didn’t send them to college already equipped with these capabilities.
Allow AI to boost you over these early hurdles, and suddenly the opportunity for deeper learning — the opportunity to really write — will open up. That’s how Caleb Jackson, the part-time student for whom Perplexity has been such a boon, sees it: His professor, he says, wanted students to “get away from the high school paper and go further, to write something larger, like a thesis.”
Perplexity, Lex and other AI tools showed him what he was doing wrong, so that he could do it right next time. And the tools themselves told him he was improving. One system gave critical feedback on his first paper; on the second, Jackson said, “The AI literally said, ‘That was a great paper to read.’”
Maybe. Or maybe, as one young Ole Miss faculty member put it to me, this risks “losing the value of the struggle.” That, she says, is what she is scared will go away.
All this invites the most important question there is: What is learning for?
The answers are myriad. (ChatGPT, asked, counted exactly 11.) But they break down something like this: Learning, in college, can be instrumental. According to this view, the aim of teaching is to prepare students to live in the real world, so all that really matters is whether they have the chops to field jobs that feed themselves and their families. Perhaps knowing how to use AI to do any given task for you, then, is one of the most valuable skills out there — the same way it pays to be quick with a calculator.
If you accept this line of argument, however, there are still drawbacks to robotic crutches. Some level of critical thinking is necessary to function as an adult, and if AI stymies its development, even the instrumental aim of education is thwarted. The same goes for that “value of the struggle.” The real world is full of adversity, much of which the largest language model can’t tell you how to overcome.
But more compelling is the idea, probably shared by most college professors, that learning isn’t only instrumental after all — that it has intrinsic value and that it is the end rather than merely a means to one. Every step along the way that is skipped, the shorter the journey becomes, the less we will take in as we travel.
This glummest of outlooks suggests AI will stunt personal growth even if it doesn’t harm professional prospects. While that doesn’t mean it’s wise to prohibit every little application of the technology in class, it probably does mean discouraging those most closely related to critical thinking.
One approach is to alter standards for grading so that the things the machines are worst at are also the things that earn the best marks: originality, say, or depth of feeling, or so-called metacognition — the process of thinking about one’s own thinking or one’s own learning.
Hopefully, these things are also the most valuable because they are what make us human.
Stephen Monroe, chair of the Ole Miss writing and rhetoric department, has a theory. It involves player pianos, those mechanical instruments that send musical notes floating through fancy hotel lobbies without a musician.
The player piano plays perfectly — yet the result is, as he puts it, “hollow and gimmicky.” You’d hardly buy a concert hall ticket to watch one of these machines perform even the most gorgeous or most technically demanding of sonatas. But you’d pay up, don a gown and sit, rapt, “to hear a human being play that very same sonata on that very same piano.”
The beautiful might seem less beautiful when we know it comes from lines of code or vast arrays of transistors rather than from flesh, blood, heart and soul. Every triumph might seem that much less triumphant.
If you ask the Ole Miss educators, their students know this. If you ask the students, some of them, at least, know it, too.
Caleb Jackson only wants AI to help him write his papers — not to write them for him. “If ChatGPT will get you an A, and you yourself might get a C, it’s like, ‘Well, I earned that C.’” He pauses. “That might sound crazy.”
Dominic Tovar agrees. Let AI take charge of everything, and “they’re not so much tools at that point. They’re just replacing you.”
Lyndsey Cook, too, believes that even if these systems could reliably find the answers to the most vexing research problems, “it would take away from research itself” — because scientific inquiry is valuable for its own sake. “To have AI say, ‘Hey, this is the answer …’” she trails off, sounding dispirited.
The kids are even more reluctant to cede the most personal aspects of their writing to AI, even when allowed. Guy Krueger, who teaches Writing 101, put it simply to his class: If you’ve gone on a date, would you ask ChatGPT to describe the date for you? The response was a resounding no. (Well, one kid did say yes.)
This lingering fondness for humanity among humans is reassuring. Whether it will fade over time, however, is far from certain.
Claire Mischker, a lecturer of composition and director of the Ole Miss graduate writing center, asked her students at the end of last semester to turn in short reflections on their experience in her class. She received submissions that she was near-certain were produced by ChatGPT — “that,” she says as sarcastically as she does mournfully, “felt really good.”
The central theme of the course was empathy.
Billy_TParticipantBumped into this article today on AI, focusing on schools:
(Did a copy and paste from reader’s mode, using Notepad++. It looks better with regular formatting. Broke into two parts:)
AI is forcing teachers to confront an existential question
Molly Robertshttps://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/12/12/ai-chatgpt-universities-learning/
“Remember what I told you last week? Forget it.”
This is how Marc Watkins starts many a faculty meeting in the University of Mississippi’s department of writing and rhetoric. The self-fashioned AI guru has been tracking the capabilities of the large language models, such as ChatGPT, that are already transforming how his students write and read — in some cases, by doing both for them.
There is no better place to see the promise and the peril of generative artificial intelligence playing out than in academia. And there’s no better place to see how academia is handling the explosion in ChatGPT and its ilk than at Ole Miss.
In the spring, after students went back to campus eager to enlist robots in their essay-writing, Watkins and his colleagues created the Mississippi AI Institute (not to be confused with the Mississippi AI School, a Mississippi State University venture focused on the artificial insemination of cattle).
The hope is that the institute’s work can eventually be used by campuses across the country. For now, a two-day program this past June at Ole Miss might be the only one of its kind to pay teachers a stipend to educate themselves on artificial intelligence: how students are probably using it today, how they could be using it better and what all of that means for their brains.
The only way to describe what these tools have done to the teaching of writing is to borrow a phrase any professor would mark down as a cliché. They have changed everything.
AI is forcing educators to rethink plagiarism guidelines, grading and even lesson plans. But above all, it is demanding that they decide what education is really about — that teachers ask, in short, “What are we here for, anyway?”
ChatGPT has become to generative AI what Kleenex is to tissues. This most mentioned of tools, however, might be the least of teachers’ worries. Boutique services geared toward composing college essays, the very task Watkins and his colleagues are trying to teach, abound.
Some of their names jangle with techno-jargon, while others strive for the poetic, or at least the academic: Wordtune, Elicit, Fermat.
“Help me write,” read the words atop a Google doc equipped with its AI assistant tool, presumably in the voice of whoever is staring at a blank document waiting for words to come. Watkins finds this disturbing in its vagueness. Help me how?
Other technologies are more explicit about what they’re providing. Wordtune offers the opportunity to select a “spice” to add to your paper.
The “rewrite” option can polish a sloppy sentence; the “explain” option can elaborate on a vague one. There’s also “make a joke” (groan-inducing at best) and “statistical fact” (somewhat more useful, if you’re not worried about AI’s documented propensity to hallucinate). “Counterargument” can — well, you get the picture.
Do you write ad copy? White papers? Plain old emails — or dissertations? Lex, another tool, wants to know. Answer that you write op-eds, and it informs you that “with that type of writing, it can be hard to maintain objectivity while presenting a poignant argument, amidst the pressure of constant deadlines.” (Tell me about it.)
Or you can plug in what you’ve got so far and tell the tool to critique it. Dominic Tovar, an Ole Miss freshman pursuing an engineering degree, likes feeding text into the tool and having it tell him what needs fixing: This sentence is incoherent. This paragraph is too wordy. When things get really rough, he can always type “+++,” a command that prompts Lex to generate the next paragraph — but he thinks students should consider that degree of assistance a last resort.
Other services aim narrower.
Perplexity AI “unlocks the power of knowledge with information discovery and sharing.” This, it turns out, means “does research.” Type something into it, and it spits out a comprehensive answer, always sourced and sometimes bulleted. You might say this is just Google on steroids — but really, it is Google with a bibliography.
Caleb Jackson, a 22-year-old junior at Ole Miss studying part-time, is a fan. This way, he doesn’t have to spend hours between night shifts and online classes trawling the internet for sources. Perplexity can find them, and he can get to writing that much sooner.
Speaking of bibliographies, many students have found themselves filled with despair upon realizing they aren’t actually finished with a paper until they have compiled several pages of APA-style citations complete with annotations. No more! Now, a service called Sutori will handle the pesky copy-pasting and formatting for you.
ChatGPT is sort of in a class of its own, because it can be almost anything its users want it to be as long as they possess one essential skill: prompt engineering. This means, basically, manipulating the machine not only into giving you an answer but also into giving you the kind of answer you’re looking for.
“Write a five-paragraph essay on Virginia Woolf’s ‘To the Lighthouse.’” Too generic? Well, how about “Write a five-paragraph essay on the theme of loss in ‘To the Lighthouse’”? Too high-schoolish? “Add some bigger words, please.” The product might not be ready to turn in the moment it is born, fully formed, from ChatGPT’s head. But with enough tweaking — either by the student or by the machine at the student’s demand — chances are the output can muster at least a passing grade.
Larry Wilson, an Air Force veteran back in school at 43, says ChatGPT and image generators such as Dall-E even aid him in creative pursuits. He crafts comic strips and graphic novels. Sometimes, it’s “difficult getting things in your head out.” But with generative AI, he can explain his vision to a system, and it turns that vision into a tangible image or video. If he sketches out a character to the AI, it returns what he calls an “abundance” of actions, utterances and more that he can insert into the opus of the hour.
Which of these uses are okay? Which aren’t? The harnessing of an AI tool to create an annotated bibliography probably doesn’t rankle even librarians the way relying on that same tool to draft a reflection on Virginia Woolf offends the professor of the modern novel. Why? Because that kind of contemplation goes closer to the heart of what education is really about.
Here’s the bottom line: It’s likely impossible to catch kids using AI to cheat. The detection tools lauded at first as universities’ last bulwark against a horde of scribbling machines have fallen out of favor. They do a poor job identifying cheaters where they do exist — and yet somehow often seem to identify them where they don’t.
See, most notoriously, a professor at Texas A&M University at Commerce who threatened to fail his entire class after using ChatGPT to detect whether it had written their essays. Turns out, it didn’t work.
Or look at Vanderbilt University. The college, in announcing its disabling of one such tool, points out that detectors are more likely to flag material written by non-native English speakers. Its bulletin notes that other companies that pounced on the demand for detectors in the spring have given up. Anyway, none of them was ever able to explain how they could distinguish man from machine — perhaps because, when it came down to it, they couldn’t.
At the Ole Miss summer institute, faculty members see for themselves. “My mother is a fish,” one professor plugs into a service called Turnitin. This is the famous five-word chapter of “As I Lay Dying” by William Faulkner, son of Oxford, Miss. — an ingenious shift into the consciousness of a young boy. The result? Ninety-three percent AI generated. (Probably because the sentence is suspiciously simple, but it goes to show that these detection tools don’t yet appreciate modernism.)
Of course, if the machines can’t detect other machines, that doesn’t mean humans can’t try to. Unsurprisingly, there’s a bit of a “know it when you see it” phenomenon with AI-written work in classes taught by teachers who’ve seen hundreds if not thousands of papers by human students. The trouble for these teachers is figuring out how to react when they do believe they see it.
Sarah Campbell, presenting at the summer institute, described a student essay that appeared, as she put it, “written by an alien.” Or written in the year 1950. Or perhaps written in 1950 by an alien. She responded by asking the student to coffee, where she told the student that she had obviously let them down: “You didn’t know how desperate I am to hear your voice.”
This practically trademarkable Good Teaching Moment cuts to the core of the question colleges now face. They can’t really stop students from using AI in class. They might not be able to notice students have done so at all, and when they do think they’ve noticed, they’ll be acting only on suspicion. But maybe teachers can control the ways in which students use AI in class.
Figuring out exactly which ways those ought to be requires educators to determine what they care about in essays — what they are desperate to hear. The purpose of these papers is for students to demonstrate what they’ve learned, from hard facts to compositional know-how, and for teachers to assess how their pupils are progressing. The answer to what teachers want to get from students in their written work depends on what they want to give to students.
“AI is not meant to avoid opportunities to learn through structured assignments and activities.”
Billy_TParticipantThe Rams should put up over 30 points, and the Redskins shouldn’t score over 20. But, you know, football.
I don’t know, man. What is the Rams historical record against teams named after a military rank?
Tone deaf choice of replacement names from Washington ownership. Someone in that organization must have read Margaret Atwood’s Handmaid’s Tale, or have seen the Hulu adaptation.
Rams 30
Gilead 17
Billy_TParticipantI think we’re not too far away from AI being virtually undetectable. I’d give it 1-3 years, especially with all the money and corporate power behind it, racing for the crown. In five years, it will be the norm, a part of the woodwork. It’s a true threat to creatives, especially, and as a writer and artist, I’m worried. Actors/writers/directors feared it enough to go on strike.
Throw in the race for quantum computing, and we’re in for a true revolution/evolution that will bring some good, but, IMO, a lot of bad, primarily for the non-rich. Literally millions of jobs will be lost to AI. In short, this is looking more and more like a Gattaca/Metropolis scenario, but primarily virtual, rather than biological, though the latter will eventually break through as well.
AI is in its infancy. Too much profit out there for it to remain in that stage for long. If they can recreate a Hemingway short story right now, or make a short talk with Nietzsche possible, it won’t be long before students can input their own essay history, with grammar, style, and idiosyncrasies logged and processed, and then spin out whatever they want. But, again, it’s likely to start out along class lines, and go from there. Money will talk long before everyone can walk, etc.
Billy_TParticipantyou shouldn’t lose on a walk off punt return, but you can’t have delay of game penalty on your first possession in OT. BTW Any holding calls against the Raven’s OL today.? next week ..home game vs Commanders, Rams are in position of winning 4 of their last 5 games
Couldn’t they call holding on Donald pretty much every single snap he’s on the field?
It’s kinda ridiculous. I’m guessing he just gave up ( from 2014 on) trying to remind the refs that it’s not legal lasso him every down.
Billy_TParticipantIt was good to see the Rams “live.” Loved most of it, except, of course, for the ending. The Rams weren’t supposed to be in this game at all, and it’s a big old sign of progress that they were.
Hoecht surprised me, and played well overall. Puka, my favorite Ram at the moment, missed a key catch, but made up for it soon after. Kyren Williams, who’s 1B to Puka’s 1A, keeps getting better. I think if the Rams upgrade the line a bit, especially at center and LT, he’s a future All-Pro.
Jackson is just unworldly. The Rams had him sacked, time after time, but he played Houdini. Reminds me of Tarkenton, but with the added ability to take it to the house if he breaks free (4.3 speed out of college). Tarkenton was a scrambler, not a runner, per se. Jackson does both/and.
Davis Allen looks like a solid starter at TE, and came up big, but missed a key catch at the end. He’s not the fastest TE in the world, but has a freakish catch radius, and plays hard. Gotta gain some weight/strength. But he’s got a future with the Rams.
Basically, the Rams have the makings of a real contender next year, if they draft well, and sign some key free agents. I get to see them next week and the following Thursday, so I’m still psyched, as the young kids used to say in the 19th century.
Billy_TParticipantIt surprises me that the Deacon wasn’t at the top for most sacks per game, though he’s really close.
He did lead in several other categories:
Most 15+ sack seasons — all-time
Deacon Jones — 6Most 20+ sack seasons — all-time
Deacon Jones — 3Most times leading NFL in sacks in a season
Deacon Jones — 5
____Still my favorite Ram, evah.
Billy_TParticipantWilliams has no business being as good as he is. He tested pretty poorly, especially for his size, and while that’s never a guarantee of anything on Sundays, it should give you a rough guess at (relative) floors and ceilings.
He’s just one of those guys that plays way faster than he tested, and has somehow overcome his lack size, length, etc. Look at his 10-yard split, for instance, not just his 40. Not much explosion, either. Mediocre vert and broad. But he just keeps producing big time.
<caption>Pre-draft measurables</caption>
Height Weight Arm length Hand span 40-yard dash 10-yard split 20-yard split 20-yard shuttle Three-cone drill Vertical jump Broad jump 5 ft 9+1⁄4 in
(1.76 m)194 lb
(88 kg)28+5⁄8 in
(0.73 m)9 in
(0.23 m)4.65 s 1.57 s 2.69 s 4.33 s 7.07 s 32.0 in
(0.81 m)9 ft 8 in
(2.95 m)All values from NFL Combine/Pro Day<sup id=”cite_ref-13″ class=”reference”>[13]</sup><sup id=”cite_ref-14″ class=”reference”>[14]</sup> Billy_TParticipantWV,
You and I became Rams fans around the same time, in the 1966/67/68 range, if memory serves. Who did you see as our big nemesis back in the day?
Again, 1966 was my first year paying serious attention — George Allen’s first as coach — with the next season beginning my diehard years. I remember seeing Green Bay and the Colts as our biggest foes, plus the Vikings, and then the Cowboys. At first, I didn’t really care about the rivalry with the 9ers, because they didn’t really pose a threat. Vikings, Packers, Colts, and Cowboys did.
Right now, it’s the 9ers. Maybe Seattle. I’ll never like the Cowboys or the Vikings, though. Couldn’t stand the Rogers-led Packers, but with him gone, I kinda don’t care about them anymore.
___
1967 Rams
NFL Coastal
W L T PCT DIV CONF PF PA STK
Los Angeles Rams 11 1 2 .917 4–1–1 8–1–1 398 196 W8
Baltimore Colts 11 1 2 .917 4–1–1 7–1–2 394 198 L1
San Francisco 49ers 7 7 0 .500 3–3 4–6 273 337 W2
Atlanta Falcons 1 12 1 .077 0–6 1–9 175 422 L7Note: Tie games were not officially counted in the standings until 1972.
Billy_TParticipantWell…..I loved Brian Piccolo. And i wish you would love him too.
I love Piccolo too. It was horrible watching him get gunned down in his car by a competing Mafia family…
That was almost as tough as watching him recite Poe(try).
Billy_TParticipantInteresting take, ZN. And thanks for rescuing my post from purgatory. The software doesn’t seem to like replies using the quote button, if the original includes pics or links.
Anyway, you’re right about costs of seeing games at Sports Bars. I tip well too, having worked too many years as bartender and waiter back in the day, plus a stint as a bouncer in my youth centuries ago. I can’t help myself. I likely over-tip. So, yeah, it’s gonna cost 20-30 bucks or more, even going for “cheap eats.” But I almost always got Sunday Ticket for free, so that trade off didn’t really apply. I may return to it next year. We’ll see.
As far as paying attention to running backs on other teams: That habit started early for me. I don’t know why it all came together in 4th grade, but I chose my favorite sports teams that year: Rams, Lakers, SF Giants, and stuck with them. For colleges, I initially rooted for Notre Dame, but switched to my first Alma Mater, Maryland, when college loomed larger for me. But early on, I wanted to be a running back, so I watched all the best, focusing especially on their ability to juke and outrun the opposition. As a kid, I never saw myself as one day being big enough to run through them, so speed and agility and following blockers were focal points.
When it comes to following blockers, I think Edgerrin James tops the list. Though greats like Faulk and Sanders were excellent at that, too. But I think their main talents extended beyond their blockers, as maestros of the open field. James wasn’t as good there, but he did have speed to go the distance once he found that crease.
I would love to see the Rams find another great back or two. In my old age, my preference is for a Mr. Inside/Outside combo. A Bettis/Czonka/Riggins/Okoye paired with a Sanders/Faulk/Sayers/X scatback, etc.
As already discussed, sometimes you get both in the same guy. Jim Brown, Dickerson, Gurley, Bo and Steven Jackson (sans those ankle tackles). But that’s exceedingly rare. So I’m kewl with two.
Billy_TParticipantAlso, if we can go beyond the Rams for the best running backs we’ve ever seen . . . Gale Sayers was the first back that just stunned me as a fan of the game, and made me want to be a running back “when I grow up.”
.Well…..I loved Brian Piccolo. And i wish you would love him too.
____
Good pic of Pardee and Piccolo. But I don’t like the title. I don’t think “Watermark” captures the essence of the struggle for dominance . . . .
;>)
Off the top of my head, without checking online, the first trio of Rams linebackers I remember seeing: Maxie Baughan, Jack Pardee, and Myron Pottios (no spellcheck yet, either). That was a strong group, but it was the Fearsome Foursome that drew me to the Rams.
Much later in life, I got a call for tech support from Eddie Meador, one of the originals for me at DB. Also spoke with the inspiration for Good Morning, Vietnam! Adrian Cronauer. He was pretty cool. Very self-deprecating. As far as I know, he never played for the Rams.
Billy_TParticipantAlso, if we can go beyond the Rams for the best running backs we’ve ever seen . . . Gale Sayers was the first back that just stunned me as a fan of the game, and made me want to be a running back “when I grow up.” Good size for his day, legit track speed, and impossible zig-zag moves that just defied the laws of physics. He didn’t just break ankles. He broke team spirits. I liked Leroy Kelly, too, though I wish I could have seen his predecessor with the Browns, Jim Brown. Missed him by a year or so. A bit later, there was John Riggins. Grew up in the DC area and he was a lot of fun to watch on and off the field. Quite the character in those days.
Anyway, back to the Rams: I think I have to put Dickerson at the top of the heap. Faulk next. Then Bettis, Jackson, Gurley, and McCutcheon. A healthy Gurley, however, rises to #2 for me. But he wasn’t healthy long enough. Honorable mention goes to Elvis Peacock, Cullen Bryant, and Madison Hedgehog. Cuz, well, names matter.
Billy_TParticipantCant quibble with any of that. Though If i were to quibble, I’m not sure I’d have W.Tyler that high on the list. But I’m older than BT, and i saw John Cappelletti, and he brought great blocking and instincts and leadership. Plus, I saw the indomitable Les Josephson.
w v
WV, I might be wrong, but I think you may be mixing my comment in with ZN’s list, which is a good one. That quote from moi ended with “He wasn’t as powerful as Jackson, but he was faster, and less likely to be tripped up.” That was about Gurley. ZN takes it from there . . .
Anyway . . .
I became a Rams’ fan, starting with the 1966/67 season. Went full diehard that next year, 1967/68. My earliest memories of Ram backs include Dick Bass, Josephson, Willie Ellison, Larry Smith, and Cappelletti too. Bass was a bit past his prime by then, but he was still good. Josephson was a favorite of mine as well, but he got banged up too soon to make his mark long-term. Same thing happened to Ellison and Smith. Ellison had rare speed for a back in those days, decent size, and I remember choosing him for Stratomatic Football. He helped me win more than a few games against family.
:>)
Also, if memory serves, we’re about the same age, but not sure about that, either.
Billy_TParticipantI wonder if the Rams ever tried to get him to adjust. He played most of his career before the NFL really took advantage of new tech, analytics,
Interesting discussion. When Stephen Davis was a Ram in 2006 after a long career playing in both Washington and Carolina, he openly talked about trying to teach SJ how to run lower, under his pads. Jackson did that for a bit in 2006 (one of his best years–in the last 6 games of that season, he had 151 carries for 725 yards and 8 TDs). But then Davis was gone after 2006 (and the OL fell apart due to injuries). After that Jackson never seemed to re-acquire the art of running lower and more under his pads. He remained the upright runner we all remember. Plus unlike practically every back the Rams have now, SJ did not have superior contact balance. It wasn’t bad, it just wasn’t superior. That seems to be the common trait of every current Rams RB, from Wms to Henderson and so on. Not elusiveness, not power, not speed–contact balance.
Did not know that, ZN. Davis was good too, and his advice sounds spot on. Who knows how much more effective Jackson may have been if he had heeded that advice long-term . . . but I suspect it would have been significant.
Seems logical that taller backs are especially prone to contact balance issues, especially if they don’t run lower, lean in, etc. Physics would seem to favor shorter backs when it comes to that . . .
Rams generally show a preference for shorter backs, in the 5’8″ range. But Gurley was kind of in the “sweet spot” for them. A tad over 6′, 220, with legit track-speed. Until he got all banged up, I remember his “contact balance” being pretty damn good. He wasn’t as powerful as Jackson, but he was faster, and less likely to be tripped up.
Billy_TParticipantAgree about Jackson and Manning. Always thought the latter was one of the most talented QBs ever. The Saints were just pathetic in those days. On a better team, he likely wins all kinds of championships. Barry Sanders too.
Jackson was a size/speed/power freak. Though he did have an Achilles’ heel, down around his Achilles’ heel. He seemed to get tripped up a lot via last ditch ankle tackles. It was kinda weird to watch, really. Someone that big, fast, and powerful, going down cuz of a last gasp/grasp effort.
I wonder if the Rams ever tried to get him to adjust. He played most of his career before the NFL really took advantage of new tech, analytics, Next Gen stats, etc. But they had film, obviously.
Jackson also makes me think of more What Ifs. What if Dickerson had spent as much time building up his body as Jackson? He was slightly taller at 6’3″, and had the frame to carry another 20 pounds or so. And while Dickerson did run hard, and wasn’t afraid to run through guys, he didn’t seem to like weight-training all that much. He kinda went with what he already had, sans special training. He needed an Aaron Donald on his team as an example.
Billy_TParticipantBTW, has anyone ever done any studies per position? Just eye-balling it, wide-receivers seem to hit their heads on the turf any time they extend themselves for a catch. Oftentimes, on regular catches too. Running backs probably take the most initial shots to the head. And linemen knock heads play after play. So, just not sure. DBs probably tackle head first more than any other spot on the team, etc. Anyway, they pretty much all end up making contact with the ground (and each other) in bad ways. I wish there were a way to solve this, without bubble-wrapping the game . . .
And it’s knees and soft tissue getting roughed up just from playing on that surface, ie. planting on it and exerting…it’s basically playing on concrete.
Agreed. Horrible on the knees, ankles, and everywhere you mentioned. Shoulders, etc. Everything.
Wasn’t OBJ’s injury in the Super Bowl turf-dependent? If memory serves, it likely wouldn’t have happened on grass.
Billy_TParticipantWentz: “…”And so I just didn’t feel like God had closed that door, so I’ve been kind of just patiently waiting and staying ready…” I was always told, when God closes one door….you should listen to your handlers, and market yourself as a new-improved, team-player. w v
Good one, WV.
I think sometimes it’s legit, though. Of course, we’re on the outside looking in, so we don’t really know.
Ramsey, for instance, was considered a bit of a coach-killer and poor locker-room guy before the Rams traded for him. From publicly available reports, he became a great locker-room presence, a real team-leader, and as important off the field as on it.
OBJ was kinda in that range too.
Billy_TParticipantBTW, has anyone ever done any studies per position? Just eye-balling it, wide-receivers seem to hit their heads on the turf any time they extend themselves for a catch. Oftentimes, on regular catches too. Running backs probably take the most initial shots to the head. And linemen knock heads play after play. So, just not sure. DBs probably tackle head first more than any other spot on the team, etc.
Anyway, they pretty much all end up making contact with the ground (and each other) in bad ways. I wish there were a way to solve this, without bubble-wrapping the game . . .
Billy_TParticipantTo me, it’s close to a life or death thing. Keep the turf, kill the players. Yeah, it’s over time. It’s not immediate. But ball-carriers, especially, take two hits at least: from other players and then the turf. I cringe each time I see them hit the concrete.
Grass should be mandatory across the league, on every field. No exceptions.
Billy_TParticipantOh, and am I all alone in despising the 17 game schedule?
Professional football, as we know it, ceased to exist when John Facenda died. Anybody who lives to be 50-years old automatically joins the Get Off My Lawn (GOML) club. There should be 14 games, grass stains, and mud. The Colts, Browns, and Steelers should be in the NFC, and at least a dozen QBs should be wearing ankle boots. The Falcons helmet should be red, the Cardinals should be in the NFC East, and Howard Cosell should narrate the only highlights anyone can ever watch. Also, the Vikings should be obliterated.
Well, I agree with pretty much all of that. Facenda was amazing. He made the game seem beyond important. Sundays were holy for an entirely new reason when you heard his narrations. I also think Pat Summerall and Frank Gifford (before he joined MNF) had that same ability to make the game essential, necessary. Which leads to another pet peeve. I really dislike the NFL Network’s morning show. They want everything to be a joke, basically, and they obviously drink too much coffee. They play silly games about a deadly serious game, countering the Facenda, Summerall, Gifford School of Hard Knocks.
Of course, one could argue that silly games about a game might sync up better than arch seriousness about a game . . . but I don’t want to think that way, and I’m too old to change at this point.
The NFL should mandate real grass fields, play on Sundays only, have just 14 games, realign the divisions to make sense geographically, and stop all the ticky-tacky calls. Let the players play. But I do rejoin “modernity” when it comes to their health. I actually don’t want them to be “old school” in the sense that they get to spear each other to death. I’m against the use of the helmet as a weapon, regardless of when and where, etc.
Anyway, as a charter member of the GOML club, I fully approve your post.
Billy_TParticipantI think the Rams will take at least three of those games: Cards, Commanders, and Giants. They might surprise the Niners, or Saints, or the Browns. Perhaps the Seahawks too. Maybe four. But I’d say at least three more wins.
Agree with Invader about hoping to see a lot more development from the rooks. McVay needs to play ’em. Might as well open the floodgates and start anyone with any chance to stick, and sit the players they don’t plan to keep. See what they have for 2024.
Oh, and am I all alone in despising the 17 game schedule? I can deal with 16, but would rather have 14. But there’s something about an odd number of games (9/8, away/home) that really burns me. It ranks up there with truly obnoxious things like shaky cams and shrinkflation. On the latter, I wish corporations would just get it over with. If they want us to believe we’re buying a half gallon of ice cream, in a much smaller container, just go for it. Make it a pint and call it a half gallon. People are likely too exhausted to care these days. Or, they’ll march on Washington. Either way, stop the slow gaslighting, please!
Billy_TParticipantField Yates@FieldYatesCarson Wentz’s 1-year deal with the Rams includes a $150,000 signing bonus and the prorated amount of a $1.165M base salary. He’s due $732,500 for the remainder of this season as the Rams’ new back-up QB.That sounds like a pretty good deal for the Rams. Good use of the cap too.
Any word on a potential for a comp pick, if they lose him to free agency this off-season? I need more coffee if I’m gonna force my weary mind to remember the rules. Something something Veterans something something Years Played something something. If memory serves, they didn’t get anything for Miller, Mayfield, or Wagner cuz of their veteran status, but I may be wrong.
Anyway, that’s a side issue. To me, it’s a good pickup, regardless.
Billy_TParticipantI like the signing.
Wentz is an up and mostly down starting QB. One could call him “failed,” but I think most of that is due to when he was drafted, not relative to every other starter in the league.
The Rams tend to go with up and down backups for their backups (at least in recent years), with the exception of Baker Mayfield.
I think the Rams are going to have to keep at least two starting QBs on the roster at all times. If it’s not Wentz, it should be someone else who can play and win on Sundays, not just a temp for Stafford.
I also like the idea of keeping younger starting caliber backups on the roster, giving them a chance to shine, and trading them if offers are too good to refuse. That can be a shortcut to routinely maximizing the next draft, etc.
Billy_TParticipantOff the top of me head: Von Miller was 33 when the Rams traded for him. Freakish athlete who played up to his athleticism and beyond. Game changer, to say the least. Chase Young? Bigger, better athlete than Miller, but injuries have suppressed his career. His upside is greater than Miller’s, even if we don’t include his age (24). I hate to say it, but the 49ers got a very likely “steal” of major proportions. A healthy Young, matched up with Bosa? Sheesh.
Seattle got better, too, with Leonard Williams.
Rams can’t rely on superior coaching — which I think they have. They just can’t compete athletically via so many late rounders and UDFAs. They’re gonna have to find another way.
Billy_TParticipantDefense truly needs to get bigger and stronger at the nose and DT opposite Donald.
Turner was playing nose a large percentage of the time. He was replacing Brown III, who’s on IR. from
At 324 pounds, Bobby Brown III was the only defensive lineman over 300 pounds to start the season and in Sunday’s loss to the Philadelphia Eagles, their starting nose tackle went down with a knee injury. Brown is expected to miss 5-7 weeks with an MCL sprain, leaving the Rams without their space-eating defensive lineman.
Brown also has the frame to carry even more than 324, it appears. But, yeah, they miss him. I think teams need to have diversity of size and skill sets, and complement key players that way. To me, any team with an AD needs hogmollies at the nose and the other side to protect him, etc. And there should at least be big ol’ tree stump backups who can come in on short yardage and goal line situations to stuff the run. Small, quick, penetrating DTs lose most of their advantages when things are tight.
That would be my philosophy across the board, too. Running backs, big, small, fast, powerful, inside, outside, etc. Defensive backs to handle the speedsters/quicksters, and the monsters. Cuz, it’s pretty rare that you find players who can do it all. Offensive line, same thing. Everywhere, on both sides of the ball.
In general, I think the Rams lack that kind of diversity, and stick with their “types” instead. Exceptions, of course. I also wish they could bring in a seriously good running QB for goal line and short yardage too. Wanted the Rams to draft Dorian Thompson-Robinson for that option, and more . . . .
Just my two cents, etc.
Billy_TParticipantNittany,
Sorry to hear about your father. That’s gotta be tough to deal with. Heart-breaking, really.
As for the media, not saying anything new: but . . . the American MSM has always been center-right, and it’s controlled by conservative multinationals and conservative billionaires. It’s never, ever been remotely “liberal,” and it avoids leftists like the plague. Whenever I hear or read right-wingers whining ab0ut its supposed (completely non-existent) “bias” toward them, it brings to mind a vision of something that must have happened from time to time in the past:
Scientists, philosophers, and ship captains, shaking their heads at the “authorities” who tell them the earth is flat.
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