Losing a QB and linemen during the season is a very common tale.

Those are specific examples on teams that salvaged seasons when Fisher never had the ability to do so. Those examples are off the top of my head, I’m sure there’s many more….

Like you said this predates Fisher, so what did he do??? Draft Tavon, sign Courtland Finnegan. Sure he drafted talent, but did he do with it? LOSE

Even Fisher’ strengths of Defense and Special teams are vastly improved without Fisher, and this is with an entirely different scheme on defense and without using Tavon as a punt decoy gimmick and going with Pharoah

McVay fixed the problems in 1 year, but MORE IMPORTANTLY McVay created a culture that is disciplined and in position to make plays to tackle to block to execute and catch. McVay’s team looks like a team that actually practices. Fisher’s looked liked a team from the Longest Yard movie

I’m tired of people defending Fisher for his lack of ability to create a winning culture. He’s not capable.

Merry Christmas everyone.

You folks make this a special place…

if Bradford doesn’t get hurt in Carolina in 2013 and stays healthy, I think the Rams make the playoffs that season and Fisher is still with the Rams today. Up to that point, Bradford threw 14 TDs with only 4 picks in 2013……

In regards to coaching Cleveland, I’d take a healthy Marty S. any day of the week over Fisher. Sure Marty has had bad luck in the playoffs, but you have to win in the regular season to get to the playoffs. Fisher can’t do it when facing adversity.

Other than special team gimmicks, Fisher has never shown to have a plan B when things go south…

Maybe the reason why MCVay went for it on 4th down when Goff got picked

BTW Jeff Wilkins is only 45…. same age as Viniteri…

Give Wilkins a call. We don’t need some guy named Fuck in German deciding a playoff game

Jimmy G’s coach compares him to Marc Bulger….

http://www.knbr.com/2017/12/15/those-close-to-garoppolo-are-making-comparisons-to-some-surprising-past-quarterbacks/

Jimmy Garoppolo’s leap upon the NFL stage has been so spectacular, he’s drawn comparisons to great quarterbacks of the past, including former teammate Tom Brady. Some have even gone so far as to mention Joe Montana.
However those close to him have compared Garoppolo to some quarterbacks no one would suspect. Coach Kyle Shanahan told a Fox television crew before the 49ers played the Texans that Garoppolo reminded him of Marc Bulger.
Even though Bulger kept the “Greatest Show of Turf” going for the St. Louis Rams after Kurt Warner’s departure, not many fans remember Bulger as a fantastic quarterback. Yet in Bulger’s nine years with the Rams, he kept the team competitive (2001-9).
What Shanahan said was that Bulger’s ability to throw with a quick-twitch upper body reminded him of Garoppolo. Garoppolo can also stand in the pocket and release the ball fast without a firm base with his feet.
Meanwhile, 49ers’ radio game analyst Tim Ryan likens Garoppolo’s ability to shield himself from big hits to Warner.

“He throws off the foot, and dips his head right out and goes with the hit rather than getting smashed in the grill,” Ryan told Murph and Mac on Monday morning. That technique reminded him of Warner.
“What made (Warner) who he is and why he’s in the Hall of Fame, he would hang back there knowing he was getting to get tattooed waiting for Torry Holt or Isaac Bruce to run that 16-yard dig, or 16-yard in-cut. He would repeatedly deliver it on time on the money off his back foot and get smashed, and he always got up.”
He sees Garoppolo using the same move.
“(Garoppolo) throws off the foot, and dips his head right out and goes with the hit rather than getting smashed in the grill.”

The best of Bulger and the best of Warner would make any quarterback envious. To have a quick-twitch ability and the courage to stand in and make the throw and cover up are tremendous qualities and one reason Garoppolo has thrown for more yards than any other 49ers’ quarterback in his first two starts.

The DL and Donald are bad ass….

it’s the little things that Donald and the DL have done that have had a huge impact, including what I thought was the turning point defensive stop of the game yesterday….

it 13 – 0 Early in 2nd qtr, Rams offense are facing a 4th and very short on the Seattle 20 something…. Rams go for it and call a stupid roll out to the right where Goff is picked on a tipped pass…..

Seattle crowd is going beserk, commercial break is playing Alice in Chains, the tide seems to be taking a turn.

Seahawks take over and run a delayed counter… Donald make the stop, no gain.
2nd down, Seattle guard Ifedi flinches fearing the Rams DL, false start
2nd and 15, Wilson pressured, misses his target.
3rd and 15, Wilson is pressured again from his own endzone, throws into double coverage, incomplete….. forces punt.

Pharoh fields the punt and puts the Rams back in great field position.

5 plays later, the Rams lead 20 – 0.

I think right about there, Dandy Don started to sing….. “Turn out the lights”

that Seattle fan post reminds me of the Mike Franke posts…….

Joe Buck and Aikman can’t top that.

That was great……

Correct, Goff is cool.

I’m not blaming Goff on the fumble… strips happen. Sometimes you get the tuck rule sometimes you don’t… good play by Howie’s son…. that ball was loose for a long time before being pick up. It was like in slo motion as it happened…it was fucked

I think the Rams dominate this Sunday….the Rams are a very good team….at this point with Seattle’s injuries..the Rams are the better team

The last time that the Rams were sniffing the playoffs in Seattle….Charlie Fucking Whitehurst….

Let’s only hope that McVay is not the Steve Spagnulo

URL = http://www.nflrush.com/news/2010-week-17-recap-rams-vs-seahawks

Seahawks Soar Into Playoffs over Rams 16-6
Seahawks QB Charlie Whitehurst found WR Mike Williams in the end zone in the first quarter for the game’s only TD. The Seahawks defense took over after that holding the Rams to just two field goals for the game. Rams RB Steven Jackson ran just 11 times for 45 yards while adding 39 yards receiving and QB Sam Bradford passed for only 155 yards and an interception. The Seahawks are the champions of the NFC West.

Wentz played a great. He was getting creamed yet still made plays. I’m surprised he lasted that long in that game.

Refs had some bullshit calls.

Chris Long’s strip sack was huge, but losing Wentz is a problem for Philadelphia

Eli has sucked lately, but Geno Smith has sucked worse……….. i think that’s part of the issue ……NYG is benching Eli for Geno Smith…..

When Warner was benched in NY, it was understood he was being benched for the future…

Old AZ article from 2009 when Warner was getting ready to play Pittsburgh in the SB……

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2009/01/leitch_how_tom_coughlin_was_wr.html

Leitch: How Tom Coughlin Was Wrong, and Right, About Kurt Warner

By Will Leitch
On November 14, 2004, the general consensus was that the Arizona Cardinals had ended Kurt Warner’s career as a starting NFL quarterback. Warner was playing for the Giants then, and the Cardinals sacked him six times en route to a 17–14 victory at the old Sun Devil Stadium in Tempe. It was the second loss in a row for Tom Coughlin’s team, dropping them to 5–4. They would lose their next six, but Warner couldn’t be blamed for that. Coughlin benched him for rookie Eli Manning right after the game.

As the week’s worth of hype begins for Sunday’s Super Bowl XLIII between the Pittsburgh Steelers and Warner’s Arizona Cardinals, it’s worth remembering Warner’s brief time with the Giants. After being pushed aside in St. Louis for Marc Bulger, Warner came to the Giants ostensibly as a placeholder for Manning, but that Giants team had hopes of its own, buoyed by a 5–2 start. He didn’t actually play that poorly in New York — he had far superior stats that season to Manning — but the perception was that he was over his head in the big city, and his time had passed. And that Manning needed to start playing immediately to prepare for his role as the Future of the Franchise. Warner was upset at the time, but, as is his wont, handled it with aplomb. Manning told the Arizona Republic this year, “I think he understood what was going on but he was very helpful to me. Because of the way he acted it made it easier on me.”

A month after Warner was benched by the Giants, Michael Lewis described Coughlin’s thinking in his famous New York Times Magazine cover story on Eli Manning:

Anyone who watched the game on TV might well have come to the same conclusion: these fellows on the Giants line appeared to be perfectly incompetent. Poor Warner was doing all he could. But Coughlin wasn’t sure. He went into the office in the wee hours of the morning and studied the game tapes … Coughlin had timed every pass play — all 37 of them — and discovered that 30 times Warner held the ball for 3.8 seconds or more. (Depending on how many steps the quarterback drops back to pass, 1.2 to 3 seconds is considered the norm.) Often Giants receivers were open and Warner wasn’t seeing them. The quarterback was more to blame for the sacks than the people assigned to protect him. And one thing Coughlin had noticed in practice about Eli Manning was that, unlike most rookie quarterbacks, he made decisions quickly and got the ball away before the defense could kill him.

By the end of the season it was clear: Eli Manning was the future, and Kurt Warner was toast. The Cardinals signed Warner as a stopgap, only to bench him for rookie Matt Leinart before the 2006 season was over. But Eli was struggling in East Rutherford, too. It looked like Coughlin’s benching of Warner had worked out terribly for both parties. As it turns out, it was the best thing that could have happened for everybody.

Whatever your thoughts about Manning’s playoff performance against the Eagles, he is a Super Bowl MVP and is about to be one of the highest-paid players in the game. And after Warner went to Arizona, Leinart eventually imploded in a keg-party haze, and Warner found himself in charge of one of the most explosive offenses in football, playing in conditions perfect for his talents. In New York, Warner was washed up. Now he’s looking like a lock for the Hall of Fame.

Coughlin might have been right about Eli, but it’s far from certain he was right about Warner. One of the keys to Warner’s success with the Cardinals has been how quickly he’s able to get rid of the ball. (Cardinals coach Ken Whisenhunt, when he named Warner in the preseason, said this was one of the main reasons he went with him over Leinart.) The Cardinals’ offensive line is competent, but inferior to the Giants’. The reason Warner threw for 4,583 yards and 30 touchdowns this season — more TDs than any Giants quarterback has thrown for in 45 years — is because he delivers the ball to the Cardinals’ outstanding receiver core of Larry Fitzgerald, Anquan Boldin, and Steve Breaston before the pass rush can meet him. If Coughlin was concerned about Warner missing open receivers back in 2004, that hasn’t been a problem this year. (This also might have a lot to do with offensive coordinator Matt Todd Haley’s schemes, which are more unpredictable and route-oriented than the Giants’ were in 2004.)

It’s difficult to blame Coughlin too much, though. Even in an offensive scheme more suited to his talents, it’s unlikely that Warner would have had the same success in East Rutherford. Warner’s best seasons have come in warm weather and domes, and if you saw him struggle in Philadelphia and New England late in the season, you know even the slightest change in conditions can derail his whole game. In the playoffs, the Cardinals played two games in their home dome and one in the relative warmth of Charlotte. That wouldn’t have been the case in New York.

And Warner is as bizarre a historic anomaly as you’ll find in sports. He’s probably going to the Hall of Fame even though he’s had only three years in which he started more than twelve games. With any team that wasn’t perfectly suited to his talents, he collapsed. He’s basically the sports equivalent of Naughty by Nature having two separate one-hit wonders, “O.P.P” in 1991 and “Hip Hop Hooray”in 1996, and then never doing anything else of note. But just as Naughty by Nature gets to keep those gold records, Warner gets to keep the Super Bowl ring. And if the Cardinals can win Sunday, one Tom Coughlin benching on a hot day in the desert back in 2004 may have laid the path for two separate Super Bowl champions. No one involved would have it any other way

i have this on the Rams / Saints media thread

more chatter on moving Philly / LA to SNF……….

URL = http://www.latimes.com/sports/la-sp-rams-saints-farmer-20171126-story.html

Rams show they are ready for prime time with impressive victory over the Saints

The Rams aren’t just a headache for opponents anymore. They’ve become a problem — albeit the good kind — for the NFL.

In a season filled with hand wringing over sagging TV ratings, these upstart Rams have barged onto center stage and commanded the spotlight.

They posted a 26-20 victory over New Orleans in front of a national audience Sunday, knocking off a team that had won eight in a row in a game that wasn’t as close as the score suggests.

The issue for the NFL is how to reshuffle the lineup to give the Rams maximum exposure, while keeping the networks as happy as possible. More on this in a moment.

This much is clear: The Rams are a real contender, not some two-dimensional Hollywood set. They were 3-1 in the first quarter of the season, 3-1 in the second and will go 3-1 in the third if they win at Arizona next Sunday.

After each of their three losses this season, the Rams have bounced back with a win. They lost to Washington, then won at San Francisco four days later. They lost to Seattle, then rebounded with a win at Jacksonville. They were humbled at Minnesota, then came back strong against the Saints.

Just another check in Sean McVay’s column when it comes to picking a coach of the year.

“I don’t know how you could keep him out of the conversation,” Rams owner Stan Kroenke said after Sunday’s win. “[Philadelphia’s Doug Pederson] has done a great job, but they did better than we did last year.”

The 2016 Rams were unwatchable, an offensive Chernobyl and a defense that finally wore down after trying to carry the load week after week. These Rams have whipped a startling U-turn, with the best comparison being the out-of-nowhere “Greatest Show on Turf” St. Louis Rams, who went on to win the Super Bowl after finishing 4-12 the season before.

Putting Rams and Super Bowl in the same sentence is crazy at this point. Philadelphia is the hottest team in the league, and the Vikings just posted a convincing victory over the Rams. But there’s no denying the standards have changed in the Los Angeles locker room.

The Rams weren’t delirious or even giddy after beating the Saints, which was by far the biggest win since the NFL returned to Los Angeles. It’s almost a non-issue that the franchise is now guaranteed its first non-losing season since 2006. Asked if that means anything to him, quarterback Jared Goff said: “No. We’ve got however many more left to make our goal and win the division and make the playoffs.”

Simple math says the Rams need to get to 11 wins to safely ensure themselves of a spot in the postseason. They’ve got games at Arizona and at home against San Francisco that they absolutely should win. If they were to take care of business against those teams, they would need to beat Philadelphia, Seattle or Tennessee to get to 11.

Now for the network politicking. The NFL is strongly considering flexing the Eagles-Rams in the Dec. 10 Sunday night slot currently occupied by Baltimore-Pittsburgh. That decision will be made early this week, and two big factors will come into play: One, how did Saints-Rams do in the ratings? And two, will 5-5 Baltimore stay relevant by beating Houston on Monday night?

At the end of the first month of the season, Fox and CBS are allowed to protect five of their remaining games from being flexed. Fox did not protect Eagles-Rams — who could have guessed it would be so compelling? — but now is fighting hard to retroactively protect it and make it their national showcase game.

Eagles-Rams is not the only game being considered as a flex candidate for that week, if Ravens-Steelers turns out to be something less than must-see TV. The league is also mulling moving Minnesota at Carolina into the Sunday night slot and keeping Eagles-Rams as the afternoon national game.

If the Rams don’t get a Sunday night game in two weeks, they’re also a flex consideration the next Sunday when they play at Seattle. The night game now slated for that Sunday is Dallas at Oakland, and both of those teams have losing records.

As for the Rams, they aren’t shrinking from the spotlight. They were unquestionably ready for their close-up Sunday.

“We want that respect,” linebacker Mark Barron said. “We want people to see what kind of team we are. Hopefully, everybody got to see today.”

Rams favored by 2.5

Over under = 53.5

thus the final score:

Rams 28

Saints 25.5

Too bad… Woods has been great

Time for Tavon to earn his $42M