A very Happy Birthday!

Hopefully, all these off-season birthday wishes come true!

If we have Foles, Bradford and Hill… I’d be damned happy.

By delaying the interviewing process, they can put Chud in the position of having to choose between the Rams and the Colts and maybe the 9ers. Which is FAR different than the 5-6 jobs he was likely up for.

It’s entirely possible that with added responsibilities, the Colts like their chances to keep him if they delay the interviewing process.

They surely didn’t want to let him hit the open market at the height of “buying season”.

Whether it works or not, we’ll soon see.

It should be longer since the Pats should have been banned from the SB for cheating, but /sigh..whatever.

Happy Birthday!

And you got cake! Excellent! I’ll take a slice with not too much icing.

Nothing but the best in this next year!

• This reply was modified 9 years, 10 months ago by Mackeyser.

Their only shot is to go after Sherman if he can’t heal up in time…

Well, I truly believe that Bryant is going to be a freaking ANIMAL. He was just given a redshirt year. Jones would have done well this year, but Fisher won’t stop playing Wells. I can’t begin to understand why. He’s already the worst. I’d have to see worse than worst for myself to give Wells any props…

The Rams really like what they saw from Rhaney and thus the competition for the OL may be pretty damn intense with Jones being healthy and Rhaney ready to compete and new and likely at least one high draft pick coming in to compete for a spot.

I swear, though, if Scott Wells is the starting center on day one… Fisher’s “preference” for Vets will have become a fetish…

Well, the “nice and legal” will be easy.

They’ll soften the requirements on what the Rams had to do to stay. That definition isn’t fully articulated based on empirical data or numbers, so there’s room for fudgery. And fudgery there will be.

They can also just defer. As in Kroenke’s Cross-ownership issues. Now, if the Denver Broncos would just sell to Kroenke, all his problems would go away and Kroenke outright ASKED to buy them.

So, he’s not exactly a loyal Rams owner… The Bowlen family refused. I dunno if they’re keeping it in the family or will try to sell at a later time.

However, if the Broncos come up for sale, you can bet the other owners will put Kroenke at the head of the line to take Denver… because that allows the NFL to control who owns the St. Louis Rams AND take back control of what happens in LA.

Short of that, it’s Fudgery and delay for legality.

That or they can revisit the Cross ownership rules. Frankly, the idea that allegiance to a city is a real thing in 2015 over allegiance to one’s purchased team is asinine.

If I own the Tampa Bay Rays AND I own the St. Louis Rams (one can dream), I’m not in the least compromised when the Tampa Buccaneers play the St. Louis Rams. I own the Rams and I have business interests in both cities.

How often do you see the Yankees and football Giants doing functions together? Never? ’bout right… It’s a total non-issue.

So, another way to go is to simply eliminate the Cross-ownership rules altogether. That would eliminate a HUGE headache for them and open up the pool of owners to some they might LIKE to be owners, but can’t due to the current rules…

Without an OL? I dunno…

Okay… the San Diego thing is about the only thing that really gets me going.

It’s bullshit. I mean really, REALLY bullshit. Anyone who’s ever LIVED in SoCal knows almost NO ONE will regularly drive down to San Diego from LA. Moreover, the LA Metroplex extends as far north as Ventura County. That’s a FIVE HOUR drive to San Diego…without traffic.

Now, imagine some corporate type from Pacific Palisades buys a corporate box for the Los Angeles Chargers of Anaheim… This drive is just disgusting. It’s all on the Fuck-You-Five…er…Four-Oh-Five Freeway which Heaven forbid one drop of rain falls or someone gets a flat or there’s one fender bender… it turns a 3 hour drive into… who knows? 4 hours? 5? You can’t tell. And I know if you google map it, it says 50 minutes (I call BS)…and you can take the 10 to the 5 (not if you want to see the game) or maybe the 105 (used to be good, but it’s pretty jammed), but on the weekends, the freeways are just a damned MESS. Any other Angelenos can surely validate this. Pacific Palisades to Anaheim is at the very least a 2 hour drive from door to door unless you get REALLY lucky. We used to have passes to Disney and from Disney to our house in Culver City 30 minutes from Pacific Palisades… it would take us over an hour to get home and that would be after 1am when there was very little traffic and we’d be just breezing. So an ideal 2 hours sounds about right based on my actual driving knowledge. Throw in LA traffic? yeah… it’s extra hours. Easy peasy.

The money enclaves in SoCal are just too spread out. Malibu may be 30 minutes from Pacific Palisades… on a good day…, but if it rains (not a problem lately, but can’t be a drought forever)… I went to school in the Santa Monica/Malibu school district. Kids who lived in Malibu would STAY with friends in Santa Monica rather than try to get home because the commute could take HOURS. This is for a drive that at 2am on a Tuesday would take… maybe 20 minutes. All because the entire access is governed by a sometimes 4 lane, later 2 lane highway that if a rockslide comes… you have to drive 45 miles around into the very heart of valley traffic on the 101 freeway…another of the busiest freeways in the country…

So, the very notion that Angelenos from Ventura, San Fernando and San Gabriel Valleys, the West Side all the way to Downtown… are going to drive to Anaheim or farther south (because any farther north and you lose the San Diego market and any farther south and you haven’t gone north enough) is just fucknuts crazy. It’s belligerently stupid.

The Rams tried that in Anaheim and it FAILED MISERABLY. Even when the Rams were winning, NO ONE wanted to drive to fucking Anaheim. It’s a shit drive. Why can’t the NFL assholes get that. You do it to go to Disneyland because you’re going to be there all day. You don’t do it for a football game unless you’re going to do the full on tailgate and MOST Angelenos did NOT. And in the new digs, because it’s CA, parking will be at a premium, so most folks won’t want to pay to tailgate. Most situations will require off-site with shuttle parking, anyway. It’s the only way the locals will approve the traffic plans.

Sorry, but when I read stuff about how the Chargers are the best fit… it’s just cringeworthy. I was born and raised in LA and I never met ONE Charger fan until I got older and that was only because the Chargers used to be in LA before they moved to SD.

The Spanos’ have issues in San Diego for a HOST of reasons.

The Rams aren’t in Los Angeles for a HOST of reasons including Gene Autry who owned the Angels and Anaheim Stadium squeezing the Rams BADLY at the Big A (the Rams were the only team in the league who rented a stadium who were not allowed to keep the parking receipts from game day, for example)

I have absolutely no idea what’s going to happen. I really don’t.

But the one thing that makes no sense at all… is the Chargers moving to LA. San Diego is an NFL town. They support the Chargers WELL. They just don’t want to pay for a stadium which I think NFL Owners should pay for themselves. As apparently do San Diego voters. Overwhelmingly. They want the Chargers.. to stay and pay for a stadium. The Spanos family wants what so many other teams got… publicly funded stadiums in sweetheart deals. Not sure how the Levi Stadium deal happened, but it won’t happen in LA or SD. No way, no how…

Anwyay, sorry about the rant. Just frosts my cookies when folks bring up San Diego.

it’s like when National Reporters talk about the Rams and say things we know to be totally wrong and only shows their ignorance.

The Rose Bowl is an NFL approved venue. If the Rams moved to LA, they could play in the Rose Bowl for a few years…

Here’s the knock on Schotty.

His offense is brittle. It needs EVERYTHING and EVERYONE to be on point or it doesn’t work.

Not every offense is like that. It’s like going into a battle with a rifle that needs to be perfectly cleaned and oiled and requiring perfectly loaded ammo and to then be held perfectly in order to even have a chance to be accurate. Otherwise, it hasn’t a chance to hit the broadside of a barn. Well, that’s Schotty’s offense. It CAN work and sometimes DOES work, but in the muck and mire of battle, things get messy… and his offense doesn’t allow for messy. Hell, the sight adjustments alone have accounted for more pick-6s against us than some other team’s TOTAL TDs given up as an offense. It’s ridiculous.

And this draft had FOUR WRs who’ve had awesome years… NONE of them would have done dick in this offense. Why? Because the sight adjustments and overly complicated nature of it stymies WR development. Actually, I can’t think of ONE WR who’s flourished in this offense. Granted, it’s more of a running offense, but EVERY offense needs to be able to DEVELOP players at every position.

And this one FAILS to develop WRs. Badly.

Seriously, name me another team that HAS to wait 3 years on WRs to even start to judge? It’s one thing to say that guys don’t become complete until year 3… but this offense can make or break a WR totally and completely due to its complexity… some of it needless and counterproductive.

Here’s my TL;dr take: when an offense can’t integrate talent because it’s too rigid, then it’s already failed. Joe Gibb’s offense (a Coryell variant) was very run heavy, but based on a passing offense. He adjusted to his team, climate, division and a host of other factors to ensure their success. Schotty and Fisher aren’t doing that. Years are going by while we wait on Tavon Austin to integrate into Schotty’s offense.

Fucking WHY? If Tavon Austin were in Pittsburgh, he’d already be a 2k all around weapon. They’d be using him to do everything, but sell popcorn. If he were in Seattle, we would all be WISHING we’d taken him because Pete Carroll would make sure TA would be the bane of our existence…

Lastly, and maybe this is personal… but this offense just doesn’t ask the QB to hit receivers in stride other than the TE down the seem or the super rare fly down the sideline. Where are the slants? Where are the crossing patterns? Why can’t or won’t Schotty call pass plays that allow for run after the catch?

At its best, the Schotty offense with everyone at their best performing at their best… is a MIDDLING offense. It’s NOT a top 10 offense. Not over the course of a season. Over the stretch of a few games, maybe, but not a whole season. And that’s pegging the needle… with no injuries…and 100% execution… which happens in no universe in the multiverse. And that means that the Schotty offense is just NOT likely going to get us into the top half of NFL offenses.

And to my mind, with all the talent we have… that’s just inexcusable. I don’t care if we have the greatest D to ever play the game. We have too much talent on O to be floundering like we are, to make the mistakes that we make, to have the poor calls made over and over and over again.

Either we start over with the talent (which I think would be a massive mistake) because they just can’t consistently execute OR it’s a matter of coaching and the coaches need to go.

It’s one or the other.

And considering there’s also structural issues with this offense, I’m for moving on to better coaches…

Jmho, ymmv

yeah, we’re not far from being VERY good. Dominating good. But I’m surprised we have feet at all from how often we’re shooting ourselves in them.

It’s maddening sometimes.

Tebow all day.

Firstly, the guy wins. No one works harder.

And I’m STILL convinced if he’d made the switch to TE that he’d be an All-Star in this league.

Lastly, while Tebow didn’t shy away from attention, he didn’t go out of his way to go get it. Manziel seeks it out. I don’t buy for a second that he’s a victim of anything. When you party in Vegas and do scandalous things and hang with famous people… you’re ASKING for attention.

And frankly, Manziel hasn’t done much with his arm to make me think he’s that much a better QB. At least Tebow can take a shot. Guy’s built like a dang tank.