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  • in reply to: sorry to hear that Mike #37393
    mfranke
    Participant

    Sorry to pretty much repeat the same thing I just posted at Rampagers:

    I’ve got nothing but relentless negativity that would not be good for this or any other list or forum.
    This team and this league have proven utterly unworthy of anyone’s support, in St. Louis or otherwise.
    As for me, my fall weekends are going to be a lot different from now on.

    To me, city and team are inseparable. I became a Rams fan in the name of proving that St. Louis was a good football town.
    You know what? I was right.

    –Mike

    in reply to: RamView, 1/3/2016: 49ers 19, Rams 16 (OT) (Long) #36701
    mfranke
    Participant

    Through the first 15 games, I have the 49ers averaging 14.6 points per game, so… 🙂
    (And they averaged 15.2 vs. non-Ram opponents)

    Ultimately, I’m just really tired of getting burned by dumpoff passes.

    –Mike

    in reply to: RamView, 12/27/2015: Rams 23, Seahawks 17 (Long) #36257
    mfranke
    Participant

    A fine question. I wish I thought I knew the answer.

    It may be as simple as having Keenum at QB instead of Foles, and an o-line that’s actually gotten to play together for a little bit. Havenstein’s healthy, Barnes and Wichmann know what they’re doing and Reynolds is where he’s supposed to be instead of RT. I think CoachO’s observation about Keenum’s better timing was dead on.

    Boras used a counter run announcers last year called a “wrap” run a lot successfully his first two games but I didn’t notice it as much against Seattle. It seems like they’re running left more, and behind Harkey more, but those are unfounded suspicions. I don’t notice the guards pulling as much, which slows the play down and neither of the current guards are athletic enough to do it ideally. I don’t think there are as many fake end-arounds to Austin, either, which also slow the play down. I thought Cignetti was getting a little carried away with those. Mainly I’d speculate Boras has simplified the running game and lets his blockers do what they’re better at.

    Boras didn’t even get an “interim” OC tag, did he? If they’re going to keep Fisher (sigh), there’s little point trying to bring in Whisenhunt or somebody. Boras is a perfect fit thus far for Fisher’s philosophy of how to win (6 to 8) games and for how the team’s built. I don’t think there’s a bring-Martz-to-Vermeil moment to be had.

    –Mike

    in reply to: RamView, 11/29/2015: Bengals 31, Rams 7 (Long) #35085
    mfranke
    Participant

    wv, sorry I missed your question, and sorry if it’s been discussed thoroughly here already.
    I tend to think Mannion would get slaughtered. He’d only stand a chance if the Rams played
    no-huddle all game, and even then, Arizona would blitz his face off. Another concern of
    mine is his arm for outside throws, in an offense that relies very heavily on working
    the sidelines, even when those are throws its QBs can’t really make.

    Then again, Mannion can’t be much worse than what they’ve been rolling out there.

    Of course, my answer for who should be starting Rams QB this week would be Austin Davis…

    –Mike

    in reply to: RamView, 11/8/2015: Vikings 21, Rams 18 (OT) (Long) #33937
    mfranke
    Participant

    I agree. If one believes in such a thing, I’d put this game in the good loss column.
    –Mike

    in reply to: RamView, 11/1/2015: Rams 27, 49ers 6 (Long) #33468
    mfranke
    Participant

    I’m not sure “reversed” was the best way for me to describe that call. It wasn’t reviewed or anything; the play was always going to come back for the facemask.

    I didn’t think Boger really botched anything this week like he usually does, but good grief, that crew needs a conference for everything. Their games must take longer than any of the other crews’.

    –Mike

    in reply to: RamView, 9/3/2015: Chiefs 24, Rams 17 (Long) #29845
    mfranke
    Participant

    On the roster projection, I forgot to cut Marcus Forston (I’m sure he doesn’t mind).
    Take him out and put Dunbar back in.
    –Mike

    in reply to: RamView, 8/14/2015: Raiders 18, Rams 3 (Long) #28749
    mfranke
    Participant

    Is this one of those “flame wars” I’ve heard so much about on the interwebs?

    in reply to: RamView 7/31/15 training camp report (Long) #27885
    mfranke
    Participant

    I like it.

    in reply to: RamView, 12/28/2014: Seahawks 20, Rams 6 (Long) #14995
    mfranke
    Participant

    It’s the right attitude. I don’t give them enough credit for that. You’re not going to beat Seattle trying to dance with them like Denver tried in the Super Bowl. You’ve got to try to hit them in the mouth, and that means running up the gut. You’ve got to try to set that tone. That worked when the Rams beat them a couple of years ago. We’re all agreed the Rams don’t have enough up front right now to set that tone. The left/center %’s surprise me, my impression is that they run right much more than they run left. Left runs seem much more successful, and I think they’re much stronger run-blockers at LT/LG than RT/RG.

    –Mike

    in reply to: RamView, 12/21/2014: Giants 37, Rams 27 (Long) #14514
    mfranke
    Participant

    LOL, I blame Schottenheimer then. That should have been a return left, then Brown would obviously have kicked himself.

    –Mike

    in reply to: RamView, 12/7/2014: Rams 24, Redskins 0 (Long) #13362
    mfranke
    Participant

    I don’t think I’ve gotten a recap done this “quickly” in 3-4 years!
    –Mike

    in reply to: RamView, 11/23/2014: Chargers 27, Rams 24 (Long) #12584
    mfranke
    Participant

    joemad, interesting you brought up Eric Dickerson – I was going to compare Murray to Marcus Allen. Whichever, we both hope the Rams don’t send Murray to the Hall of Fame this weekend.

    –Mike

    in reply to: RamView, 11/2/2014: Rams 13, 49ers 10 (Long) #11312
    mfranke
    Participant

    What do the old-timers say, three things can happen when you pass and two of them are bad? 🙂
    I thought it better to make S.F. use their last timeout but I don’t think it mattered in the end.

    –Mike

    in reply to: RamView, 10/4/2014: Eagles 34, Rams 28 (Long) #9260
    mfranke
    Participant

    “Programming note”: the next game being on Monday night probably means I won’t have the next recap out till next Thursday or Friday.

    –Mike

    in reply to: RamView, 9/21/2014: Cowboys 34, Rams 31 (Long) #8469
    mfranke
    Participant

    Thanks. Interesting. Not a bad way to look at it.
    –Mike

    in reply to: RamView, 9/21/2014: Cowboys 34, Rams 31 (Long) #8378
    mfranke
    Participant

    MIKE: From time immemorial, the worst thing to call in that situation has been a slow-developing run. Hell, the Cowboys barely even had anyone lined up over LG; Davis could have fallen down for a first. But no, let’s pull with slow Joseph and open up a lane for the LB to burst through while we do what looks like a delayed handoff to Stacy. I’m fine with the Rams going for it there, but they needed a much better play call.

    FISHER: It was the play we needed. It wasn’t blocked properly. (G) Rodger (Saffold) was supposed to seal the run-through on the middle linebacker and he didn’t. He stayed down on the three-technique. It’s potentially a big play. It was a mistake.”

    –

    I see this all the time. A playcall complaint that begins by saying what you never, ever do…according to the True Football Guide to What You Never Do. And, invariably, when you find out more, it’s an execution issue fans can’t see because they don’t know assignments. This is one reason I just don’t judge a coordinator by boiling the discussion down to a single play. One of my favorites from years ago was a badly blocked shovel pass in the redzone that got blown up. The OC was Shurmur. The discussion centered on the fact that you never, ever, ever, EVER run a shovel pass in the redzone–it’s unthinkable, it’s not done. And then Thomas wrote the play up and it turns out a blocker blew an assignment. Plus it was easy to find examples on youtube and in google searches of teams successfully running shovel passes in the redzone. In the end the entire genre of “true footall knowledge tells us this play in this situation is never never called” is bogus, and best avoided; and the whole idea that you can judge a coordinator based on your read of one play is also always bogus. If you try the one key play analysis of a coordinator, you usually end up just begging the question about execution issues. Most complaints about Schott I see, for example, just routinely fail to separate execution issues from playcall issues.

    I said positive and negative things about Schottenheimer in that paragraph that covered more than just one play. As for the play, I thought Hitchens got through because Saffold missed him, and mentioned it in the o-line rundown, but vaguely, not being very sure. So I wasn’t completely clueless about execution issues on the play, and wrote about it well before knowing Jeff Fisher’s explanation of the play. Not knowing for sure that Saffold had blown the block doesn’t change my opinion that a QB sneak would have been a better call. You don’t need to pull one guard and need the other to make a second-level block to gain an inch. These are some of the complications that lead to the conventional wisdom not to call a slow-developing handoff in that situation, I expect.

    YouTube can’t vouch for the safety of the Shurmur Shovel for me because the play wasn’t part of the Rams’ 2010 offense and they hadn’t run the play all season. For them that was a gadget play. Including the idea of keeping things simple at the goal line, it flew in the face of several pieces of conventional wisdom and even common sense (and I’m not counting relying on Adam Goldberg to make a block). You want to come away with points down there, run plays you know you can run. Steven Jackson in his prime and the Rams don’t give him the ball on two plays from the two yard line. Bad luck for Shurmur, sure, because he had Atlanta completely faked out. But I’ll always feel that play’s a ladder he easily could have walked around instead of under.

    –Mike

    • This reply was modified 10 years, 3 months ago by mfranke.
    in reply to: RamView, 9/21/2014: Cowboys 34, Rams 31 (Long) #8367
    mfranke
    Participant

    I missed that one (hold/takedown of Langford), and I could have had a better eye out for it. Fisher said he thought there could have been a dozen holding calls on the Cowboys, and they got away with holding the whole game the last time the Rams played down there.

    –Mike

    • This reply was modified 10 years, 3 months ago by mfranke.
    in reply to: RamView, 8/23/2014: Rams 33, Browns 14 (Long) #5002
    mfranke
    Participant

    I could have tried to be fairer to Long because I had never thought he was going to be ready for the regular season. I do believe he was put in a bad spot. My gut says the Rams think they’ve still got this franchise/Pro Bowl tackle when not only 2013, but 2012 even, should have told them different. It’s always felt to me like Long was being rushed back, which seems completely unnecessary when you have Saffold and you spent the #2 pick overall at tackle. I’ve been leery at times with those options, too, but Saffold or Robinson has to be preferable to a guy coming off a knee injury and who’s barely played.

    The ease of Bradford’s re-injury makes you wonder if he came back too soon, doesn’t it? Everybody can’t be Adrian Peterson.

    –Mike

Viewing 19 posts - 1 through 19 (of 19 total)