wv wrote:

Now everyone has there ideas about why his teams went up and
down, but the fact is he had a lot of mediocre seasons — and
the owner kept him all those years.

And i am gonna ‘guess’ that the reason is, a lot of those
teams were ‘close’ to being good. All those 8-8 teams —
tantalyzingly close to being good. Maybe its hard
to fire a guy when you think, “well, they just
need one more year and one more draft, etc…”

This is very interesting. A pattern of mediocrity that perpetually teases but rarely actually breaks through into excellence. Even ’99 was more of a miracle over-achievement than the arrival of a great team.

He just might be the ideal case of a glass half-full and half-empty. Do you hope for the half-full glass to fill to the brim? Or do you realize it will never be full?

Personally, I see this as an indictment of a perpetually mediocre coach who will generally tease without paying off. Sounds about right as a description of what we’ve seen for 4 years!

snowman wrote:

he playoffs were always a chance, but this loss makes it a long shot at best.

Actually, in my view, the playoffs SHOULD have been within our straightforward reach this year. The NFC and the division are not that tough. Our schedule wasn’t that tough. We had no business underwhelming WASH and the Vikings were very beatable Sunday. Win those 2 games, and the playoffs would be ours to lose.

Here’s my view:

Last year, we SHOULD HAVE BEEN 9-7 and missed the playoffs.

This year, we SHOULD BE in the playoffs.

But again we are under-performing our capabilities.

wv wrote:

rfl wrote:

wv wrote:

I”m sure they’ll get better.

WV, I’m curious. How is it that you’re sure they’ll get better? I see no reason at all to make an assumption like that. Just wondering why you do.

——————————————
Well because I think the coaches will continue to watch the tape
and learn from the tape, and make adjustments.

I think a veteran like Welker in the receiving corp might help.

And i think part of the problem is probably youth and communication
on the OLine. I dont think Foles has had much time, and I dont think
he trusts the Oline.

…

…this is ‘not’ a ‘bad team’ in my view.

w
v

Thanks, WV. Appreciate the response.

Now, I agree. This is not a bad team. It’s a 9-7; 8-8 team. It’s probably a bit better than average.

I guess the question is, is that an appropriate return on the investment in Fisher over 4 seasons?

And a couple of things in specifics. First, I see virtually no evidence of potential in the Ram passing game. Foles looks really, really bad. I simply don’t believe a genuinely good QB looks like this. Britt and Cook flash at times, but both have shown themselves over their careers to be flakes. Quick? Bailey? Both seem to be shrinking, not growing.

And, see, that’s the thing. You mention coaches. Well, this coaching staff has had Quick and Bailey and Britt and Cook for years. And they are getting worse, not better. Where is there any evidence that this coaching staff has any capacity to get quality performance out of these guys except for once in a while? Hell, Fisher is widely known as a guy who struggles to coach a passing attack, even when he had a genuinely quality QB at TENN.

You know, this whole thing of coaching is a strange matter. People expect performance due to talent, but then they talk about relying on coaches to overcome weak roster areas, and they often show a blind faith in the magic of time to improve units that remain stuck in mediocrity … or worse.

My friend, you are one who does hold a coaching staff responsible from year to year. Last year was Year 3. This year is Year 4.

And the best Fisher can do is talk as if the offense needs time to work out the kinks.

The fact is that Fisher has brought in … J Long, Cook, Britt, Quick, Tavon, Stedman, Foles, and the youngsters on the OL. He re-signed Saffold when OAK knew the guy had suspect shoulders. He let Barksdale go. Those are all his acquisitions and decisions. He OWNS THIS BLEEDING OFFENSE! IT’S YEAR 4. And we are STILL hearing him blather on about how they need to solve basic problems that nearly all NFL offenses solve on a routine basis.

No, this is not a bad team. But Fisher to me has no track record that suggests his staff is going to be able to solve passing game challenges in 2015 or 2016.

Ah, well …

PA Ram wrote:

That game sealed it. The only question now is do they finish with a winning record or at .500.

Yep. Another lost year in terms of playoffs.

I suppose we might be able to claim marginal improvement with, say, a 9-7 record. But it doesn’t add up to much for Fisher’s Year 4.

What a depressingly consistent pattern of mediocrity. Only a lazy, distant, unengaged owner would even consider giving Fisher yet another year.

I was really wrong about Foles. I figured a guy who had once had a historic year had to be at least solid.

He isn’t. I’ve seen enough this year to get a feel for what he is doing and not doing. And he really sux.

People talk about the opening play, but they tend to say it wrong. He didn’t “miss” Britt. He didn’t even see him. And he had time, Britt had major separation, and clearly that had to be the focus of the play as drawn. Foles never seemed to see Britt as an option. On the 1st scripted play of the game.

I know. He hit one later. In between pathetic, fluttering, indecisive flings (you can’t call them passes). I also know Tavon dropped one, the WRs struggled to get open, Cignetti and the OL struggled some. But Foles had time to do things. He just couldn’t. Couldn’t see the openings.Couldn’t hit a receiver when they were open. Couldn’t even challenge the WRs to make some plays with any deft throws.

Foles is a major problem, IMO. And his problems aren’t the sort that are going to get better. Especially with the experience Foles has.

I was so pumped that the Rams had figured a way to get a decent QB and save cap money. Well, they blew it. And now we face the biggest headache of all. Trying to find a decent QB from a mid-table draft position.

Ugh. You know, it’s fairly easy to imagine the OL settling in and picking up a WR or two next year. But finding a QB? That’s hard to do.

Hell, maybe Mannion will be able to play.

Been thinking about this a bit. I think, first of all, that the game will “tell us” a lot.

First, in terms of the playoff race, the game will matter a great deal in that we are directly competing with the Q’s for the last wildcard spot. As has been pointed out elsewhere, lose this game and we fall behind the Q’s 2 games AND the tie breaker. That’s a pretty big factor right there.

Second, as I said last week, from where we stand, we can’t afford to lose winnable games. Lose this game, and it becomes much harder to see us getting to 10-6. The pressure would be pretty intense to win a number of games against tough teams. Our playoff hopes would likely depend on catching AZ and remaining ahead of SEA.

But now think of the team as a competitive enterprise. I’m largely thinking here of the team’s self-perception and competitive focus. I’ve played on teams in a similar position, especially playing small college ball. The team I played on had been awful and we were gradually building something. Doing this involved not just raising our talent level, but also getting through levels of confidence. A team has to believe on the basis of nothing more than faith, then succeed, then start to believe on the basis of proved achievement. The difference between a team trying to believe it can win and a team that HAS WON is a big difference. It’s a difference that frequently affects performance.

The last few years, we have been growing in skills and talent, and we have shown we could steal a few games against elite teams. Especially elite teams we matched up well against. This is nice, but it is not the same thing as establishing a consistent level of competitiveness. As we’ve discussed ad nauseum. This team was caught in a rut of shoddy performance.

That’s a hard rut to get out of. Damn hard. But, this year we’ve begun to do it. We did not tank to start the season. We’ve beaten a couple of quality teams. AND we’ve shown that we can keep up the competitive level enough to win some routine games. That is a major accomplishment, folks.

Because of that, I think we are currently taking a step forward this season. It may well be no more than one step, and there’s a good chance it will fall short of the playoffs. I mean, we could win 10 but lose to MINNY this week and miss the playoffs.

So, this week, we face a hurdle we have not faced in years. Consider what I was discussing up above. We are facing a chance to grasp control of our own destiny for a playoff berth. How many freaking years has it been since we did that? We’ve had a couple of chances to climb out of an early season hole and get back into the playoff race. But we’ve not had a genuine chance to climb into the playoff picture since the latter days of the GSOT.

But this week, we have that chance. Reverse the speculations above. Suppose we WIN the game on Sunday.

In that event we’d be tied with Minny with an unbeatable tie breaker. That would be a pretty firm grip on the last playoff slot. Win the rest of the games we’d pretty much expect to win and we’d be likely to get in. MINNY would be sweating it out.

So, we have 2 teams with almost eerie similarities facing each other for a likely playoff spot. I don’t think it’s a huge stretch to predict that this game could conceivably decide which one of these teams gets to the dance.

I think it’s pretty damn hard to predict how our lads will react to such a test. We haven’t faced such an opportunity since well before anyone on our roster joined the squad. I have no idea how they’ll perform. I don’t think the Rams know, either.

And that’s why I can’t agree with the proposition that we won’t learn anything from the game. I think we’ll learn a lot. I think we’ll learn whether this team is ready to take the step from comfortable non-contention to controlling their competitive destiny.

That’s a big step. A really big step. Either they take it or we’ll know they aren’t ready, most likely for this year. Either way, the season won’t be over, but I think the odds would be pretty heavily influenced.

So, what shall we think? Which of these 2 similar teams is ready to take the step?

I think I’d boil it down to this. I think MN is a year or so ahead of us in building up its competitive capabilities. Last year, they may have been pretty much where we are this year. They may well be a bit more mature in their evolution than we are.

So, I think I’d give them the edge. How big an edge I can’t say. As I said in my first post in the thread, I haven’t seen enough of either team.

Of course, I do know the Rams better than I do the Q’s. And, I think I’d say about what most of you would say.

To win this game, I think the passing game has to take a step or 2 up. They have got to begin the balance the field. They must complete enough downfield passes to relieve some of the pressure on the running game. TG will not get it done on his own. Especially if M Franke is correct in assessing the Q DTs as positively as he does.

If the team steps up to the challenge of fighting for a playoff spot and if Foles can complete, say 7-8 passes to WRs upfield (not by any means necessarily deep balls) then we can win the game. But, I think, the Q’s can probably win by playing their game tough, but without necessarily raising their performance anywhere.

But what do I know? I wouldn’t bet a nickel on the game. I don’t see much either way.

All I know is that we will learn a lot in this game. We’ll learn how the lads fare in a situation we haven’t seen in more than a decade.

• This reply was modified 9 years ago by rfl.

I haven’t seen enough of either team to evaluate. I dunno.

I sense that we have a truly elite unit on D and a good running game. I dunno how well the Queens defend the run …

Meanwhile, the Q.s are I think more evenly capable. They probably can make more plays in more areas and are likely less reliant on a couple big plays from predictable places. So who knows?

I will say this. In terms of the playoff race, they need this game. I don’t think they can afford to lose a game like this. And if they mean to compete, this is the sort of game they have to show they can win.

I feel like I read a different set of comments by JL than the ones others are apparently responding to.

For me, it isn’t about W/L. And JL is NOT talking about W/L.

He is talking about discipline. Preparation. Effort. Intensity. About being competitive.

He is saying (and I totally agree) that against the the “good” teams–the INSPIRING teams–the Rams have had a different level of intensity than against the lesser teams.

Now, this has an effect on the W/L results. But the 2 are not synonymous. A poor but building team can lose to a premier team, but do it in a way that shows growing competitive intensity. And a team can win a game against a lousy team, but do it unconvincingly.

JL is speaking as a member of the team. A leader over half a decade of futility. And he is making a confession. He is admitting that the team has been uneven in its competitiveness. And he is saying they are learning to grow out of it.

You can’t “put numbers” to what he is saying by going over past W/L records and trying to control for times when conditions were right or wrong. None of that has anything to do with what JL is saying.

He is SAYING that they have competed unevenly and missed chances because of shoddy preparation and performance. He is saying that as a player and leader on the team. He speaks as a player who stepped onto and then left the field in games where HE KNEW that the team had let itself down.

And I for one am delighted to hear him say it. It is exactly what is needed, and it gets at what I have been ranting about for 2 years.

This team has let itself down repeatedly over the last 2 years. It has nothing to do with backup QBs or injured OLs or W/L records. It has to do with a team that gets up for some games and shows it can compete, but lets itself down in many others. It’s not about talent. It’s not about W/L. It’s not about health.

It’s about competitive discipline. THAT is what he is talking about.

Competitive discipline takes a team to its ceiling. Yes, that ceiling at any moment of time is affected by talent, experience, health, etc. It’s affected by the opposition. It’s reflected in the W/L record. But none of those variables lift a team to its ceiling … or depress it to its floor. What does that is competitive discipline … or the lack thereof.

We have our D unit captain talking directly about that issue. Not about W/L as such.

And I think this is a great sign, because I hear something different in his words. JL has been in the league a long time, longer than the average player career. He has played on a bad, losing team year after year. Several times during each of those years, that team has shown flashes. And the flashes have always been quickly followed by collapses.

Now, I have heard the vets on the team speak about all this before. I have heard them say, “We gotta start winning these games.” “We gotta start getting off to fast starts.” “We gotta start …”

It has always in the past been hypothetical. A theory and responsibility about what needs to happen. A sort of wish statement, a wistful imagining of what would winning WOULD BE like. A resolution to aspire to do what it takes to win consistently.

But there has never been any real conviction in the remarks. ‘Cause JL, Chris Long, guys like this have lived through long seasons of failure in which the wishes never came true. The resolutions never materialized. The competitive discipline never lasted beyond a game or two.

However, I hear–or fancy that I hear–in these remarks a different note. JL is not saying “We need to approach these games as we do tougher games.” He is saying, “Hey! This time WE DID IT! We showed discipline facing an uninspiring game against a bad team. That’s what we have needed to do AND NOW WE ARE BEGINNING TO ACTUALLY DO IT.”

Look. I’ve been on about something for 2 years. I’ve ranted and railed about it. I’ve pestered you guys and poured water on high hopes and leveled harsh criticism at our team. But is HAS NOT BEEN about talent or W/L. It’s always been about what JL is talking about here.

This team has not been able to play tough except now and then. Whatever the conditions. The variables. Who the QB is. It has had a decades-long habit of, maybe 60% of the time, playing DOWN BELOW whatever its capabilities are at a given moment. That’s WHY I’ve cautioned against believing in the flashes. Flashes are not enough. To be any good, a team needs to understand how to GRIND.

Here, I perceive JL saying, in effect, “We haven’t known how to grind. This last week, we DID GRIND. We showed ourselves what it’s like to do it. And because we are learning how to grind … we are going to start playing like winners.”

IF–it’s a big IF–IF the team learned in the CLE game how to grind, IF it has MANIFESTLY AND ON THE FIELD begun to demonstrate that it is willing and able to prepare and play with consistent toughness …

Then it will win a few more games this year and be poised to actually contend next year. This really is that important. Without regard for health or talent levels we need to improve at some positions, a team that can GRIND will win more games than the same team could without grinding. And a team that doesn’t know how to grind will always let you down on the verge of achievement.

So. Am I reading too much into JL’s comments? Sure, taken by itself. It’s just one tell-tail stirring on the mast with a freshening breeze. I am far from convinced that we can do it AGAIN against the Whiners this week.

Nevertheless, it’s damn good to hear our senior captain openly confessing the slackness of the past and even better to hear him SEEM to feel the discipline is actually emerging. ‘Cause out of that, contention will grow. Not out of sheer talent acquisition or health.

zn wrote:

It’s just like Miklasz to completely overlook that kind of thing, again.

In terms of the defense, to me that’s a standard issue problem—new coordinator, system changes, adjustment period.

And who made the decision to basically hold the DC spot for Williams, bring him back after the defense should have already gelled, and then let Williams run the guys out in ultra-complex packages with unsound deployments?

I think that would be Fisher. He COULD have hired a good DC in ’12 and by last year the D would have been a settled and talented unit.

He didn’t. He’s responsible for “Year III” being, again, a time of adjustment.

As for it being “just like Miklasz to forget,” well, I don’t think he is the only observer who has patterns of amnesia.

wv wrote:

I dont even wanna think about the state of the message-boards,
if the Rams/Fisher lose at home,
after a bye, to the Browns.

w
v

I think there’s a good chance they will do just that.

If they do, I think a reasonable response would simply be to say, “Yeah. Saw that one coming.”

It’s a very simple situation. If the Rams are serious about being competitive, they’ll make a statement in this game. They have the talent for that.

If they don’t … we’ll know that the Fisher Pattern is still in effect. Fail. Tease. Fail. Repeat.

wv wrote:

Assuming for a moment you are right about them being “undisciplined”,
do you think Fisher trades “fierceness” for discipline ?

w
v

I don’t. No.

The ill discipline I see is about execution breakdowns. Consider the challenge of stopping the run. If we were a fierce team, we ought to be able to do that consistently. But half the team, we play 3 across the front and everybody just wanders off. When that is happening, the guys aren’t playing fiercely. They’re scurrying around in a daze.

Seriously. Do you ever get the sense in one of our bad games that we played too fiercely? I don’t. I get the sense that we weren’t ready to play.

And BTW, this is all different from the little I remember of TENN under Fisher. That team did play fiercely, as I recall it. And you knew you were in for it. Only in a few scattered games have Rams under Fisher seemed like that.

I just get the sense that he is coasting. Half the team, his team sure as hell is.

My sense if this.

Foles has a number of the attributes of a good QB. Give him a positive situation in a play and he’ll take advantage enough to be very productive.

Under pressure, however, he’s probably lower tier. He can hurt his team if it gives up pressure. Much more than Sam did.

Where that matters to me is down the road. I feel an urgent need to upgrade our OL and WRs. (And to cut Cook.) I am not as convicted that we desperately need a new QB. This guy is vulnerable, and the overall package needs to be better.

Also, I bet he has some good games against mediocre defenses this year.

Wow. Hi, guys. Nice to feel missed.

I’ve been lurking. Haven’t had much to say.

I was pleased for last week, though I didn’t trust it, in part ’cause I didn’t see the game. Both our wins this year fit the pattern of the Fisher Rams–a couple surprising big scalps followed by failure.

I DID get to see the game yesterday. I live in Minny, and the Pack is shown on Twin Cities stations almost as often as the ‘Queens. Lots and lots of Pack fans up here.

I dunno what to say.

You can’t really fault the defense much at all. A R burned them a couple times, but he does that to everyone and they burned him, too. And contained him.

Zurlein … ugh.

And the offense … ugh. Maybe I’ll write a post on that.

Tell you what, though. Gurley could go to the Hall if he plays healthy long enough. I don’t even know if he needs to be on a great offense. He’s not on one now!

Zooey wrote:

I don’t think it’s cynical. And the StL vs. LA thing just isn’t Fisher’s responsibility, and I’d be pissed, frankly, if that issue was influencing personnel decisions.

Well, I was just responding to someone else’s hypothesis about what Fisher is up to. I dunno if it’s true or not.

My point was that, this offseason, it was contradictory to A) aspire to a fast start against top opposition and B) start a green OL. Now we know the shift to zone blocking is also a problem.

Now, you appear to accept the notion that Year 4 is not the year to expect results. OK. I don’t really get that view, but essentially you are accepting Nittany’s premise–that it’s OK to accept another year of failure.

The only point I’d make in responding to your argument about team building is that it seems to rely on an either-or dilemma:

The alternative to attempting to build a rock-solid team from the ground up, patiently, over time, is to try to build one quickly through FA. Well, you can only grab so many guys through FA, and the fact is the Rams did what they could there only to have those players explode.

This formulation makes little sense to me. An NFL roster is a big, complex entity. Building it requires numerous strategies in different places. It’s never a choice between 2 polar options.

In terms of the OL, let’s place things in perspective. They would not have needed “so many guys.” One or two vets would have been plenty.

Now, a couple weeks back, you said I’d need to name names. I don’t accept the requirement, but I will partially respond now.

First, it was ridiculous to let Barksdale go. He was clearly miffed at being mucked about. It would not have cost that much to make him happy and keep him. Most likely, it would have been a matter of going to him early and making him feel wanted.

Keep Barksdale and the challenge this year would have been much less.

That leaves OC and one OG. Surely it’s not too much to try to get 1 serviceable vet at OG or OC. One? You asked me which one. I dunno. But anyone with mid-table capability and experience would have helped.

See, the point I’ve made is not about an absolute choice between vets and rookies. The league doesn’t work that way,m and this year, we ARE talented in other areas. I’ve been talking about this year as, at least, a TRANSITION. Suppose we’d kept Barksdale and signed a mid-level OC or OG. We could then draft all those young OL and work them in over a season or two. Surely that would have been smarter?

Cap money? Well, we signed Ayers and then Fairly, who seems to be a luxury, and shed Bradford’s salary. Surely if we really wanted to, we could have made room in the cap for Barksdale and 1 ordinary vet. The fact that we didn’t shows that the FO had other priorities. And, if you cared about this year, that made no sense.

The point is that the FO made a conscious choice to simply do nothing of substance with vet OL. And we are paying the price.

Then we have this sudden reference to zone blocking. I dunno whether that really matters a lot. But that’s what they’re saying. Assuming it does matter, then, again, it would be unrealistic to expect a fast start.

So, why say what they said? PR gobbledy-gook, I guess. But I think it would have been honest to put things in context. It’s not hard: “You know, we want to get off to a better start. We want to win. But we are committed to building a team for the long haul …” Blkah, Blah, Blah.

I dunno. Whatever.

It’s Year 4. Year 4.

I simply cannot understand why anyone would say that it is reasonable to wait til Year 5 to expect competitiveness. I don’t get the abstract argument for this.

And then when you consider the actual evidence of how the team plays, the sloppiness, the intermittent intensity, the way the talented defense is on 1 week and off the next …

I really cannot understand how it is that this bunch of coaches is getting this much indulgence from experienced and intelligent fans.

Zooey, you’re one of my favorite people online. But I am bewildered by your response to all of this.