It’s just a matter of time, Man.

I’ll bet fewer than 5 years.

Mac: I really think they are going to “unveil” this defense like a new hot rod at an Auto Show …

Or like the Eagles Offense last year. If we all know Greg Williams at all, it will be a statement game. He’ll want ESPN to LEAD with talk of the Rams Defense…

Which means he really won’t care much about the preseason insofar as he won’t want to give ANYTHING away.

I’m with Snow on this. I just do not get this reasoning. It’s a theme discussed in another thread where guys are arguing that the defense is being intentionally held back in some sense. The reasoning utterly escapes me.

Why on earth would any coach reign in a defense? I just don’t understand that way of thinking. Sorry, Mac.

WV: Well, yer not gonna see Aaron Rogers, so, i imagine the D will look significantly better.

See, that consideration seems to me to be irrelevant. Every time I see a description of those 1st 2 drives, it’s always about Rogers. But what I saw was no more than 50% about the QB.

They ran the ball through us like we were hanging strings of beads. That isn’t because of Aaron Rogers.

And ultimately that’s the big problem with the “we don’t want to give anything away” explanation–I’d say excuse–of what’s been happening.

The only thing that COULD make sense would be some sort of trick deployments, probably involving blitz and rotation packages. But they have little to do with showing stoutness against the run.

Why would anyone not be determined to show stoutness against the run?

And why would any coach think that that sort of toughness can simply be turned on by a switch when the season starts?

You know, maybe 20 years ago, I was watching the Vikings in pre-season. They had been down a few years, but they’d picked up some defensive talent–the John Randle generation. In pre-season, they just completely stuffed people. I tried to tell myself, well, it’s just pre-season. But what I was seeing was the emergence of a truly elite defense.

Then, in ’99, Trent Green and then Kurt Warner gave promise of an emerging superb offense during pre-season.

I see our Offense showing signs of real quality, though perhaps not elite status.

How can we just tell ourselves that this supposedly superb defense which has looked so flaming bad in 2 games is suddenly going to be top tier?

I know I’m in a minority on this, but I think people reassuring themselves that there is nothing to be concerned about are engaging in serious wish fulfillment.

Hope I’m wrong.

Fisher does not game plan games 1 and 2, and instead uses them to see players under certain conditions. Get some film on them.

He then gameplans a little for game 3, and takes game 4 seriously–he uses it the way most teams use game 3.

If all that’s true, and I think it is, then, we’re worrying over nothing.

Well, I think I’m worrying more than others are. I find that remarkable, by the way. The lack of concern here.

Look, what the hell do I know? Not a helluva lot. They might turn it on according to a plan that concedes the early PS games. They might be fine.

But what I am seeing right now is a growing gap between the THEORY that they will have a 1st rate defense and the reality of what they’re showing on the field. I mean, it’s a big, big gap. Both fans and Ram spokesmen attribute it to missing personnel, playing vanilla, looking at individuals, yadda, yadda, yadda.

Meanwhile, the teams we play are also sitting guys, looking at individuals, and limiting their game planning, and they look a helluva lot better than we do.

And I don’t see how these excuses can offset the fact that our run defense just completely stinks. The unit has shown NOTHING, no competitiveness at all. I cannot reconcile that with some theory of how we’re going top suddenly become not just a good, capable defense, but an elite one.

I mean, that’s what we’ve all been imagining, right? That’s what pundits have been saying. We were good last year–with Williams and some young talent we’ll likely be Top 10, maybe Top 5. The theory of a superb defense is what has driven all these rosy prognostications despite the toughness of our division.

And in 2 PS games, we have seen NOTHING indicating the likelihood of this defense being special. I mean, teams do ratchet up from PS a few slots. I can fairly easily imagine them raising their game from what we are seeing to being average or just above. What I cannot see is a defense looking this bad through 2 games suddenly becoming elite. I see no signs whatsoever of it.

The gap between theory and reality is wide and depressing. I think if we’re being honest, we have to acknowledge that. And, frankly, I don’t think that what I am saying is essentially a case of worrying or fretting. I think it’s describing what we are seeing and acknowledging the huge challenge that our defense will face raising their game from bottom tier–the way they’re playing now–to the elite levels we need to compete in our division.

To be even more honest, I get tired of excuses. Just listened to Demoff repeating the excuse so frequently trotted out by fans and pundits alike: “Well, we were facing Aaron Rogers in a no huddle with no game plan … it isn’t surprising that …” Blah, blah, blah. Aaron Rogers and the GB offense are good. So are AZ and SEA and SF. So are numbers of other offenses, including DEN, whom we must face this year. That’s what competition in the NFL means–facing superb offenses. If we want to be anything better than mediocre we have to start manning up to deal with opponents like Aaron Rogers in the no huddle. As long as we are using the quality of the opponent as an excuse, then we ain’t competing as contenders do.

I mean, OK. Maybe they have a plan for games 1 and 2 and then 3 & 4. Maybe they are conceding things. What the hell do I know?

But I don’t want to hear from the Ram FO that Aaron Rogers is good and we’re looking at individuals and … reach for air sick bag. I want to hear the truth from them.

I want to hear them say, “Conceding the run the way we are doing is A) unacceptable and B) subversive of any ability to defend or to win games. There are perhaps some reasons for understanding the way things are going right now, but we MUST TURN THIS AROUND and do so quickly and drastically. We cannot compete with this level of performance.” Admit the truth. Take responsibility for turning things around.

You know, like many on the board, I’ve been watching the NFL for half a century. I’ve seen hundreds of good defenses. I’ve seen how HARD it generally is to run the football in this league. I’ve seen hundreds of middle of the pack teams take pride in stuffing the running game. It’s a basic, entry-level competency, like a singer hitting notes on pitch. I’ve seen–in person–Jeff Fisher bring his Titans to Macomb for camp scrimmages and PS games to make life impossible for our GSOT running game. Any NFL defense with decent personnel, a competent scheme, and pride can squeeze the run is not stuff it completely. You don’t have to be elite to do it. And, in terms of the PS, the defense is SUPPOSED to be ahead of offenses. It’s SUPPOSED to be even harder to run in PS games than in the regular season.

I have never seen an elite defense that couldn’t stop the run.

Yet for over a decade now, I have watched the Rams lie down and die facing RBs, many of them no more than mediocre. Coaches, players, and schemes have come and gone, and year after year one constant remains: lousy run defense. I’m tired of it. I’m not interested in excuses or theories about how it’s going to get better the stars align in the heavens.

Show me some guts, Rams. Show me some pride. Stop a damn running play. Set out a stall claiming simple COMPETENCE. And until you show it, don’t expect me to hold my breath looking for a winning year.

ZN: I see over and over, people saying, Schott had to figure Austin out. I doubt that, personally. … Schott already had a near-Austin type in New York–Leon Washington. … Washington was a multi-purpose weapons guy and heavier than Austin, but still there were similarities, and Schott found all sorts of ways to use Washington. So none of this was extremely new. So to me, it was never a problem of Schott figuring Austin out (that is more than the usual figuring a rookie out thing), it was more of a problem of yet another rookie (almost)receiver struggling SO Schott’s solution was to limit what he did, at first.

These are nuanced issues and it’s impossible to precisely analyze things. You make some good balancing points. But.

My sense is that Schott DID struggle to figure Austin out. Not in a generic sense, not a matter of Schott needing to figure out how to use this type of player.

What I think Schott had to figure out were Austin’s limitations. I think the plan early in the season was to let Austin wreak havoc from within traffic. The expectation apparently was that Austin could break out of tight spaces. That’s the only way I can make sense out of their early season habit of simply tossing him the ball underneath without having done much to create space. I believe Schott had to learn that, good as Austin is, he isn’t THAT good.

Now you have Fisher saying on the record that they need to get Austin the ball more IN SPACE. Yep. To me, that’s been the issue all along. In my view, Schott had to learn that Austin, a truly special talent, was not nevertheless so special that he could create magic in heavy traffic.

Just a quick point to add about Tavon.

He had a successful rookie year.

Everything you guys are saying is spot on. Yet the fact is he had a successful year. He put plenty of big plays “on tape” as they say. Including several that were called back.

Apparently, he did suffer from rookie mental fog. Nevertheless, he never stopped competing. It was never that the game was too big for him. He was probably thinking a bit much, but he competed and often showed brilliance.

I keep remembering the game where he scored 2 TDs but was disappointed with his performance afterward. His comments and attitude were those of a true competitor. And I also think of the TDs. Both, if I recall, were on the goal line. SHort passes in heavy traffic. So even in a situation where they WEREN’T creating space for him as they should, he still found ways to be productive under duress.

Tavon Austin is just fine. In a balanced offense, the projections you guys are making will come true and we’ll be delighted.

And you know what? Torry Holt has never impressed me as being very bright. He’s a poorish commentator, IMO, who rarely offers more than platitudes and fuzziness.

Just had a flash of memory with this post.

For a number of us nomads, the Rams were never home. We followed them from all parts of the nation. I started following them growing up in Chicago (horns + Fearsome Foursome + Roman Gabriel + boring Bears) and then moved to Minny from where I have remained faithful for decades.

Which meant that media coverage of the Rams was nearly unavailable. Neither the Tribune, Sun Times, Pioneer Press, or Star/Tribune ever covered the Rams. Neither did local radio or TV. There was no ESPN nor, of course, was there a web.

And that meant that, at season’s end, I would go for months with no Rams news. Until, finally, the preseason previews came out. Just like this one.

SI would have pigskin previews with thumbnails on each team. And the dedicated season preview pubs would come out with–gasp!–a couple of pages on each team! I’d finally be able to hear a bit about draft picks, acquisitions, and prognosticators’ take.

Then, when the season started, there’d be write-ups of the games–AP thumbnails for the Rams unless they had played the Vikings. And that would basically be it. The sum total of my media-acquired learning about the team.

Now, I look at a preview like this and, besides remembering what it was like to depend on these blurbs, I am astonished at how pedestrian it is. I mean, with the Web and ESPN and NFL Network, we know vastly more than this. There isn’t a bit of information here that we haven’t hashed over for weeks or more. There isn’t an analytical angle we don’t know by heart.

It’s a throw-back to another era. A simpler one, perhaps a better or worse one, certainly one less jaded. But I wonder how an outfit like this can still sell copies? Lots of nostalgic old buffers like me I guess.

JackPMiller wrote:

I’m more worried that we are looking past the Vikings, then the other way around

Indeed.

To me, that game poses 2 significant challenges:

1) Open the season fully prepared and full of fire.

2) Contain the best RB in the league.

Crucial to pass that first test and get the season off to a big start. We have to carry wins and momentum into the SF game.

7) Emory Blake and Austin Franklin made cases for themselves. If not here, then somewhere. Franklin’s route running is special.

…

9) Pettis is going to be tough to cut.

OK, I have not seen enough of these lesser WRs to have an opinion. I mean, every year some 4th and 5th string WRs look good in camp and perhaps in a PS game and then they vanish.

Also, I don’t follow rosters closely enough to have much opinion on roster fine tuning.

What I will say is that, for me, points 7 & 9 are contradictory, at least in a general way. If we see quality in young WRs, then, as far as I am concerned, I am delighted to see us jettison Pettis or Givens. Neither of them have ever shown me much that adds up to average level competence at the position. Givens has no heart for the middle of the field and Pettis can’t get himself open with a taser. Neither has anything like a ceiling for potential above what we have seen and what we have seen is weak, lame, and a drag on a contending team.

After an off-season claiming to be prepping for a big season, Givens has shown nothing in camp or in the 1st PS game. As far as I am concerned, he is eminently cuttable.

Pettis has always been a better competitor than Givens, and he gives us something. But it isn’t much, we no longer need his height on the goal line, and, again speaking generally, I would trade a promising youngster who can run routes for him in a heartbeat. I have felt for years that his presence is an indictment of a roster on which no one can beat him out.

I don’t think anyone here will cry a tear over Givens, but I think there are some who value Pettis. That’s fine, of course, but I yearn for the day when we have demonstrably better options than what he offers.

Oh, you guys are clearly correct. The size issue.

But see I don’t get that. I really don’t get why knowledgeable NFL guys would say what Maddy reports hearing:

I recall one quote by an NFL personnel guy, which I can only paraphrase as: who in the NFL is he going to overpower?

(Obviously, my criticism here is not directed at Maddy!)

Football is about size/power and about speed/quickness. The game has always seen a spectrum stretching from one to the other. Greatness always requires both, but the balance can tip either way.

Some of you guys know that I played NAIA college ball in the ’70s. We had a nose tackle who played at a weight maybe 60 pounds less than the average weight of DTs in our league. He was all conference and nearly unblockable. He was also a superb wrestler, and he shot gaps so fast you couldn’t hit him. OL power could not negate his speed and quickness because the bigger, stronger guys couldn’t get good contact with him. He was also immensely strong for his size. And he had that wrestler’s ability to get the OL off balance and project strength from a powerful position.

Well, Fred was a long, long way from the NFL level. But his formula for excellence is fundamental to football tradition. I can’t count the times when I would watch college games in which the power of, say, Tom Osborne’s Nebraska teams was negated by the speed of penetrating, fast defenders. Of course, the NFL isn’t college, and the point is that most NFL players are both strong and quick. But the league has always had smaller DTs who throve through penetration rather than overpowering. Our own D’marco Farr, who played about 280, is a great example.

OK, what the hell do I know, right?

But when I looked at that highlights reel of AD’s, I felt I was SEEING exactly what interior DLs need but which they so rarely find: a formula for consistent penetration and THEN the ability to change course when in the backfield to adapt to the play and track backs down with closing speed. It seems obvious and visible to me that he has what Fred had at our level–a strong wrestler’s ability to get his strength into positions that put the OL out of balance, reaching without power to deal with a powerful, moving body bending and hand-fighting into a powerful position. I mean, I can just SEE the moves that will at the very least draw lots of holding flags from slow, out of balance OL trying to make up with their hands for being unbalanced and late.

“Who in the NFL is he going to overpower?”

Well, this guy won’t need to overpower anyone head up. He will, however, overpower just about everyone by penetrating to a position of power which negates their size and strength. I can’t believe NFL scouts and FO guys didn’t see that.

But I ain’t complaining! He’s a Ram, and I love it!

Jimi, you have stressed several times Robby’s tendency to make a mistake, get instruction, and then almost immediately correct it.

This is a superb attribute for a young player to have. Talent is one thing. But to be quick and decisive in taking instruction on board? That is the fast road to fulfilling potential. And I think it’s clear that Robby’s potential is sky high.

I’m guessing he meant that they have played robotically, and he’s trying to coach them out of that.

Still, he apparently hammers guys who make mistakes very, very hard. That can limit the freedom with which guys play …

Unless, as he seems to suggest here, they can be confident that they will be OK if they play aggressively and make that sort of mistake.

Farr himself btw said that when he saw Donald, he recognized that the kid had (near direct quote) “the hands technique of a 3rd year pro.” That’s something coming from Farr, who of course was an undersized penetrating DT who took his game to the next level when he sought on training on how to use his hands. Farr is in awe of Donald.

Yeah, Farr is the perfect guy to comment on Donald’s game–very similar.

And I have seen that quotation. Saying a rookie DT has the hand skills of a 3rd year pro is off the charts praise. I mean NOBODY gets comments like that. NOBODY!

This is kind of what I am saying. It’s UNREAL in the sense that Donald is demonstrating skills that rookies simply do not ever display.

I suppose that, if we HAD to look for the worm in the cocktail, we could say that Donald may not have nearly as much upside as most rookies. He has the skills that the rest learn as they get better.

But, still, what I see and project is almost certainly to be damned effective even if it remains level for a decade.

I forget, were you there for the draft thread? One of the themes early in the day as the different picks got turned in was “Donald’s still there…Donald might still be there…hey maybe Donald will be there…”

Quinn fell too.

Now and then some unexpected good luck surfaces for these Rams.

Yeah, I was there. People were talking about Donald and, not being a draftnik, I was asking who he was.

Quinn was a huge break. But if I recall, before the fact he seemed like one of many promising, athletic DE types who was no sure thing. And, indeed, it took him a couple years to grow into greatness.

Donald is perhaps the rarest kind of prospect. A guy at a tough position who comes in ready to be a stud.

Now, I didn’t know about him, and he didn’t generate a lot of hype. Well, that doesn’t mean much.

But the minute I watched his highlight reel, I thought, Oh, My God, what am I seeing here? You just do NOT see college DTs who play with that level of talent AND developed, mature skill. I don’t think I ever have. Sapp looked damn good in college, if I recall. But I think this level of penetrating talent along with discipline and productivity, the ability to blow up the run game as well as get to the passer … he’s freaking off the charts NOW!

And I tell you what, I am really puzzled as to why all the hype was on Clowney with this guy sitting there in the draft. And I am bewildered by all those GMs passing on him. Other than QB, I think a DT who can do what he appears to be able to do is perhaps the rarest and most valuable asset in FB.

They said Clowney was a once in a decade type player. Well, recognizing that he hasn’t faced other teams yet even in pre-season, Donald seems to be a once in 3 decades DT. And he plays next to Quin! Lord, this is going to be fun!