WV my friend, I cheer your perseverance and willingness to get excited about a team that fails its fans year after year. You are more optimistic than I and that’s cool.

But, there’s something in me that stubbornly wants to distinguish between manifestation and moonshine. You can skip the following if you wish. I don’t want to ruin your optimism and hopes. But, I am going to heartlessly respond to some of your individual points. I’ll only challenge one as a statement. But I’ll offer my sense of the context.

wv wrote:

I’m not sure what the evidence shows. I just can’t tell. There’s a kaleidoscope of facts and circumstances
and unknowns and partial-knowns and potentials and experience and youth.

I’ll simply say that I take this as an acknowledgement that 4 P/S games produced no actual, demonstrable evidence of an excellent team emerging.

And I’ll note that “circumstances and unknowns and partial-knowns and potentials and experience and youth” are not in any meaningful sense evidence. Potential and youth fail more often than not in the NFL.

wv wrote:

I ‘do’ know for three years they’ve been in that seven win range. And now they have a better QB than they’ve had the last two years, and some new talent, and an essentially healthy team.

And there’s the fact that Fisher has a history of building teams that are mediocre for years and then blossom into contenders.

I gather the point here is that they’ve shown promise for 3 years over and against injuries, and now they’re healthy, so we ought to expect improvement. I’ll just say here that fans of all bad teams reason like this every year and are generally bitterly disappointed. I’ll also note that we were losing with a healthy Bradford 2 years ago before he was hurt, and that a healthy Foles is almost certainly a step down from a healthy Bradford.

As for Fisher’s history, well, I don’t see that that gets one very far. Plenty of successful NFL coaches have flamed out in return engagements. Historical arguments are in general pretty dicey.

wv wrote:

And then there’s the fact that it just doesn’t take that much to make the playoffs these days. A couple wins over .500 and you are there. If a .500 team wins a couple more close games they go from eight wins to 10-6.

I mean, I’m just not sure what to say. Do you really mean to say that it doesn’t take much to get to the playoffs in the NFL?

A couple of wins over .500 in the NFL is not easy to do. It just isn’t. Sure, you can point to a narrow margin of victory and loss in a lot of our games. But that’s the nature of the NFL. Developing a team that can maintain the discipline to command those narrow margins of victory is very, very hard. To turn what we have seen for 3 years into a 10 win outfit is a HUGE step up. I know Ram fans like to believe it isn’t true.

Just think how this team has performed in EVERY GAME of the last 3 years when they had an opportunity to step up into a winning record or actual contention. Every single time they have tanked. They have NEVER looked good in games unless they have been well into a losing record and in the comfort zone of irrelevance. That right there is a fact one might do well to consider.

wv wrote:

I dunno. To me the ‘evidence’ this year, so far, is just all over the place.

Obviously, we draw different conclusions. Part of it is because we apply the term “evidence” differently. Part of it is perhaps a personality difference. Who knows?

I am just convinced that the step from what this team demonstrably IS right now and what optimistic Ram fans are hoping for is pretty damn high.

Of course, I will be delighted if they take that step.

But I am becoming pretty disgruntled, and if they don’t, I ain’t gonna care much about them.

Personally, I figure this year has long since been conceded by the Ram FO as a throw-away, lame duck year. I think the decision to go with a ridiculously young OL with mid and low-round talent demonstrates that. It’s the 1st year in So Cal that it will care about.

PA Ram wrote:

I think that teams use the strength of this defense(quick defensive line–aggressive D) against us. They hit short quick passes or run through a blitz and set up their longer strikes. There isn’t a lot of TIME to hit the QB. And this defense is mostly about getting to that QB. When it happens–brilliant. Chaos strikes–good things happen. But teams know this and they’ll “sucker” this defense in sometimes…while knowing where the opening is for that quick pass. The Rams run out of position to defend, in a sense.

This is exactly correct.

I’ll just say that this has been the response of every competent offense to good pass rushes since Deacon and Merle’s time. And any decent DC knows it. If you’re going to get value from a great natural pass rush, you MUST have ways to challenge the quick passing game.

Williams, however, simply concedes the short passing game most of the time. So it isn’t just offenses using our strength against us. It’s Williams inviting them to do so.

I’ll say that I deeply resent the unsoundness of the deployments Williams seems inexplicably to love. As long as he keeps playing his secondary in the first row of the stands, our pass rush will accomplish little. For the reasons you note.

zn wrote:

I think all your arguments are fair, in terms of what one should ask and what to look for. Plus I think you’re right that it is possible to see flashes in a pre-season game, if there is something there to flash. I am saying, though, that with this particular game, there’s nothing to base an answer on. …

I think the question works better for the next couple of games. Right now it’s too soon to ask, in my view.

Fair enough.

One caveat, though. As we go forward and look for evidence, watch the deployments. Watch what Williams does in 2 areas particularly:

1) the D front. Does he twist the personnel into unsound, imbalanced arrangements that leave natural seams and weak zones?

2) the coverage. Does he apply enough pressure to give the pass rush time to apply pressure?

Those 2 factors negate our defensive talent more than opponents can do.

nittany ram wrote:

I’ve seen the opposite scenario unfold too. I’ve seen teams play well in preseason only to morph into patsies when the games began to count. The Cowboys in Jimmy Johnson’s first year come to mind. There have been many others.

Well, I’m not really talking about “playing well.” I’m talking about the emergence of that special thing that makes a unit elite.

nittany ram wrote:

I will not believe this defense can dominate until it actually does. Even if they exhibit evidence of it in the next several preseason games it won’t really tell us how they will perform when the real season starts. Until they do it when the games matter it’s really evidence of nothing.

Love this: “I will not believe this defense can dominate until it actually does.” Amen, Brother.

And of course you’re right–only the real season actually counts.

But I continue to hold that genuine excellence announces itself. You see it coming, as we saw the GSOT start to become something special in that P/S.

NERam wrote:

I agree with Ag also. Way too much D talent to be abysmal.

PS. I like what people are saying about this. But it brings up a hobby horse of mine.

Talent is very important. But talent does not guarantee performance. One can have a very talented group that fails to compete effectively. That’s why I always resist assumptions that added talent will lead to better performance.

Remember, remember, remember, remember …

Last year, Sack City boasted a TON of legitimate talent. And it added AD!

AND … it set an NFL record for pass rushing futility over, whatever it was, 5 games. I never cease to be blown away by that fact. And I am even more amazed at how no one seems to find it worthy of comment.

So, I HOPE I understand your comment thus:

Way too much D talent FOR IT TO BE ACCEPTABLE FOR THIS UNIT TO PERFORM ABYSMALLY! (As it did last year until the season was lost.)

I hope you don’t mean this:

Way too much D talent to turn out to be abysmal.

‘Cause, you know, it MIGHT be just that! It was for half of last year!

zn wrote:

I would say it means more like this—for me, there’s nothing to base the question on yet.

OK, you can reject the premise of the question. That’s fair enough.

I do find it remarkable that one would argue that one should expect to actually SEE NO EVIDENCE WHATSOEVER of a unit that one hopes/expects to be emerging as a Top 5 competitive force. I find that remarkable indeed.

By the way, the “our dog ate our game plan” excuse makes little sense to me. But then, I’m pretty far out of step with this board’s view of the team.

Well, I’ll still welcome the first instance of someone somewhere showing me evidence that this team is capable of doing anything more than jabber and fight.

wv wrote:

I also think its
fair to “expect” a top ten (or better) defense, given
the totality of the circumstances (talent, experience, etc)
that weve all talked about over and over.

Absolutely. We absolutely should expect it.

The question is … do we see it emerging? Will it become a reality?

I get what you’re saying about P/S games. But you know, I think they show you a lot. You see who the team is emerging to be.

Way, way back in time, the 80s, I think, I was looking idly at a Viking P/S game. They had been poor, but they had some new pieces on defense. I think John Randle was a key part of the package.

Anyway, they looked awesome in that P/S game. The defense did. They just dominated. I remember thinking, “Aw, don’t worry. This is P/S. It won’t mean much.” But you know, a completely mediocre team emerged that year as a dominant defense. What I saw in that P/S game was the goods.

Also consider last year. The Rams showed us in P/S what they would be for half the season at least. You could SEE it. It foretold the season on the defensive side of the ball. It really did.

My friend, here’s essentially my response to your basic point.

If you have a legitimate, Top 5 defense, people can SEE IT. Sure, P/S is weird, but the competitive character of a truly elite unit is there to be seen, at least as long as the players expected to contribute keep playing. There’s no mistaking an elite defense. I actually think all football fans know it, deep down.

Anyway, I appreciate your frankness. You say …

A) There was no evidence.

B) But the absence of evidence doesn’t say anything.

I agree with A but not with B.