Zooey wrote:

zn wrote:
I once got into a discussion about similar stuff with a St. Louis fan who wanted to change the team name and logo so they would be more St. Louis. I disagreed, and said their longterm identity meant more to me than any St. Louis identification. He said that was superficial, since it meant I was just loyal to laundry. I said that the name, logo, and uniform are more than just merely external things–they’re the signs and symbols of a history and tradition, and that history and tradition is part of what the team means to people. I knew he was a baseball Cards fan, so I said, what if the Cards changed their colors and their name and became (say) The Aces. Would that be an absolutely meaningless change in merely superficial, external things? I think he saw the point when it struck home–no, the Aces wearing black and red would not be the same as the Cards wearing red.

Well, we are headed into something that matters a great deal to a lot of us, and to our posting friends that we have bonded with over the past two decades. Some of us are fans of the _________ Rams. Some of us are fans of the St. Louis _________. I think some of us may be fans of the Los Angeles ________, a currently vacant spot that people have filled with the Rams. I think, though, that if the Chargers had moved to LA five years ago, we would have seen some Los Angeles fans vanish.

We are headed for changes, and we are all going to lose some friends one way or another. It’s too bad.

But at least we have the consolation that Kroenke will be worth more on paper no matter what.

I just wanna know if you would still follow the ________Rams
if they changed their colors to pink and black,
and wore Big Lebowski bathrobes.

w
v

Yup. That ‘is’ the nightmare scenario.

Btw, i think i lean toward wanting them to move to LA.
Only because i know that would mean we’d see
them in BLUE and WHITE from time to time.

I dont like the way the organization has
ignored the blue and white uni’s.

w
v

zn wrote:

InvaderRam wrote:
. in particular i wonder if he’s got any other ideas about how to use tavon.

My thing with Tavon is, if he is used in new or different ways, it will be because he has advanced in his technique and knowledge and can DO more things.

It’s an unwinnable debate, as a debate–if Tavon is given more to do, I believe it will be because in his 3rd year he can do more things. But then, it would be hard to prove that…we don’t see practices and meetings, so we don’t know what they think he can and cannot do at this point.

>wv wrote:
“He is the kind of guy who will look at what he has and who his best players are and then design an offense for this season which is going to take advantage of them.”…

Same thing. If that’s true of Cigz, yay, because I value that a lot in a coordinator. However, I also believed that was a Schottenheimer strength too. It’s just that Schott’s teams went up and down in terms of who and what they had to work with and how far along they were.

Well, I agree, I would expect Stedman and Tavon to improve
simply because they have another year in the system under their belts.

But I am not sure about Shotty. I have doubts about whether he knew
how to best utilize Tavon. Granted, he had to deal with all kinds
of injury issues. But i still have questions about whether he
used Tavon correctly. I’m not sure.

I’m looking forward to the Cignetti Era.

w
v

Zooey wrote:

Oh, dear. I know nuthin about that dog, but it weirdly LOOKS like King Charles.

Well, if Cignetti cant get the Rams to execute
better, heads need to
roll.

w
v
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_I_of_England
Execution…
…
“but I must tell you that their liberty and freedom consists in having government … It is not their having a share in the government; that is nothing appertaining unto them. A subject and a sovereign are clean different things.”[274] He continued, “I shall go from a corruptible to an incorruptible Crown, where no disturbance can be.”[275]

At about 2:00 p.m.,[276] Charles put his head on the block after saying a prayer and signalled the executioner when he was ready by stretching out his hands; he was then beheaded with one clean stroke.[277] According to observer Philip Henry, a moan “as I never heard before and desire I may never hear again” rose from the assembled crowd,[278] some of whom then dipped their handkerchiefs in the king’s blood as a memento.[279]….

http://www.post-gazette.com/sports/pitt-football/2009/08/16/Pitt-Football-Frank-Cignetti-Jr-s-journey-home/stories/200908160186
Part One of the Pitt Post Gazette series on Cignetti

Frank Cignetti Jr. had one major important task to take care of on this particular day — purchase a puppy to bring home and surprise his three young daughters who, along with his wife, Ellen, were returning from a couple dayscouple of days at the Jersey shore.

“Can you hold on for a minute — I absolutely have to take this call,” he said.

He then proceeded to hammer down the details of the purchase of a Cavalier King Charles Spaniel, who would eventually become a part of the Cignetti household, named Gracie, and earn Cignetti a whole lot of “father-of-the-year” points — at least in the eyes of his daughters, Alyssa, 9, Gabrielle, 7, and Ella, 4.

“You can’t put a price on that,” he said of the size of the smiles on both his wife and daughter’s faces.

Of course, Cignetti probably locked up that father-of-the-year honor up in their eyes in February when he accepted the position as Pitt’s offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach. He and his family got to move from California and be closer to all of their friends and family.

“Once you are away from family and friends, you realize how it important it is to be around family and friends,” he said. “I can’t tell you how positive of an experience it has been for my daughters to be able to walk up the street to play with their cousins, and for their grandparents to be so close and be able to see them and be involved with them.”

Cignetti, 43, is from New Kensington and played college football at Indiana University of Pennsylvania. He got his coaching start as a graduate assistant at Pitt in 1989, then as an assistant at IUP (1990-98).

He also comes from a family of coaches with deep ties in Western Pennsylvania. His father, Frank Cignetti Sr., was an assistant coach at Pitt in the 1960’s and the head coach at both West Virginia (1976-79) and IUP (1986-2005). And his brother Curt, who is an assistant at Alabama, was an assistant at Pitt from 1993 to 1999.

Cignetti now lives in Treesdale, about 15 houses from one sister and a few minutes from another sister.

“When I first came here and was asked if I took a pay cut to come here [from California], if you just look at money, yes I did. But there are so many things in life you can’t put a price tag on, and those are things that to me, are far more important.”

Cignetti’s return to Pitt has been well received for a lot of reasons and many of them have nothing to do with the fact that his name is well known in these parts — although that’s a big part of it.

But there is also a fan base which has grown restless the past few years about a Panthers offense which has been neither imaginative nor productive at times.

And fairly or not, the brunt of the criticism was heaped on former offensive coordinator Matt Cavanaugh, who left to become the quarterbacks coach of the New York Jets.

Cignetti’s father, Frank Sr., said that when he heard his son was coming home to coach at Pitt, he was extremely excited. But he also knows how hard it can be to coach in your hometown.

“We were all very, very excited when the opportunity presented itself because it has always been his dream to get back to the East Coast and be back close to home,” Cignetti Sr. said. “And then to not only get back East, but to get here, to Pitt, it was almost too good to be true. Of course, now I’m sure there will be a lot of people who will have suggestions for him about how to go about his job.

“That can get uncomfortable at times. But he’s an experienced coach now and he’s been around good coaches so he’ll handle himself extremely well.”

Cignetti’s hiring signaled the dawn of a new era for the Pitt offense. But he laughs at the notion that he is some sort of savior. He understands that few coordinators in the country will be under more scrutiny than him, especially given the lofty expectations for the Panthers this season.

“Matt is a great football coach and, don’t forget, he is one of the greatest quarterbacks in this school’s history,” Cignetti said of Cavanaugh. “So if people were tough on an icon like him, I know that the expectations are very high here.

“I understand that and, believe me, nobody is going to expect or demand more from our offense than me.”

Cignetti has always admired the university, the athletic department and especially head coach, Dave Wannstedt. He said the opportunity to work for people for whom he has deep admiration — Wannstedt, Chancellor Mark Nordenberg and athletic director Steve Pederson — made the job too good to pass up — even if he did, as he said, have to take a slight pay cut from the $350,000 he made at the University of California.

The pieces are in place, he said, for the Panthers to become an elite program again, sooner rather than later.

“Dave Wannstedt has built the foundation for a championship,” Cignetti said. “And if you ask me, championship starts with a great defense. You need a great defense and great special teams and an offense which will protect the football, score points and win the field position battle.

“I didn’t take this job just because it was close to home; things had to be right. First and foremost, this is a great academic institution in the greatest football city in America, but beyond that, coach Wannstedt and I, our philosophy and approach is very similar.”

Cignetti’s first item of business has been to try and coach up the Panthers quarterbacks: Senior Bill Stull, junior Pat Bostick, redshirt freshman Tino Sunseri and freshman Kolby Gray. The group has not performed particularly well in the past few seasons, but in Stull and Bostick he has two players with a combined 22 career starts.

“Whether it is Billy Stull, Pat Bostick or Tino Sunseri, we have high expectations,” Cignetti said. “We expect them to compete with each other, we expect them to be successful. And I believe we have the players here in this [quarterback] room to do just that, and frankly, I’m not going to except anything less than their best.

“We’ve set the bar high for them.”

The bar has certainly been set high for Cignetti, but he wouldn’t have it any other way.

“I don’t feel any more pressure than any other time in my career,” he said. “This is a performance business, a bottom-line business and every place I have been, the expectations are extremely high. You don’t get into this profession if you don’t understand that.”

Tomorrow: Frank Cignetti’s offensive philosophy from those who know him best. Paul Zeise can be reached at pzeise@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1720. First Published August 16, 2009 4:00 AM
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• This reply was modified 11 years, 2 months ago by wv.

One guy, apparently, is already blaming the playcaller,
before a play has even been called.

w
v
=============
St. Louis Rams Admit Failure by Settling for Frank Cignetti as OC
By Sean Tomlinson , NFL Analyst
Feb 6,2015
http://bleacherreport.com/articles/2356543-st-louis-rams-admit-failure-by-settling-for-frank-cignetti-as-oc

waterfield wrote:

“Generally speaking things breakdown
along the usual political lines. They just do.
Ya got tons and tons of rightwing writers saying
“its not political, and even if it is, its accurate”

Sorry WV I don’t buy it-not for minute. I personally know “tons and tons” of very liberal people-including my son, wife, friends, etc-that think this entire discussion is silly. Most everyone I know, Republicans, Democrats, Independents, agree that it’s a true story about a single soldier’s torment. It’s not about the morality of the war But since its based on a true story it was about Iraq. The immorality of that particular war-as shared by my son, wife and all my very liberal friends, including myself is for another movie. Now maybe to some we are all just very shallow.

Personally, I think there are people who will view art-in whatever form-and use it as a vehicle to promote a particular political viewpoint-be it race, war, religion, etc. notwithstanding the intent of the artist.

BTW: a Threshold question: have either you or ZN actually seen the movie? Or just read from commentaries that you happen to agree with?

After all these posts, I dont think you can accurately summarize zn’s position.
(which i share)

Which means, at this point, i dont see any point
in writing anything more than
“agree to strongly disagree”.

w
v

• This reply was modified 11 years, 2 months ago by wv.

rfl wrote:

I agree that this is a silly column.

There are some parallels, but what Bernie doesn’t refer to here is the vast gulf between the SEA FO and the Shaw/Zygmunt insanity. Our SB loss revealed the rotten foundations on which the GSOT was built.

Martz was a great OC. He was a questionable HC and a lousy talent evaluator. All of that could have been fine on a team grounded by a quality GM running a sound ship. We were being run by the Keystone Kops. And, actually, the folly of our “leadership” is revealed in Bernie’s assertion that they never forgave their HC for losing a close game. Who does that? People who don’t know the game. I dunno if Bernie is right or wrong. But the assertion sounds plausible because those morons didn’t get the first thing about football.

By contrast, SEA is run by one of the sharpest GMs in the game. I see no indication that that foundation is rotten enough to be shattered by one game.

Of course, it IS possible that Pete may have some problems with his players. We’ll see how much credibility he has built up with them. I would think that they’d settle down and it would all be fine. But, lingering effects are possible.

But let’s imagine the worst. Pete loses the locker room. They fire him. OK, the stream of talent won’t stop as long as the GM is running a capable ship. They’ll be an attractive gig for a really good coach. The organization has a great chance to keep chugging along as the Whiners did under Siefert.

In general, I think Carroll is taking a lot of unfair heat. I figure the call was fine. A pick was really unlikely. An Inc, for example, would have been fine. Trust your top 10 QB to run the play without losing the game, and it’s a good call. That is, it’s perfectly defensible.

And yet …

I loathe Pete Carroll. His arrogance and faux-boyish emotionalism are irritating. I understand that he has some program called “Win Forever.” That sort of arrogance calls for a correction. Glad to see it happen.

Well, they have four guys in the secondary that are injured
and i think they all may need surgery. I dunno,
but that might mean they cant really work out and stay
sharp in the offseason. Might be a drop off in the
effectiveness of the Legion of Boom next year.
We’ll see.

I dont loathe Pete Carroll anymore. I dunno why
but he’s grown on me for some reason. Especially
now that every celebrity-pundit in the Universe seems to think
he blew the super bowl.

w
v

Zooey wrote:

Oh, they already have fallen apart. It’s over for that team.

From what I’m hearing, they aren’t even really talking to each other anymore, or even holding practices.

Yeah, i heard M.Lynch isnt even
speaking to anyone anymore.

w
v

zn wrote:

<div class=”d4p-bbt-quote-title”>Zooey wrote:</div>

Reminds me of an old college teacher of mine. Richard “Red” Watson. By the time these photos were taken he was Richard “Gray” Watson.

At the bottom of the Pierre-Saint Martin, once the deepest cave in the world. (Photo by F.-M. Callot)

Fisher has hired a cave explorer
as Offensive Coordinator?

See, this cant be good.

w
v

Zooey wrote:

But…if the Davis family ends up owning the Rams, it will take me a long time to climb out of my depression.

Hole-Lee-Shit. Dont even say that.
Dont think it, and dont type it.

Geezus-h-christ.

Let a thousand flowers bloom,
except for that one.

w
v

I don’t really understand how you can think there’s no contract penalty
when he’s been playing for less than a million and now he’ll be playing
for fifteen million. I mean, thats a fourteen million dollar
penalty they way i look at it. Thats fourteen million dollars
they would have been able to spend on other players and now they cant.
Maybe this is just semantics, i dunno.

w
v

Mackeyser wrote:

I disagree with the basic premise of the analysis.

Pete Carroll/Darrell Bevell got too cute by half. Take the TO if you have to and go heavy and run it in, but do NOT throw it into traffic.

On the other play at the end of the half, Wilson threw it where either it would have been caught, tipped out of bounds or incomplete. There were 3 Pats around that ball and only 1 Seahawk.

Even going heavy, the Pats had struggled to stop the Seahawks in the 2nd half. Was dumb not to call the TO and reset.

I dunno. Folks seem to think bad things can happen with a pass
but nothing bad can happen with a run. But the Pats were stacked
for Run-defense. And the Beast could have lost two yards. Then
its third and two-and-a-half.

After watchin it twenty times in slo-mo,
I blame Martz.

w
v