.@RamsNFL @TG3II goes for 33 on a 3 count screen. YO AZ, who has the back? #BaldyBreakdowns pic.twitter.com/jEJ36KYXrE

— Brian Baldinger (@BaldyNFL) December 5, 2017

wv wrote:

Is there ANYTHING thats gone wrong this year?

w
v

Yes. But it’s a growing pains thing. Against tough veteran competition, they did not make the plays while the other team did. (Signature moment: Thomas knocking the ball out of Gurley’s hand v. Rams mistakes n that game.) It was both the Seattle and Minn. games. Rams need to reach the point where they are a ruthless band of veteran opportunists.

Alden Gonzalez
ESPN Staff Writer

Rams will gauge the air quality at the facility on Wednesday to decide whether they need to practice elsewhere on Thursday. And they pretty much have a place in mind if that’s the case. A Wednesday walk-through, which will take place near their facility, isn’t a big deal for them. That’s what Wednesdays have basically become for them anyway, with several veterans taking rest days midweek. They’re in pads on Thursdays. That’s the big one for them.

Ebukam Plays Well in First Career Start

Kristen Lago

http://www.therams.com/news-and-events/article-1/Ebukam-Plays-Well-in-First-Career-Start/d2d571b9-a5e0-4b07-b2ce-9cc8acc13393

Outside linebacker Samson Ebukam became the fifth Rams rookie to start in a game this season, filling in for the injured Connor Barwin on Sunday.

“A dream come true,” Ebukam said. “I thought I was going to get tired, but all the adrenaline was going through me so I wasn’t ready to leave the field at all.”

Although Week 13 marked the rookie’s first career start, it wasn’t his first time stepping into such a big role.

The fourth-round draft pick out of Eastern Washington has rotated in with Barwin’s throughout the year. Through 12 games, Ebukam has made a name for himself as an important contributor on both special teams and defense — recording 20 total tackles, 2.0 sacks, and one forced fumble.

And while he has been a mainstay on field this season, Sunday was admittedly a bit nerve-wrecking for Ebukam.

But nerves aside, the rookie says he still had an “awesome” time in Sunday’s win over the Cardinals.

“I think it went pretty good,” he said. “I have to give thanks to the rest of the team because they really helped me out with a couple of the things I didn’t know.”

But pretty good is quite the understatement.

In all, Ebukam finished tied for second on the team with five solo tackles in 48 defensive snaps.

Head coach Sean McVay said he “thought Samson was outstanding,” noting that there was no dropoff between the eight-year pro in Barwin and the rookie.

“He continued to show up down in and down out,” McVay said. “I thought he made an influence in the rush package and did a nice job when we were playing in some of our base as well.”

Overall, this weekend marked a good first step for Ebukam. He is expected to get the starting job once again in Week 14, as McVay said Barwin will “more than likely be out” for Sunday’s contest against the Eagles.

Interesting note from @ESPNStatsInfo: #LARams Goff spends more time in the pocket (2.5 sec per snap) than any QB in #NFL. And all 20 of his passing TDs have come from the pocket. pic.twitter.com/A0p18IGx3o

— J.B. Long (@JB_Long) December 5, 2017

These Run Games get the RB to the second level without being touched, creating lanes for the Running Back! @merrilhoge would be proud!#Jaguars #DallasCowboys #GoSaints #KeepPounding #GoBills #FlyEaglesFly #Skol #LARams #InBrotherhood #DaBears #FinsUp #RaiderNation pic.twitter.com/jyn2xiigvd

— NFL Matchup on ESPN (@NFLMatchup) December 1, 2017

Best-rated defenses AGAINST THE PASS- according to passer rating of opposing Quarterbacks.

Anyone notice a trend with the best and worst teams?#Jaguars #RavensFlock #Chargers #FlyEaglesFly #LARams #HereWeGo #Seahawks #Bengals50 #GoBills #Skol #RaiderNation pic.twitter.com/biRW2tkYUK

— NFL Matchup on ESPN (@NFLMatchup) December 4, 2017

Frustrated with dropped passes?

Here are teams with the lowest and highest percentage of passes dropped!#LARams #TitanUp #Texans #DallasCowboys #Bengals50 #Skol #OnePride #GoSaints #Jets #HereWeGo #FinsUp #GiantsPride #RaiderNation #GoNiners #HTTR #DaBears pic.twitter.com/nPCCjSbxWO

— NFL Matchup on ESPN (@NFLMatchup) December 5, 2017

#Rams might have the best-designed play-action game in NFL. Goff getting increasingly comfortable here.

— Andy Benoit (@Andy_Benoit) December 5, 2017

one thing you seen from Goff, especially in the red zone, is poised pocket movement as he works late into progressions. Rams OL quietly having a very stellar year.

— Andy Benoit (@Andy_Benoit) December 5, 2017

wv wrote:

The great ‘bottleneck’ i think its called.

The bottleneck theory refers to this—I don’t understand the specifics, but if you study human DNA you discover that it points backward to a very limited number of progenitors in the past. That is, everyone now comes from a very small number of original people.

As it happens, that genetic bottleneck coincides with the evidence showing a massive caldera (giant volcano) erupting in Indonesia (what you just referred to). That event could have caused a volcanic winter blocking out the sun with ash and dust for up to a decade. That would have killed plant life, causing massive extinctions on a global scale as food sources died out. (BTW, it has been said that the disaster disrupting life in McCarthy’s The Road is also a caldera.)

This leads to the theory that the human population was reduced to about 3,000 or so survivors at that time before it later took off again.

Near as we can tell, the Russians were not involved. But then of course they would deny that.

From the wiki:

Toba catastrophe theory

The Toba supereruption was a supervolcanic eruption that occurred about 75,000 years ago at the site of present-day Lake Toba in Sumatra, Indonesia. It is one of the Earth’s largest known eruptions. The Toba catastrophe theory holds that this event caused a global volcanic winter of six to ten years and possibly a 1,000-year-long cooling episode.

In 1993, science journalist Ann Gibbons posited that a population bottleneck occurred in human evolution about 70,000 years ago, and she suggested that this was caused by the eruption. Michael R. Rampino of New York University and Stephen Self of the University of Hawaii at Manoa support her suggestion. In 1998, the bottleneck theory was further developed by Stanley H. Ambrose of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Both the link and global winter theories are highly controversial.

The Toba event is the most closely studied supereruption.

Genetic bottleneck theory

The Toba eruption has been linked to a genetic bottleneck in human evolution about 70,000 years ago, which may have resulted from a severe reduction in the size of the total human population due to the effects of the eruption on the global climate. According to the genetic bottleneck theory, between 50,000 and 100,000 years ago, human populations sharply decreased to 3,000–10,000 surviving individuals. It is supported by genetic evidence suggesting that today’s humans are descended from a very small population of between 1,000 and 10,000 breeding pairs that existed about 70,000 years ago.

Proponents of the genetic bottleneck theory suggest that the Toba eruption resulted in a global ecological disaster, including destruction of vegetation along with severe drought in the tropical rainforest belt and in monsoonal regions. For example, a 10-year volcanic winter triggered by the eruption could have largely destroyed the food sources of humans and caused a severe reduction in population sizes. Τhese environmental changes may have generated population bottlenecks in many species, including hominids; this in turn may have accelerated differentiation from within the smaller human population. Therefore, the genetic differences among modern humans may reflect changes within the last 70,000 years, rather than gradual differentiation over hundreds of thousands of years.

Other research has cast doubt on a link between Toba and a genetic bottleneck. For example, ancient stone tools in southern India were found above and below a thick layer of ash from the Toba eruption and were very similar across these layers, suggesting that the dust clouds from the eruption did not wipe out this local population. Additional archaeological evidence from Southern and Northern India also suggests a lack of evidence for effects of the eruption on local populations, leading the authors of the study to conclude, “many forms of life survived the supereruption, contrary to other research which has suggested significant animal extinctions and genetic bottlenecks”. However, evidence from pollen analysis has suggested prolonged deforestation in South Asia, and some researchers have suggested that the Toba eruption may have forced humans to adopt new adaptive strategies, which may have permitted them to replace Neanderthals and “other archaic human species”.

Additional caveats include difficulties in estimating the global and regional climatic impacts of the eruption and lack of conclusive evidence for the eruption preceding the bottleneck. Furthermore, genetic analysis of Alu sequences across the entire human genome has shown that the effective human population size was less than 26,000 at 1.2 million years ago; possible explanations for the low population size of human ancestors may include repeated population bottlenecks or periodic replacement events from competing Homo subspecies.

Genetic bottlenecks in other mammals

Some evidence points to genetic bottlenecks in other animals in the wake of the Toba eruption. The populations of the Eastern African chimpanzee, Bornean orangutan, central Indian macaque, the cheetah, the tiger, and the separation of the nuclear gene pools of eastern and western lowland gorillas, all recovered from very low numbers around 70,000–55,000 years ago.

Aaron Donald is the first @rams player — and the first interior rusher in @nfl history (!!) — to record 8+ sacks in each of his first 4 seasons. ••••••••••

Okay okay, Donald is good. Alright we get it.

"It's all about the little adjustments, little techniques we need to clean up to be a more dominant group." -Michael Brockers on the second half adjustments pic.twitter.com/mEVcMqgJwO

— Los Angeles Rams (@RamsNFL) December 4, 2017

I may have to give my guy Ogletree a lesson or two on the art of flipping! pic.twitter.com/tnTwSBr1Bu

— Henry Ellard (@EllardHop85) December 4, 2017