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znModeratorRams understand Adrian Peterson is older but still a threat
Gary Klein
http://www.latimes.com/sports/rams/la-sp-rams-20171016-story.html
He might have been riding the high from intercepting a pass in the Rams’ victory over the Jacksonville Jaguars.
And he was no doubt unaware of what was happening across the country in the Arizona Cardinals’ game against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
So when Rams cornerback Nickell Robey-Coleman was asked whether the addition of running back Adrian Peterson to the Cardinals changed anything as the Rams prepare to play them in London, Robey-Coleman did not parse his words.
“Adrian Peterson is not Adrian Peterson in 2008, 2009,” Robey said in the postgame locker room as a few stunned teammates looked on and listened. “He’s not the same Adrian Peterson, and I think everybody knows that.”
In 2008, Peterson rushed for 1,760 yards and 10 touchdowns for the Minnesota Vikings. In 2009, he had 1,383 yards and 18 touchdowns.
Peterson, 32, showed Sunday that he still has plenty of ability.
Only a few days after the Cardinals acquired him a trade with the New Orleans Saints, Peterson had 134 yards and two touchdowns in 26 carries in host Arizona’s 38-33 victory.
Peterson appears to have filled the void left after star running back David Johnson suffered a wrist injury in Week 1.
Rams coach Sean McVay said Monday that Peterson is a good fit for coach Bruce Arians’ scheme.
“They’re still doing the same things schematically — they’ve just got a great player in Adrian Peterson who’s doing those,” McVay said during a news conference at the team’s hotel. “So I think you just appreciate that, hey, this is a big-time player.
“But a lot of their core principles, especially specific to the run game that you saw him having success with [Sunday], are a lot of things that David Johnson and those other guys in coach Arians’ system have been doing at a high level as well.”
The Rams are 0-2 in London.
In 2012, they lost 45-7 to the New England Patriots at Wembley Stadium. Last season, they lost 17-10 to the New York Giants at Twickenham Stadium.
This will be the Cardinals first time in London. They were scheduled to leave Phoenix on Monday.
The Rams are staying in Jacksonville until Thursday before departing for London.
He’s managing
McVay acknowledged that he remains a work in progress managing timeouts.
“It starts with me,” he said, “I’ve got to do a better job with that.”
But in the fourth quarter against the Jaguars, McVay showed growth as he orchestrated a five-minute, 12-play drive that forced Jacksonville to use timeouts. The drive ended with a field goal that gave the Rams a two-score margin.
It’s not just me handling all that,” McVay said. “I’m in constant communication. … That’s what’s nice about those headsets. It’s not just one person dictating everything.”
McVay gave credit to defensive coordinator Wade Phillips and special-teams coordinator John Fassel.
“That would be silly not to be able to utilize the valuable experience and some of the approaches and understanding of ‘we’ve been here before’ that I haven’t had,” he said.
Is Lance Dunbar ready?
McVay said running back Lance Dunbar was healthy and available to start practicing this week, but a determination must still be made about whether that will happen now or after the bye week, which comes after the Rams play the Cardinals.
Dunbar was signed in the offseason to provide a change-of-pace option behind Todd Gurley. He did not participate in offseason workouts or training camp because of a knee issue and was put on the reserve physically-unable-to-perform list.
Players who start the season on the list are not eligible to practice for the first six weeks. After that, the player can practice and the team has 21 days to put them on the active roster.
“There’s a handful of things involved in that discussion, but that’s something that we’ll have to make a decision on here very shortly,” McVay said.
Etc.
Tight end Derek Carrier, who had been evaluated for a possible concussion, was cleared, McVay said. … The Rams are off Tuesday. They will practice Wednesday and Thursday at a college.
znModeratorFrom Jags Newspaper:
Ten takeaways from the Jaguars’ 27-17 loss to the Los Angeles Rams on Sunday
http://jacksonville.com/sports/jaguars/2017-10-16/10-takeaways-rams-jaguars
1. The Jaguars had multiple chances at Pharoh Cooper on the opening kickoff after Keelan Cole over-pursued himself out of position. Jarrod Wilson missed a tackle at the Rams 18 and Cooper was off to the races. Peyton Thompson dove and missed at the Jaguars 25 and Tyler Patmon dove and missed at the 5. It was the longest kick return allowed by the Jaguars since a 104-yard touchdown in 2007.
2. Leonard Fournette answered with a 75-yard touchdown rush. The play was off the right side and center Tyler Shatley, left guard Patrick Omameh and right guard A.J. Cann all had good blocks. To put Fournette’s carries of 90 yards (at Pittsburgh) and 75 into perspective, Hall of Fame tailbacks Marcus Allen, Terrell Davis, Curtis Martin and Jerome Bettis never had a carry longer than 71 yards.
3. The Jaguars’ defense has a whopping two blitzes in the last two games. Through four games, they were rushing five or more at a clip of 27.9 percent. But the season rate is now at 19.0 (47 of 247) after blitzing once in 60 drop-backs at Pittsburgh and once in 26 drop-backs against the Rams. Against Jared Goff, the Jaguars rushed three players on five drop-backs, including one sack. The only pressure was on a third-and-5 in the first quarter. Defensive end Dante Fowler dropped into coverage and strong safety Barry Church and linebacker Telvin Smith rushed. Goff threw in 2.16 seconds, completing a 13-yard pass to Cooper Kupp.
4. Rams defensive coordinator Wade Phillips was aggressive. He blitzed 14 times in 44 Blake Bortles drop-backs (31.8 percent). Three of the Rams’ sacks came on five-man pressures and two on four-man rushes. Booking blame for the sacks, in order: Shatley, Shatley, Omameh, left tackle Cam Robinson and Shatley/Omameh. A tough go for Shatley, who was filling in for Brandon Linder (illness).
5. The Jaguars didn’t have a tackling problem against Todd Gurley, they had a get in/stay in position problem. We booked the defense for only three missed tackles (a season-low): Fowler (on a sack), Aaron Colvin (on a pass) and Tashaun Gipson (on a rush by Malcolm Brown).
6. Rams coach Sean McVay called a good game and his best play sealed things. Leading 24-17 with 3:38 remaining, the Rams had third-and-4 from the Jaguars’ 26. The Jaguars had Smith and Myles Jack in the ‘A’ gaps showing blitz. That left the edge vulnerable and Gurley ran right for nine yards. Receiver Cooper Kupp sealed in Fowler and the Jaguars’ cornerbacks got caught in traffic. The Rams kicked a field goal four plays later.
7. Only three of Blake Bortles’ 35 pass attempts traveled at least 16 yards in the air – an 18-yard catch by Allen Hurns, a 35-yard incompletion to Marqise Lee and a 20-yard catch by Lee. In six games on passes that traveled at least 16 yards in the air, Bortles is 9-of-21 for 207 yards. Bortles’ incompletion to Lee was a missed chance. Lee had a step on his defender, but Bortles’ throw was so wide, it would have been tough for Lee to catch it and get both feet in bounds.
8. The Jaguars’ run game issues began on their second drive. On first down, right tackle Jermey Parnell was beat by defensive tackle Aaron Donald, but Fournette bounced away for a four-yard gain. On the next play, fullback Tommy Bohanon missed his block and Fournette was held to a one-yard gain. Nine of Fournette’s 21 carries gained two or fewer yards.
9. Bortles’ interception was a poor throw. On third-and-13 from the Rams’ 31, he led tight end Marcedes Lewis too far. The pass deflected off of Lewis and was picked off by Nickell Robey-Coleman, who returned it 31 yards. On the previous two plays, the Jaguars went Fournette no gain and sack.
10. Pass rush pressure chart for Jaguars: Sacks 3 (Calais Campbell 2/Smith 1), hits 3 (Yannick Ngakoue 3) and pressures 2 (Campbell/Fowler).
znModeratorOn the road again, and the Rams don’t mind
Alden Gonzalez
http://www.espn.com/blog/los-angeles-rams/post/_/id/35897/on-the-road-again-and-the-rams-dont-mind
JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — The road, in many ways, is their home.
The Rams play out of Los Angeles, but they have performed their best away from it. The sample size is still quite small, but the Rams have won only two games in L.A. since they moved there at the start of the 2016 season, both of which represented their home openers. This year, they’re 3-0 on the road for the first time since 2001 — the year they went to the Super Bowl — and 1-2 at home.
“I don’t even think we should play at home,” Rams running back Todd Gurley said, jokingly (one would think). “We’ve gotten all the wins on the road. That’s been a good thing for us.”
It’s good timing, too.
The Rams beat the Jacksonville Jaguars at EverBank Field 27-17on Sunday and are staying in the city through Thursday. From there, they will go to London to serve as the home team against the division-rival Arizona Cardinals. Then they’ll have their bye week, and then they’ll travel to face the New York Giants. That’s three games covering something in the neighborhood of 17,000 airline miles. Their next true home game, Week 10 against the Houston Texans, will come 35 days after their last one.
Because they now play out of the West Coast, and because they’ve drawn the London game, the Rams are set to travel more miles than any other team from the start of the 2016 season to the end of the 2017 season.
This week, their home is a sprawling, luxurious golf-course resort along Jacksonville’s coastline. Rams coach Sean McVay is looking forward to the whole experience. He recently spoke to Atlanta Falcons coach Dan Quinn, whose team played in Denver and in Seattle for back-to-back games and wound up spending an entire week on the West Coast.
“It offers a unique opportunity to continue to connect as a team,” McVay said. “Being away, but still you’re almost creating another camp in-season, if you will, and it feels comfortable.”
The Rams are trying to mimic their typical weekly schedule and adjust it to E.T. They had meetings on Monday, will be off on Tuesday, then practice on the campus of the University of North Florida on Wednesday and Thursday afternoon. They’ll then hold a late, light practice at 4 p.m. local time from London on Friday.
The Rams are 4-2 for the first time 2006, already matching their win total from all of last season.
There have been times, as recently as their Week 5 game against the Seattle Seahawks, when their offense has had to use a silent count at home because so many of the fans at Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum were rooting for the opposing team.
Maybe they acquired that road mentality early.
Maybe they have already come together.
“We’re playing as a team and finishing games,” Rams defensive tackle Aaron Donald said. “We’ve had a lot of adversity in our games, but we’re still finding a way to play for four quarters and finishing.”
znModeratorArizona Cardinals report card: Offense gets high marks in win over Buccaneers
Arizona Cardinals top Tampa Bay Buccaneers
Passing offense: A
Carson Palmer was sharp and efficient and went to his sure-handed target, Larry Fitzgerald, early and often to help the Cardinals build a nice lead. It helped that he had time to throw and the offensive line and the rest of his blockers deserve major credit for that. The line featured three different starters than a week ago, and Palmer was only sacked twice. John Brown and Jaron Brown each made at least one huge play and the passing game gained nearly 300 yards without ever completing a pass to a running back.
Rushing offense: A+
Considering where they were and how they looked before the arrival last week of Adrian Peterson, it would be impossible not to give this unit a superior grade. Peterson looked awesome, showing brute force, jukes and jump cuts to power his way to 134 yards and a pair of rushing touchdowns. Again, you have to give the offensive line credit here. They opened up some nice running lanes for Peterson, and when the holes were small, Peterson and his sheer will made them big enough to exploit.
Pass defense: C
Through the first half, this unit deserved an A or at least a high B. The problem was, the more the Buccaneers went into a hurry-up offense, the less pressure the Cardinals could mount on backup Ryan Fitzpatrick, and the result was a secondary getting tested and frequently burned in the furious comeback attempt. Antoine Bethea and Tramon Williams each had an interception, but it almost felt like Arizona needed one or two more turnovers to make up for a second-half fade on defense overall.
Arizona Cardinals Chandler Jones scaks Tampa Bay Buccaneers
Arizona Cardinals Chandler Jones scaks Tampa Bay Buccaneers quarterback Ryan Fitzpatrick in the second half on Oct. 15, 2017 at University of Phoenix Stadium in Glendale, Ariz. (Photo: Rob Schumacher/azcentral sports)
CARDINALS 2017 SCHEDULE: On to London to play the RamsRush defense: A-
The Cardinals have now gone 19 consecutive games without allowing a 100-yard rusher, limiting Tampa Bay’s Doug Martin to 53 yards on 14 carries. The longest run he broke on the day was for 27 yards, and the defense was so stout and the Cardinals were so far ahead so early, the Bucs basically abandoned the running game before they could ever think about trying to get it started.
Special teams: A
It might not have been perfect everywhere, but at least there were no glaring mistakes here in any phase. The coverage teams didn’t allow anything. Kerwynn Williams returned a kickoff for 28 yards. Andy Lee had one of his punts downed at the Tampa 1-yard line thanks to great hustle and body control by rookie Budda Baker. And Phil Dawson nailed his only field-goal attempt and all five of his extra points.
Coaching: B
Bruce Arians tried not to get too conservative after his team raced out to a 31-0 lead. It was impossible not to lean that way, however, and I don’t think you can blame him. It was an easy decision to stick with the running game early considering how well Adrian Peterson ran. Peterson looked fresh, focused and hungry every time he touched the ball. Defensively, there were some issues, and a lot of that was because the offense couldn’t stay on the field after grabbing the big lead. In the end, it was a win, and that’s all that really matters.
znModeratorPFF: Peterson has huge debut with the Cardinals
https://www.profootballfocus.com/news/pro-peterson-has-huge-debut-with-the-cardinals
GLENDALE, AZ – Newly acquired Arizona Cardinals RB Adrian Peterson had a debut to remember Sunday, rolling back the years and looking like the dominant back he can be with 134 yards on 26 attempts.
Peterson gained 57 yards after contact, broke four tackles and had two runs of 15 or more yards, more than doubling his production for his entire time in New Orleans and putting up his best game since Week 10 of the 2015 season.
Peterson remained a non-factor in a passing game, with 15 snaps on passing plays out of the 48 he played this week, but zero targets.
The Cardinals’ run-blocking was significantly better this week with Peterson in the backfield, and it remains to be seen if that can be sustained going forward.
znModeratorThe most productive pass rushers from the interior so far in 2017 pic.twitter.com/WxRK8EQ8nY
— Pro Football Focus (@PFF) October 16, 2017
znModeratorhttps://sports.yahoo.com/nfl-power-rankings-amid-chaos-team-deserve-no-1-054151653.html
9. Los Angeles Rams (4-2, LW: 12)
On a day when the Rams passing offense didn’t do much, Todd Gurley was huge. He had 116 rushing yards against a tough defense. That’s what you need out of a foundation running back.znModeratorhttps://www.si.com/nfl-power-rankings-2017
10. Los Angeles Rams (4-2)
Last Week’s Rank: 14Points in MMQB Power Poll: 288
Highest-Place Vote: Sixth
Lowest-Place Vote: 11th (2)
===
6. Los Angeles Rams (4-2) | Last Week’s Rank: 10
The Rams are a first-place team after six games and still way ahead of any realistic rebuilding schedule under first-year coach Sean McVay after the triumph over the Jaguars. They probably aren’t the team to beat in the NFC West, not after losing to the Seahawks a couple weeks ago. But they show no signs at this point of disappearing from the race.
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11 Los Angeles Rams
Last week’s ranking: 13Most recent result: W, 27-17 vs. Jaguars
Why they’re here: Sean McVay’s offense has been the story thus far for the Rams, but it was the third phase of the game that saved them vs. the Jags. A kickoff return for TD and blocked punt return for TD boosted them to their third road victory in three attempts, a sign that one of football’s youngest rosters is playing beyond its age. They’re now in first in the NFC West.
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9. Los Angeles Rams
2017 record: 4-2
Week 6 ranking: No. 11The Rams are heading into one of the toughest stretches of the year. Seven of their next eight games are against teams that are currently .500 or better, and six of those games are against conference foes and three will be division games.
==
9. Rams (4-2): Yes, they could be 6-0. But after 4-12 in 2016, 4-2 looks pretty good.
znModeratordzrams wrote:
The Rams just played the #3 (Jax) and #7 (Seattle) D in Points Allowed. The first few weeks they played very weak defenses. We probably got an inflated sense of how good the O is.
Here are the D rankings in Points Allowed that we have played in order:
Ind. – 31st – We score 46
Wash. – 13th – We score 20
49ers – 29th – We score 41
Cowboys – 26th – We score 35
Seattle – 7th – We score 10
Jax – 3rd – Offense essentially scores 10On the D’s ranked in the high 20’s or worse, we score 35+. On a middle of the road D (Wash.), we score 20. On top 10 D’s, we score 10.
I don’t think our offense is mature enough to dominate top defenses yet. At least they are scoring very well against weak defenses as they should.
FWIW, on points allowed Arizona’s D is ranked 28th.
znModeratorFive Takeaways: Rams Defeat Jaguars 27-17
Myles Simmons
PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Fla. — After Sunday’s 27-17 victory over the Jaguars, the Rams are 4-2 for the first time since 2006 and 3-0 on the road for the first time since 2001. Though the club’s offense had trouble putting up points, special teams contributed two touchdowns, providing what head coach Sean McVay called the difference in the game.
Here are five takeaways from the win.
1) Special teams are special
The Rams’ special teams unit has been one of the club’s strengths since coordinator John Fassel arrived in 2012, but Sunday marked a particularly strong performance. For the first time in franchise history, the Rams scored a touchdown on a kickoff return and returned a blocked punt for a touchdown in the same game.
“It’s huge,” McVay said of the two special teams touchdowns. “It ended up winning the game for us today.”
Kicker Greg Zuerlein also connected on a 56-yard field goal — his longest of the season so far. He continues to have an outstanding year so far in 2017, as he leads the league with 17 field goals.By scoring two non-offensive touchdowns, the Rams built an advantage that was too much for the Jaguars to overcome.
“t’s very difficult in the NFL — when you give up that many points on [special] teams — it’s very difficult to win the game,” Jaguars head coach Doug Marrone said. “So I thought were trying to battle our way back in there, but obviously that hurt. We weren’t able to overcome that, which is difficult to do in this league.”
Through six games, wide receiver Pharoh Cooper leads the league in kickoff returns (15), return yards (476), and return average (31.7 yards). He also has the longest kick return in the league this year (103 yards) and its only touchdown return.
2) Defense tightens up
Running back Leonard Fournette rushed for a 75-yard touchdown on the Jaguars’ first play from scrimmage. Jacksonville had a four-play, 75-yard drive result in a touchdown midway through the first quarter.
But after that? The Rams’ defense surrendered only three points — and that was off a sudden change where the offense fumbled.
“We can’t take away that first play, but we played a lot better after that play,” said outside linebacker Connor Barwin, who recorded his third sack of the season on Sunday. “We knew their offense was going to try and run the ball with Fournette and that’s what we focused on all week.”
In the Rams’ last three games, the defense has allowed just 15 second-half points combined to the Cowboys, Seahawks, and Jaguars — six against Dallas, six against Seattle, and three to Jacksonville. It’s a sign that things are beginning to come together well for the unit.
“We are encouraged to get the win today and there’s still a lot of things we want to do better and get fixed,” Barwin said. “But it’s encouraging that we seem to be playing better every week and that’s the most important thing.”
3) Robey-Coleman makes a big play in a big moment
Down 24-17, Jacksonville had an opportunity to draw closer with a drive that made it well into Los Angeles territory early in the fourth quarter. But cornerback Nickell Robey-Coleman put a stop to it with his second interception of the season.
On 3rd-and-13 from the Los Angeles 31, Jags quarterback Blake Bortles fired a pass to his right for tight end Marcedes Lewis. But the ball was just outside of Lewis’ reach, as he tipped the ball off his hands. Robey-Coleman was in the right place at the right time to end Jacksonville’s scoring threat.
“I had vision on the quarterback and Marcedes Lewis came underneath. When Blake threw it, I just broke on the ball,” Robey-Coleman said. “I thought Marcedes was going to catch it. He tipped the ball and it just landed in my hands.”
With the pick, Robey-Coleman has tied his career high for interceptions in a single season. The former Buffalo corner set the mark last year, coincidentally, with two interceptions against the Rams in October.
4) Gurley reaches 110 again
Running back Todd Gurley was in a familiar setting at EverBank Field — the site of the annual Florida-Georgia matchup. Gurley improved his personal record to 3-1 in the facility with the Rams’ win, and did it with a lot of tough yards.
Gurley finished with 116 yards on 23 carries — good for an average of 5.0 yards. His longest run of the day was 14 yards, which means he was able to get plenty of gash runs to help keep L.A. ahead of the chains.
Six of Gurley’s first-down carries went for six to eight yards — a fact that illustrates his effectiveness and how well the offensive line was blocking.
“You definitely have to earn everything, especially the 3rd-and-1s,” Gurley said of facing the Jaguars. “Those big boys up front, the receivers, and tight ends — everybody — has been able to do their jobs. We have been able to go out and execute.”
Gurley has now reached at least 110 yards rushing in three of the Rams’ last four games. He had 113 against San Francisco and 121 against Dallas before reaching 116 on Sunday.
5) Offense sputters, but was effective on final drive
Los Angeles’ pass game had a tough time getting going on Sunday, as quarterback Jared Goff finished just 11-of-21 passing with 124 yards and a touchdown. The signal-caller was under heavy pressure for much of the contest, as he was sacked three times and the Jaguars registered five quarterback hits.
“I missed a couple. I think I missed Sammy [Watkins] down the field there and Tyler [Higbee] on the one down the sideline,” Goff said. “I think I made a couple bad decisions there and made a couple bad throws. For the most part, I was happy I didn’t turn the ball over. I think against a good defense like that and a team that you know they are waiting for you to do that if anything.”
The numbers were noticeably down across the board, as L.A. ended the contest with 249 total yards, 12 first downs, and 4-of-31 in third-down efficiency. Two of those third-down conversions came on the Rams’ five-minute drive midway through the fourth quarter, which took 5:08 off the clock and induced Jacksonville to call all three of its timeouts.
McVay said that if L.A. could put a drive together like that toward the end of the game, the team felt it would be in good shape. And that’s exactly how it turned out.
“To [the offense’s] credit, they made the plays when they had to, and churned some clock off,” McVay said.
There’s plenty to correct from an offensive standpoint — McVay said, bluntly, “Offensively, it was not good enough” — but the Rams were still able to get a 10-point victory on Sunday.
“There was a lot of plays that we’d like to have back offensively. I do not want to get away from giving credit to Jacksonville for forcing us into not being able to make those,” McVay said. “There were some situations that we’ll look at. We think that we can get better. We can create some of those explosives that you see us doing earlier on in the year.”
October 16, 2017 at 7:33 pm in reply to: black holes, gravitational waves, n other stuff like that #76197znModeratorThis is very tangential but fun to think about. A friend of mine, a guy I have known since high school, teaches at U of Iowa. He just told me that one of his favorite students of all time worked on the project that the last 2 articles discuss—ie. finding multiple sources, including gravitational waves, to study colliding neutron stars.
So in this case it’s only 2 degrees of separation.
For the guys reading this, it’s 3.
…
znModeratorIn some categories the Rams offense came in higher than the Jax defense has allowed on average. So on average, with Jax the opposing qb’s qb rating is 60; Goff’s against them was 86.2 . Their YPA allowed is 4.5; Goff got 5.9 (against anyone else that would be considered bad). Jax gets 1.7 Ints a game; Rams threw none.
i understand all that and yet i think goff and the passing game could have done better.
This is REALLY minor and could just be in my head, but I get a little bit of a sense there that you think I am arguing with you on this, a bit. It would actually be okay if we were, but weren’t not though…I said what I said about the stats not in response to anything, it was just some added ideas to toss out. In terms of your view that the passing game could have done better, I completely agree. I think a young coach, young qb, and new offense have struggled a bit over the last 3 games…even though they went 2-1 in those games.
My stats thing was just some more “it’s celebration time” detail stuff.
It wasn’t aimed at anyone. If you asked me directly “do those numbers mean they didn’t struggle in the passing game” I would answer “no, if you watched the game it’s clear they had rough areas still to work out.” So basically we agree. …
October 16, 2017 at 5:12 pm in reply to: black holes, gravitational waves, n other stuff like that #76186znModeratorNeutron star collision showers the universe with a wealth of discoveries
After two neutron stars slammed together, scientists detected gravitational waves, a burst of gamma rays and a glow from ejected material, shown in this artist’s conception.
https://www.sciencenews.org/article/neutron-star-collision-gravitational-waves
WASHINGTON — Two ultradense cores of dead stars have produced a long-awaited cosmic collision, showering scientists with riches.
The event was the first direct sighting of a smashup of neutron stars, which are formed when aging stars explode and leave behind a neutron-rich remnant. In the wake of the collision, the churning residue forged gold, silver, platinum and a smattering of other heavy elements such as uranium, researchers reported October 16 at a news conference in Washington, D.C. Such elements’ birthplaces were previously unknown, but their origins were revealed by the cataclysm’s afterglow.
“It really is the last missing piece” of the periodic table, says Anna Frebel, an astronomer at MIT who was not involved in the research. “This is heaven for anyone working in the field.” After the collision, about 10 times the Earth’s mass in gold was spewed out into space, some scientists calculated.
Using data gathered by about 70 different observatories, astronomers characterized the event in exquisite detail, releasing a slew of papers describing the results. A tremor of gravitational waves, spotted by the Advanced Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory, LIGO, on August 17, provided the first sign of the cataclysm.
“Already it is transforming our understanding of the universe, with a fresh narrative of the physics of stars in their death throes,” said France Córdova, director of the National Science Foundation, which funds LIGO.
A sequence of various types of electromagnetic radiation followed that gravitational trill, like musical instruments taking turns in a symphony. A burst of gamma rays segued into a glow of visible and infrared light, first spotted about 12 hours after the smashup. More than a week later, as those wavelengths faded away, X-rays crescendoed, followed by radio waves.
Combining gravitational waves with light from a neutron star merger is a long-held dream of astrophysicists. “The picture that you can put together by having all of those sources is synergistic,” says LIGO spokesperson David Shoemaker of MIT. “You can make inferences that otherwise would be impossible.”
That detailed picture revealed the inner workings of neutron star collisions and the source of brief blasts of high-energy light called short gamma-ray bursts. Researchers also calculated how fast the universe is expanding and tested the properties of the odd material within neutron stars.
For astrophysicists, “this event is the Rosetta stone,” says LIGO member Richard O’Shaughnessy of the Rochester Institute of Technology in New York.
LIGO’s two detectors, located in the United States, registered an unmistakable sign of the upheaval: A shimmying of space itself that continued for about 100 seconds before cutting off. It was the strongest and longest series of spacetime ripples LIGO had ever seen. At that point, scientists knew they had something big, says LIGO member Vicky Kalogera of Northwestern University in Evanston, Ill. “The e-mails that were circulated said, ‘Oh my God, this is it.’”
That vibration was an indication of a cosmic crash: Whirling round each other as if on an ill-fated merry-go-round, two orbiting neutron stars spiraled closer and closer, until they converged. The neutron stars, whose masses were between 1.17 and 1.60 times that of the sun, probably collapsed into a black hole, although LIGO scientists were unable to determine the stars’ fate for certain. LIGO has previously spotted mergers of swirling black holes with masses tens of times that of the sun (SN Online: 9/27/17); the smaller masses of the orbiting duo pointed the finger at neutron stars. And because black holes aren’t expected to emit light, the fireworks show that followed solidified the case for neutron stars.
LIGO’s sister experiment in Italy, Advanced Virgo, saw only a faint signal. That relatively weak detection helped narrow down where the convulsion occurred to “a part of the sky that was a blind spot of Virgo,” Kalogera says. That constrained the site to within a region of about 30 square degrees in the southern sky.
Just 1.7 seconds after the gravitational wave signal, NASA’s Fermi space telescope spotted a glimmer of gamma rays in the same neighborhood of the sky. Meanwhile, other telescopes swung into action, picking up a glow where none had been before. “We saw what looked like a new star,” says astronomer Edo Berger of Harvard University, who led a team that spotted the light with the DECam on the Blanco telescope in Chile. Berger’s was one of several teams that observed the blast’s light. That detection pinpointed the galaxy NGC 4993, 130 million light-years from Earth in the constellation Hydra, as the collision site. “There was this moment of disbelief: Wow, we actually did it. We found it,” Berger says.
That afterglow also revealed an amazing story of stellar alchemy: With the stars’ death came the birth of elements. As the collision spurted neutron-rich material into space, a bevy of heavy elements formed, through a chain of reactions called the r-process (SN: 5/14/16, p. 9). In this process, which requires an environment crammed with neutrons, atomic nuclei rapidly gobble up neutrons and decay radioactively, thereby transforming into new elements, before resuming their neutron gorgefest. The r-process is thought to produce about half of the elements heavier than iron.
Scientists detected the characteristic glow of this process, called a kilonova, in follow-up observations. “Until this event, we had never directly seen anywhere in nature these heavy elements being forged. Now we have,” says Brian Metzger, a theoretical astrophysicist at Columbia University. “It is a feeling like you’ve discovered some kind of secret of nature.”
Previously, astrophysicists disagreed about where the r-process occurs: Two top candidates were exploding stars called supernovas (SN: 2/18/17, p. 24) and neutron star mergers. Although scientists can’t yet say whether all r-process elements are produced in neutron star mergers, the amount such collisions should produce appears large enough to explain the abundances found in the universe.
Additional riches were revealed by gamma rays. Scientists spotted a phenomenon called a short gamma-ray burst, a brief spurt of high-energy light, less than two seconds long. Such paroxysms are relatively common, appearing in the sky about 50 times a year. But finding their source is “a long-standing problem in astrophysics,” says theoretical astrophysicist Rosalba Perna of Stony Brook University in New York. The detection clinched it: Short gamma-ray bursts come from neutron star tête-à-têtes.
By studying how the neutron stars spiraled inward, astrophysicists also tested the “squishiness” of neutron star material for the first time. This extreme substance is so dense that a teaspoonful of it would have a mass of around a billion metric tons, and scientists don’t fully understand how it responds when squeezed, a property known as its “equation of state.” Measuring this property could give scientists a better understanding of the strange material. Although the results couldn’t pin down whether the neutron stars were squishy, some theories that predicted ultrasquishy neutron stars were ruled out.
The neutron stars’ union also gave researchers the opportunity to gauge the universe’s expansion rate, by measuring the distance of the collision using gravitational waves and comparing that to how much the wavelength of light from the galaxy was stretched by the expansion. Scientists have previously measured this property, known as the Hubble constant, through other means. But those measurements are in disagreement, leaving scientists scrambling to explain the discrepancy (SN: 8/6/16, p. 10).
Now, scientists have “a totally different, independent measurement,” says LIGO collaboration member Daniel Holz of the University of Chicago. The new measurement indicates that distantly separated galaxies are spreading apart at about 70 kilometers per second for each megaparsec between them. It falls squarely between the two previous estimates: 67 and 73 km/s per megaparsec. Though this collision can’t yet resolve the debate, future mergers could help improve the measurement.
“These are all just unbelievable, major advances,” Holz says. “It’s really been this insane thrill.”
The excitement has yet to die down. Take it from astronomer Ryan Foley of the University of California, Santa Cruz, whose team was the first to spot visible light from the merger: “This is certainly the biggest discovery of my career and probably will be the biggest discovery of my entire life.”
znModeratorThat’s a good story z.
znModeratoralyoshamucci wrote:
Blinkscout Game 6 Jags … steadying the winning ship ...
We’re Rams fans so there is naturally going to be a level of complaint as if we were losing these games. I expect that.
But the truth is that we’re fine tuning a new offense and defense, and getting better along the way. Also, I’ll note right off the bat that I think the Sammy complaints are premature. They didn’t have an offseason together and I don’t expect a fully synched Goff to Watkins expectation is realistic until after the bye week.
The Great
1) Run blocking. To average over 5 ypc without a 40 yarder thrown in there against a solid defense is a great sign.
2) Special Teams … I sometimes forget how good Fassel is.
3) AD beginning to make more plays.
The Good
4) Tanzel Smart is tenacious and consistent. I knew he was a good kid, but I truly did not expect him to play THIS well.
5) The TD to Everett … that was really really quick cognition by two great athletes to make that happen.
6) Targeting Sammy downfield.
7) Playing more physical than a really physical team.
8) Barron playing really well.
9) Brockers sacks and pressures.
10) Ebukam with quality reps.
11) Every successful tackle of Fournette. Kid is a monster. I remember his freshman year at LSU, thinking “Man if he gains 20 lbs he’s not going to be able to be a RB” … and he gained 25 … and still runs a 4.5 flat. Freak.
12) Consistent pressure and how many? 5 sacks?
The Bad
13) Why is Kupp not catching punts? Pharoh can’t catch either.
14) Webster seems to get dinged a lot.
15) Can we not tackle Marquis Lee?
16) Quinn with the penalties … I hate the suplex penalty as Fournette is a monster, but the whistle had definitely sounded. Im not as upset with his play as most are, I think he’s creating quality pressure, but he has 3 offsides now. I have no idea what that’s about.
17) Missing Higbee 3 times? Dang.
18) Sammy rounding his route off on the deep ball (I am not concerned with the jump ball, everyone miss times a jump now and again) … took a bad angle IMO. Fixable when they know each other better.
19) How do we not fall on one of those fumbles?
20) Hey can we identify a guy like Calais Campbell earlier and adjust for him?
21) I don’t like seeing Whitworth get beat more than once.
I don’t have an Ugly section.
October 16, 2017 at 2:58 pm in reply to: black holes, gravitational waves, n other stuff like that #76177znModeratorScientists witness huge cosmic crash, find origins of gold
USA TODAY
Even in the normally mind-blowing science of astronomy, this discovery was special.
Two months ago, scientists for the first time detected both the ripples in space and time and the light produced and emitted during the same cosmic event: the spectacular collision of two neutron stars.
The discovery would soon reveal secrets of the cosmos, including how gold was created.
Neutron stars, formed when massive stars explode in supernovas, are the smallest, densest stars known to exist. A teaspoon of a neutron star has a mass of about a billion tons.
The collision of neutron stars is known as a kilonova — an explosion similar to a supernova but on a smaller scale.
The crash generated a fierce burst of gamma rays and a gravitational wave, a faint ripple in the fabric of space and time first theorized by Albert Einstein a century ago.
“This is the one we’ve all been waiting for,” said David Reitze of CalTech in Pasadena, Calif., calling the collision “the most spectacular fireworks in the universe.”
“This is extremely exciting science,” said Paul Hertz, director of NASA’s Astrophysics Division at the agency’s headquarters in Washington. “Now, for the first time, we’ve seen light and gravitational waves produced by the same event.”
An undated handout photo made available by the European Southern Observatory (ESO) on Oct. 16, 2017 shows an image from the MUSE instrument on ESO’s Very Large Telescope at the Paranal Observatory in Chile shows the galaxy NGC 4993, about 130 million light-years from Earth. The galaxy is not itself unusual, but it contains something never before witnessed, the aftermath of the explosion of a pair of merging neutron stars, a rare event called a kilonova (seen just above and slightly to the left of the centre of the galaxy). This merger also produced gravitational waves and gamma rays, both of which were detected by LIGO-Virgo and Fermi/INTEGRAL respectively. By also creating a spectrum for each part of the object MUSE allows the emission from glowing gas to be seen, which appears in red here and reveals a surprising spiral structure.
This merger occurred 130 million years
This particular violent merger, which occurred 130 million years ago in a galaxy near our own (NGC 4993) and seen from Earth in the Hydra constellation, is the source of the gravitational waves detected on Aug. 17.
The signal arrived on Earth after traveling 130 million light-years. A light-year is 5.88 trillion miles.
This is the fifth source of gravitational waves to be detected — the first one was discovered in September 2015, for which three founding members of the National Science Foundation’s Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory (LIGO) collaboration were awarded the Nobel prize in physics two weeks ago.
Measurements of the light and other energy emanating from the crash have helped scientists explain how planet-killing gamma ray bursts are born, how fast the universe is expanding and where heavy elements like platinum and gold come from.
“This is getting everything you wish for,” said Syracuse University physics professor Duncan Brown, one of more than 4,000 scientists involved in the blitz of science that the crash kicked off. “This is our fantasy observation.”
NASA’s Fermi telescope, which detects gamma rays, sent out the first alarm. Then, 1.7 seconds later, gravity wave detectors in Louisiana and Washington state that are a part of the LIGO Laboratory detected the crash.
Soon telescopes worldwide were focused on what became the most well-observed astronomical event in history.
This time there was plenty to see, measure and analyze: matter, light and other radiation. The Hubble Space Telescope even got a snapshot of the afterglow.
“The completeness of this picture from the beginning to the end is unprecedented,” Columbia University physics professor Szabolcs Marka said. “There are many, many extraordinary discoveries within the discovery.”
The colliding stars spewed bright blue, super-hot debris that was dense and unstable. Some of it coalesced into heavy elements, like gold, platinum and uranium.
“We see the gold being formed,” Brown said.
The observation settles a riddle that has puzzled scientists for more than 60 years: Where do gold, platinum, uranium and other heavy elements, known as r-process elements, come from? Scientists had long suspected that they originated from colliding neutron stars; they now have visual evidence.
Perhaps one day the material will clump together into planets the way ours was formed, Reitze said — maybe ones with rich veins of precious metals.
“We already knew that iron came from a stellar explosion, the calcium in your bones came from stars, and now we know the gold in your wedding ring came from merging neutron stars,” University of California Santa Cruz’s Ryan Foley said.
The crash also helped explain the origins of one of the most dangerous forces of the cosmos — short gamma ray bursts, focused beams of radiation that could erase life on any planet that happened to get in the way. These bursts shoot out in two different directions perpendicular to where the two neutron stars first crash, Reitze said.
Scientists involved with the search for gravitational waves said this was the event they had prepared for over more than 20 years.
“This discovery has opened up a new approach to astronomical research, where we combine information from both electromagnetic light and from gravitational waves,” said Nial Tanvir, professor at the University of Leicester. “We call this multi-messenger astronomy — but until now it has just been a dream!”
znModeratorYes, but what are their numbers against Horned teams, playing in Europe, with a coaching staff with an unknown number of left-handed assistants ?
w
vNothing times the empty set minus an infinity of zeroes.
BUT.
Things can change.
.
znModeratorT Gurley and another way of considering why A Peterson never "lost it" pic.twitter.com/TNI1QGhg77
— Matt Waldman (@MattWaldman) October 16, 2017
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Donald's quickness/power with blitz threat behind it is deadly way to set up a twist benefiting Barwin for sack. pic.twitter.com/lm1H90eqNj
— Matt Waldman (@MattWaldman) October 16, 2017
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Go ahead stack the box, but the risk can be a total breakdown pic.twitter.com/pSPuImSp9z
— Matt Waldman (@MattWaldman) October 16, 2017
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Jags zone; M Jack disrupts target. pic.twitter.com/vISHQgJSkd
— Matt Waldman (@MattWaldman) October 16, 2017
==
A thriller with a killer twist: C Campbell sack. pic.twitter.com/wqhbXDz5rD
— Matt Waldman (@MattWaldman) October 16, 2017
==
znModeratorMalcolm Brown is a personal fav me. pic.twitter.com/O0oUxbYc65
— Matt Waldman (@MattWaldman) October 16, 2017
October 16, 2017 at 11:33 am in reply to: Can the Rams beat Arizona in London? Must win game? #76163znModeratorArizona looked dead for a bit there in the first few games but they’re not entirely, quite dead yet. And it’s a division game.
Fortunately for the Rams Calais Campbell, their great nemesis of late, left Arizona (unfortunately he went to Jacksonville. But, the Rams won so that’s over.) Right now the Cards defense is in decline. They’re 21st in yards, 28th in points, 26th in passing yards, though 9th in rushing yards and 4th in yards per carry.
They’re still 11th in sack percentage though 27th in sacks.
On offense, they’re 10th in yards, including 3rd in yards passing, though 20th in points, and 3rd in yards passing, though 32nd in yards rushing. Adrian Peterson is already changing that.
znModeratorSumm stuph.
Jagz defense is #1 against the pass. But also #1 in sack percentage, at 10.2% (which btw they surpassed against the Rams). The last time a team had a sack percentage higher than 10.2% was Dallas with 10.4% in 2008. They also were 1st in sacks, first in INTs and INT percentage, 2nd in Passing TDs allowed, first in opposing qb’s qb rating, 5th in opposing qb completion percentage, 3rd in yards per pass attempt allowed.
The little shovel pass to Everett is the 4th passing TD they’ve allowed all year.
Where they’re bad is rushing defense and the Rams took advantage.
In some categories the Rams offense came in higher than the Jax defense has allowed on average. So on average, with Jax the opposing qb’s qb rating is 60; Goff’s against them was 86.2 . Their YPA allowed is 4.5; Goff got 5.9 (against anyone else that would be considered bad). Jax gets 1.7 Ints a game; Rams threw none.
znModeratorznModeratorRams ride their special teams, defense to victory The Rams’ offense struggled on Sunday, but they dominated on special teams and defense to capture a 27-17 win over the Jaguars.
October 16, 2017 at 1:48 am in reply to: tweets, jagz post-game, 10/15 (lots of cool factoids) #76136znModeratorMike Cahill @FB_Cahill
Aaron Donald’s 20 QB pressures over the last two weeks would rank 4th among interior defenders for their whole season, now has 36 since WK 2Alden Gonzalez @Alden_Gonzalez
The Rams’ defense gave up 90 points in a 10-quarter stretch from Weeks 2-4.
In the next 10 quarters: 39 points.Rams ILB Alec Ogletree, on the defense: “From Day One, I knew we could be a top defense. It’s a matter of everybody getting the system down and keep playing, each and every week, and just getting better in practice. I feel like we’ve been doing that lately, and it’s starting to show.”
Barwin: “It would’ve been miserable staying in Jacksonville having a loss.” …
Gurley, on Fournette’s 75-yard TD: “I blame Cooper. He should’ve never scored and made him mad.”
Donald, on recovering from 75-yard TD: “It’s a long game. If you let that hurt you, and keep thinking about that, it’ll be even longer.”
McVay: “Offensively, it was not good enough.”
Julia Faron @JFaron
Cooper is the 6th Rams to return the opening KO for a TD. Last time Rams returned a KO for a TD was CB Chris Johnson (10/9/05) for 99 ydsWR P. Cooper’s 103 yd kickoff returned for a TD is tied for the 3rd longest KO-TD in Rams’ history. There have been 2 KO’s returned 105 yds
Marks the 23rd time in NFL history that a team has a blocked punt & a KO return for a TD, last was the Redskins (9/24/15)
Only the 2nd time in Rams history that they blocked a punt and returned a kickoff for a touchdown in a single game.
Correction: Marks 1st time in Rams historyThe only other time came on 11/14/76 when Cullen Bryant had a 90 yd kickoff return and punter Terry Joyce had one punt blocked
The Rams 17 pts in the 1st Q is the most they’ve scored in the 1st quarter of a game since scoring 21 points vs. Oakland (11/30/14)
Rookie TE G. Everett notched his 1st TD on a 4-yd pass from Goff. Marks the 8th receiving TD of the season for the Rams.
Vincent Bonsignore @DailyNewsVinny
Last year the #Rams would have lost a game like Sunday’s. That they figured out a way to win is significant progressRich Hammond@Rich_Hammond
The Rams are 2-0 with the “we got dressed in the dark” look. Why change what works?Dani Klupenger@daniklup
Robey-Coleman intercepts Bortles! I clapped in the press box by instinct…. (not allowed) *slaps wrist* but Rams ball!Joe Berry FURIOUS with that unnecessary roughness call on Quinn. You could see his reaction on the sidelines.
J.B. Long@JB_Long
On with us postgame, Sean McVay ticked by offense’s lack of production 2nd week in a row. @RamsNFL 4-2, but he’s already thinking Wk7 fixes.Lindsey Thiry @LindseyThiry
Todd Gurley was asked how the Rams are 3-0 on the road, “I don’t know, I don’t know.” But when asked if it could be the uniforms, he said, “NO!”znModeratorRamUK wrote:
Wow that was draining!
Embarrassing confession. We literal;y walked in to see the field as the kick off was in the air.
I didn’t cotton on we were in the dark blue and thought the Jags were taking it back. It wasn’t until Cooper hit the end zone and it went quiet that I realized! That was a lovely realization.
I was really surprised how many Rams supporters were there. There were a LOT around us and that’s awesome when so many people knock Rams fans.
At the end of it they were on target for a gazillion points but I said to the jubilant Jags fans round me when Fournette took that long run to the house that they weren’t to got too excited as Wade didn’t bother turning up for the first quarter as he was out fishing.
If we can actually start a game with the D firing on all cylinders then it’ll be a top 3 D. They shut Fournette down after that first quarter and they were swarming.
Watching Hekker in stadium as opposed to on TV is a joy to behold. Man he hits that ball high, way higher than the Jags punter.
I just don’t see what Austin brings to this O., I really don’t. $40m for a decoy who has had punt return duties taken off him and who has to be fitted into the O is frustrating to me.
As of now, our best D player is not Donald it’s Brockers. He was outstanding today and I think more than any player he is benefiting from the 3-4.
And what can you say about our ST’s that hasn’t been said. Bones should be up for coach of the year. He has those guys fired up and boy do they love him.
We had a couple of plays go our way especially just prior to the blocked punt, but this team is so tough. Ram tough.
I’m not too worried about Goff and this is kind of what you’d expect from such a young kid. But one thing worries me. He locks on to a receiver too easily and is not going through his progressions. Again this is easier to see from up above. Maybe today was an anomaly, but I hadn’t noticed it quite so much on TV.
The Jags fans are so ambivalent with thousands leaving way before the game was really over, but unlike some other games, I actually though the Rams were going to hold on today, and they did.
I was exhausted by the end, but that nice exhaustion you get sometimes.
McVay is making mistakes, Goff is making mistakes, and the team as a whole is. BUT we’re winning and making mistakes.
This NFL is so topsy turvy at the moment so anything can happen, it’s crazy.
Can we make the play-offs, hell yeah and I think we will.
Will we go far in the play-offs? Probably not, but I don’t think it’s beyond the bounds of possibility when you have the Packers done (IMHO) without Rodgers and then Atlanta losing to the Cards.
It’s a weird season and I hope it will get a lot more weird with the Rams winning play-off games.
…
znModeratorTwo from the LA Times. Links only…I already used up my monthly access quota.
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So far, the Rams appear to be a contender
http://beta.latimes.com/sports/nfl/la-sp-rams-jaguars-farmer-20171015-story.html
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Rams bounce back to beat Jaguars 27-17
http://beta.latimes.com/sports/chargers/la-sp-rams-jaguars-20171015-story.html
znModeratorI liked the highlights from 2013. I barely remembered anything about that game.
Good to see people go through these threads. You never know.
I deleted that one though.
So now, no one else will ever know that happened.
znModeratorRams’ special teams make the difference in road win over Jaguars
VINCENT BONSIGNORE
JACKSONVILLE, Fla — It wasn’t pretty. And the Rams clearly have some things to clean up to prove they’ve truly turned the corner.
But their 27-17 win over the Jaguars on Sunday certainly had a special element. And it made all the difference.
With their offense struggling to put consistent drives together, let alone cross the goal line, the Rams turned to their special teams to save the day against the Jaguars.
They responded by scoring two touchdowns to push the Rams to 4-2 and get them off on the right foot to begin a three-game excursion away from Los Angeles. They matched their win total from last season with 10 games left to play.
The win wasn’t secured until Greg Zuerlein kicked a 29-yard field goal with 2:32 remaining to put the Rams up, 27-17. It capped a 12-play drive that wiped 5:08 from the clock.
The first special teams score came on Pharoh Cooper’s 103-yard kickoff return to start the game in which the second-year wide receiver made a brilliant play to avoid Jaguars tacklers — and the out-of-bounds line — to race the length of the field to put the Rams up 7-0.
The second came in the second quarter when backup linebacker Corey Littleton broke through the Jaguars offensive line to block Brad Norton’s punt inside the Jacksonville 10-yard-line and Malcolm Brown picked it up then rambled into the end zone to put the Rams up 24-14 in the second quarter.
Those two scores, coupled with an opportunistic defense that forced a Blake Bortles interception by Nickell Robey-Coleman and kept the Jaguars out of the end zone over the final three quarters, were enough for the Rams to escape Northern Florida with a victory.
Big given the Rams offense was spotty, inconsistent and at times sloppy while crossing the goal line just once — on a 4-yard shovel pass from Jared Goff to Gerald Everett — yet still managed to come up with the win.
The Rams felt good if they put the Jaguars in third-and-long situations and put the game in the hands of Bortles, they’d be in decent shape. Doing so required the Rams limiting the production of the Jaguars powerful running game, specifically rookie running back Leonard Fournette, on first and second down.
While that worked eventually, it certainly wasn’t the case early on. Fournette answered Cooper’s 103-yard touchdown return on the opening kickoff that put the Rams up 7-0 by blasting through a big hole for a 75-yard touchdown run to tie the score 7-7.
It was part of a 100-yard first quarter rushing effort for Fournette that, briefly, gave the Jaguars a 14-10 lead when Chris Ivory went 22 yards for a touchdown on a screen pass.
The key was the Jaguars putting themselves in manageable situations by being productive in early downs.
But the Rams got that cleaned up in the second quarter and continually forced Jacksonville into third and longs. Bortles, ill-equipped to manage those situations, failed miserably and the Rams continued to force punts.
The last of which resulted in Littleton busting through the Jaguars line of scrimmage to block Brad Norton’s punt attempt inside the 10-yard line and Brown picking it up and taking it in for a touchdown to make it 24-14.
Goff finished with 121 yards on 11 of 21 passing while Todd Gurley ran for 116 yards on 24 carries.
It wasn’t pretty. But it was enough for the Rams leave Florida with a big win.
znModeratorWith Two Special Teams TDs, Rams Defeat Jaguars 27-17
Myles Simmons
JACKSONVILLE — Playing an unfamiliar opponent in a hostile environment, the Rams were able to score a pair of special teams touchdowns en route to defeating the Jaguars, 27-17.
Wide receiver Pharoh Cooper returned the game’s opening kick 103 yards for a touchdown, and linebacker Cory Littleton blocked a punt deep in Jacksonville territory that running back Malcolm Brown brought into the end zone.
It’s the first time in franchise history the Rams have blocked a punt and returned a kickoff for a touchdown in the same game. And it’s just the 23rd time in league history a team has accomplished the feat — the first since Washington in 2015.
“It’s huge. It ended up winning the game for us today,” head coach Sean McVay said of the two special teams touchdowns. “I can’t say enough about their effort, and that was the difference in winning this football game today.”
The Rams needed those two special teams touchdowns on a day where their offense struggled. L.A. had only 12 first downs — nine after three quarters. The club finished 4-of-13 on third down, as quarterback Jared Goff ended the contest 11-of-21 passing for 124 yards with a touchdown.
The club did run the ball well, however, with Gurley amassing 116 yards on 23 carries with a long of 14. The Georgia product has now rushed for at least 110 yards in three of his last four games. And Brown successfully spelled Gurley on a few runs, too, rushing for 17 yards on three carries.
The ground attack was critical in the fourth quarter, as the Rams took 5:08 off the clock — and induced Jacksonville to use all of its timeouts — with a 12-play drive that ended in a Greg Zuerlein field goal for the game’s final 10-point margin.
“We finally got a third-down conversion. We had so many in a row that we didn’t get and we finally got one,” Goff said, specifically noting wide receiver Cooper Kupp’s 22-yard reception on 3rd-and-6 from the L.A. 46. “When you get third-down conversions, you move the ball, you move the chains, and Cooper [Kupp] picked up some good yards after the catch there. Jump plays tends to move the ball down the field. Ultimately that’s what it was. We were running the ball well all day. It was just on third down we struggled a little bit.”
Though Los Angeles’ defense allowed a 75-yard touchdown by rookie running back Leonard Fournette, the unit allowed only three points after the first quarter. Jacksonville finished just 4-of-15 on third down, as quarterback Blake Bortles ended the day 23-of-35 passing for 241 yards with a touchdown and an interception. And after Fournette’s first run, he amassed only 55 yards on 20 carries.
“I think that they continue to improve,” McVay said of the defense. “I think when you look at well-coached teams led by Wade Phillips, those teams [that] get better as the season progresses are the ones that end up playing better. I think that’s a representation of players that are receptive to the coaching, and our coaches continue to hammer down the fundamentals, the techniques.”
After the Jaguars won the toss and deferred to the second half, Cooper fielded the kickoff, darted to his right, found a hole at the second level, then scampered down the right sideline to pay dirt. Cooper’s touchdown return was the first in over a decade for the Rams, as cornerback Chris Johnson was the last to accomplish the feat in 2005.
“I felt like it was a good ball to return when I first caught it,” Cooper said. “I found the wedge, ended up having a spin move — some guy had a spin move in there and it was a part of the return, just happened, part of my instincts and went with it. Hit the sidelines and took off, prayed that I didn’t get caught.”
Fournette’s 75-yard run tied the game at seven with 14:35 left in the first quarter. According to the Elias Sports Bureau, it’s the first time in the Super Bowl era that two touchdowns have been scored in the first 25 seconds of a game.
Zuerlein nailed a 56-yard field goal to put the Rams ahead 10-7. But the Jaguars responded with a quick four-play, 75-yard touchdown drive. Fournette had an 18-yard run during the possession, and Bortles hit running back Chris Ivory with a 22-yard screen for the go-ahead score.
Jacksonville’s lead wouldn’t last too long, as L.A. pulled ahead with its only offensive touchdown of the day. Goff began the possession with a 22-yard pass to wide receiver Robert Woods and an 11-yard completion to wideout Sammy Watkins. Rookie tight end Gerald Everett finished the drive with a four-yard touchdown off a Goff shovel pass — the first scoring strike of his career.
With the visitors ahead 17-14, the two teams traded punts for much of the second quarter. But with just over two minutes left in the half, Littleton broke through Jacksonville’s punt protection to block Brad Nortman’s kick. The ball squirted to the return team’s right, where Brown picked it up and was escorted by a mob of Rams eight yards to the end zone.
“I saw the ball flying and my teammates helped me make the play and get into the end zone,” Brown said. “I appreciate all their help and I definitely wouldn’t have made it in there by myself.”
The Jaguars had a chance to cut into the Rams’ lead heading into the break, but Jason Myers’ 54-yard field goal attempt was wide left.
Down 24-14 in the third quarter, Jacksonville got back on the board following a Los Angeles giveaway. Woods fumbled after making a 20-yard reception, setting up the Jaguars’ offense at about midfield. Defensive tackle Aaron Donald recorded his second sack of the season on the drive — also forcing Bortles to fumble, though the Jags recovered. Myers’ 41-yard field goal made the score 24-17, Los Angeles.
The Jaguars threatened to score again early in the fourth quarter, but cornerback Nickell Robey-Coleman ended the opportunity with his second interception of the season. On 3rd-and-13 from the Los Angeles 31, Bortles’ pass to Marcedes Lewis went off the tight end’s hands and into the arms of Robey-Coleman, who returned the pick 31 yards to Jacksonville’s 45.
Though the Rams could not get points off that particular turnover, they would extend their lead to 10 with Zuerlein’s 29-yard field goal at later in the period.
Down 27-17 with no timeouts and 2:32 remaining, the Jaguars reached the Los Angeles 36 with 1:12 left and the Rams took a timeout. Needing two scores, Jacksonville sent Myers to attempt a 54-yard field goal, and the kick was no good — effectively ending the game.
With the win, the Rams are now 4-2 overall with a 3-0 record on the road. They’ll stay in Jacksonville this week before flying to London to play the division-rival Cardinals.
“Credit to [the players] for doing a great job, not allowing traveling on a Friday to become a distraction,” McVay said. “It’s the second time we’ve done that, with the Dallas game earlier this season.
“Now it’s going to be a great challenge for us to make sure that we enjoy this one, and then we come back tomorrow approaching this like a business trip, getting ready for a well-led Arizona Cardinals team with coach [Bruce] Arians at the helm.”
znModeratorRams ride defense, special teams in win over Jaguars
Alden Gonzalez
JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — They showered, dressed, packed their belongings, greeted their loved ones, and then most of the Los Angeles Rams players did something they never have before: They went back to the hotel. The Rams are done playing the Jacksonville Jaguars, but they have yet to conclude their stay in this city. They will remain here until Thursday, practicing out of the University of North Florida, then fly to London for a Week 7 game against the Arizona Cardinals.
They’ll stay, at least, with the glow of a win.
“I did not wanna stay in Jacksonville and have a loss,” Connor Barwin said after a 27-17 victory by his Rams on Sunday. “I can talk about it now — it would’ve been miserable staying in Jacksonville having a loss. It’s just so weird anyway, to not be getting on a plane. But it’s really nice that we got the win.”
The Rams’ win was their fourth, tying their total from last season through the first six weeks. And they got it behind a dominant performance on defense and special teams.
You know, the way they used to.
The Rams allowed dynamic rookie running back Leonard Fournette to separate for a 75-yard touchdown run on the Jaguars’ first offensive snap, but kicked into gear shortly thereafter, holding Fournette to 55 rushing yards on his last 20 carries. The Jaguars went from accumulating 159 yards and 14 points in the first three drives to managing only three points and 230 yards in the next 13.
But it was the Rams’ special teams, a major culprit in last week’s loss to the Seattle Seahawks, that took over.
Twenty-one of the Rams’ 27 points were produced by that department. It included a 103-yard return for a touchdown by Pharoh Cooper on the opening kick and a blocked punt by Cory Littleton, which allowed Malcolm Brown to scoop up the football from eight yards out and run it in for a score. Greg Zuerlein added a 56-yard field goal, a 29-yard field goal and three extra points.
“It’s just momentum, more than anything,” Jared Goff, 11-of-21 for 124 yards and a touchdown, said of the special-teams points. “You get that momentum, you get that feeling, you get that belief — the belief that you’re going to win. And it’s a good feeling.”
The Rams have that belief now, more so than they have in a long time. Goff wasn’t great, but he faced a defense that might be the NFL’s best against the pass and did not turn the ball over. Todd Gurley amassed 116 yards on the ground, his struggles on the ground now only a distant memory. And the Rams won despite going 4-for-13 on third down and getting outgained by 140 yards.
“Offensively,” Rams coach Sean McVay said, “it was not good enough.”
But really, it was.
Cooper’s return was followed immediately by Fournette’s run, which, according to research from the Elias Sports Bureau, marked the first time in the Super Bowl era that two touchdowns occurred within the first 25 seconds of the game. Eight minutes later, the Jaguars went on a four-play, 75-yard drive that included big plays from Fournette, Marqise Lee, Allen Hurns and Chris Ivory, taking a 14-10 lead.
But the Rams answered with what would be their only offensive touchdown of the afternoon, when Goff pitched to rookie tight end Gerald Everett — lined up tight with the formation — for a 4-yard touchdown run. Then Littleton got free for a blocked punt. Then Nickell Robey-Coleman intercepted Blake Bortles. And then, needing a sustained drive to seal a win, Goff and the offense soaked up more than five minutes to position Zuerlein for his second field goal.
“It’s a confidence booster,” Rams linebacker Mark Barron said of the win. “We just gotta keep building off it.”
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