JackPMiller wrote:

I believe Lance Dunbar will make the list, after this season.

Why? Not so sure about that, myself. I am not saying he will make the top 10 best list either.

nittany ram wrote:

taking a stand, even if it’s that way doesn’t bother me. I respect it.

nittany ram wrote:

Why would anyone hate him for being true to his convictions?

Agreed. But, we ain’t livin in no utopia.

Some tried to argue that CK doing that was one of the main reasons NFL ratings dropped overall last year.

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BUSTING THE NFL RATINGS KAP MYTH

WILL LEITCH
MORE FROM WILL | TWITTER RSS

http://www.sportsonearth.com/article/209760366/colin-kaepernick-reason-nfl-ratings-down

Many believe that NFL television ratings are down because of Colin Kaepernick’s national anthem protest.

Sunday morning, I appeared on Howard Kurtz’s show “MediaBuzz,” on Fox News Channel to discuss the sagging NFL ratings this year, a topic so picked over that Bloomberg Businessweek did a cover story about it almost a month ago. I tossed out a few theories about why the ratings might be down, batted down a few others and made sure to note that the ratings already seem to be bouncing back anyway, as evidenced by Thanksgiving, which turned out to feature the most-watched NFL game in FOX history. The show ended, and I left the studio, drove home and didn’t think too much more about it.

The next time I looked at my phone, it was vibrating with rage. The issue was not with anything I said, or some unfortunate chyron, or even my hair. It was that I didn’t understand the real reason the NFL was supposedly struggling this year. The real reason was Colin Kaepernick.

Sample comment from Facebook: “You are dense, NFL ratings are down because of Colin Kaepernick !!! If you are confused by that you need to find a new job… you are brainless as well as d–kless.” (Isn’t Mark Zuckerberg’s invention delightful?) The overwhelming consensus was that I had missed the most obvious answer of all: NFL ratings are down because fans are mad over Kaepernick’s protest.

Now, my first instinct was to read these responses, shake my head, turn off my devices and enjoy the rest of my Thanksgiving weekend. It’d be a funny story to tell my friends: I went on Fox News and got yelled at for not blaming poor NFL ratings on one person. What dopes!

But this is, as I am constantly being told, part of the problem. This is an Elite Media position, the dismissal of differing viewpoints because I can’t escape my theoretical bubble. (This bubble being where I live in North Georgia, apparently.) This is why people distrust the media, I am told: Because we only talk to each other and lord some sort of superiority over those we deem less intelligent and informed than we are. We don’t engage with criticism, so we end up only talking to those who already agree with us.

I do not want to be part of this problem. Post Election Day, media folk have been wrestling with their place in this new reality, where fake news stories are seen more than real ones, where the president-elect can just make up things on his Twitter feed and no one seems to mind. So the least I can do — the least any of us can do — is to meet these stories head on. If a hundred people are going to yell at me that the reason the NFL’s ratings are down is because of Kaepernick’s protest, I owe it to them to give their claims a thorough reckoning. It feels insufficient to just wave our hands at claims that strike us as demonstratively false. We need to prove it. The way back is always through facts.

So.

To me, it seems there are two ways to dig through this. The first is to look at whether there is any evidence that people are not watching the NFL because of Kaepernick’s protest. The second is to look at the logic of such a decision, if someone were to actually make it. This allows us to meet those who dispute what I believe to be obvious statements of fact on both fronts: We discuss the actual truth of the claim, and then the emotional truth. Because they both count. It’s possible the second one counts more.

Is there any evidence that people really are watching less NFL because of Kaepernick? One must allot for the fact that there are a variety of reasons, from an oversaturation of the product, to the nation’s attention being focused on the election for much of the season, to an inferior on-field product, to the off-field scandals involving concussions and domestic violence, to the lack of real star power or breakout teams. Kaepernick’s protest might be a part of that; there certainly were many people yelling at me saying so yesterday.

There is some data supporting this, but it’s awfully circumstantial. A Rasmussen poll said that 32 percent of fans say they were “less likely” to watch a game because of Kaepernick’s protest. Upon the release of this survey, Forbes claimed it was “confirmed” that Kapernick’s protest was pushing down the ratings.

But a survey is far from hard evidence and, one could well argue, has more to do with a pollster’s question than actual viewing habits. If you are the type of person who was angered by Kaepernick’s protest, you are also precisely the sort of person who will answer, when asked about NFL ratings, that you aren’t watching the NFL this year specifically because of Kaepernick. This makes the poll accurate — the pollsters wrote down the answers correctly — but it doesn’t make the ratings accurate, any more than an exit poll is an exact replica of voting results (as we all learned three weeks ago). TV ratings and public opinion surveys both have such wide error bars that assuming they’re correct in and of themselves, let alone directly related to one another, is a logic leap made more out of narrative expedience than anything “confirmed.” And local ratings for 49ers games are roughly the same as they were last season; 2015 was a rough year for the 49ers, albeit one that featured Kaepernick starting fewer games. And the NFL, in fact, says its internal numbers show that the reputation of its players in the public sphere is actually higher than it has been in recent years.

Now, it’s probably not wise to start taking NFL internal numbers at face value. But still: There is zero hard evidence that Kaepernick’s protest has had anything to do with the lower NFL ratings — ratings which are creeping back up, post-election, by the way — outside of the claims of people who already dislike Kaepernick’s protest and are inclined to blame it for anything within arm’s reach.

But what about the emotional truth? It feels right to many people to be upset with Kaepernick, and thus the NFL for allowing, or at least not discouraging, his protest. This was another common response to the Fox News show: The NFL should have done something.

Now, allotting for the fact that we are all different human beings having different experiences walking around our different little corners of this vast American universe, I think this is probably worth trying to find some reasonable, mostly agreed-upon points in response here.

Here are a few:

The NFL is not going to ban someone from its league for private, personal political speech. Nor should it. Sure, Roger Goodell would prefer Kaepernick stand for the national anthem. But he (obviously) cannot force him to do so. If Goodell had suspended Kaepernick — as many who are angry with Kaepernick and, subsequently, the NFL would have liked him to do — the blowback for the league, even in Donald Trump’s America, would have been far more widespread and explosive than what actually went down. Imagine if your company not only suspended you from your job for political speech on Facebook, but in fact banned you from your entire industry. You’d be furious, right? Why would one demand that the NFL react differently?
Kaepernick’s protest has nothing to do with the military. No reasonable person would argue that the national anthem is only about the military, right? The flag stands for all that this country (supposedly) represents, good and bad, and that includes the freedom of speech and assembly. This is in fact a good argument to make to Kaepernick if you disagree with his protest: When you stand for the national anthem, you are standing not for everything your country does, but everything your country purports to represent. I personally stand for the national anthem because I believe this country can be better, and believe that the flag represents that ideal. This is not Kaepernick’s stance, and that’s fine: This is America, after all. (This oft-quoted phrase, “this is America after all,” feels both more powerful and more impotent in the past three weeks.) But the idea that Kaepernick’s protest is focused specifically at the military is not only incorrect — Kaepernick has in fact worked with veteran’s groups during the protest — but also betrays an oddly single-minded view about what America in fact is.
Not watching NFL games because of a protest by a player who isn’t even playing in the game makes no sense. If you dislike Kaepernick’s protest, fine: Don’t watch 49ers games. Boo Kaepernick if you feel so inclined. But the idea that one would refuse to watch another game because of a political stance by someone who is playing elsewhere, thousands of miles away, is nonsensical. Sports fans are always claiming that they’d like their sports separate from their politics, that they don’t want politics shoved in their face when they’re trying to relax and have fun at a game. But not watching a game because of the politics of someone who isn’t even on the field is the actual definition of shoving politics into a game where it otherwise would not apply.
Ratings are back up, anyway. Seriously, the highest-rated regular-season NFL game in the history of FOX was played four days ago. If fan anger toward Kaepernick can’t be expected to last longer than eight weeks, it hardly seems fair to remain so angry toward him for keeping up his protest, in the face of unprecedented resistance, for just as long.
I will confess: The idea that someone would not watch the NFL because of Kaepernick’s protest — while their fandom has survived monstrous scandals, an overwhelming obsession with profit over fan service and the league’s mounting indifference to the physical ramifications of playing its sport at every level from professional down to Pop Warner leagues — is absolutely baffling to me. It is illogical, it is irrational and it has no basis in anything remotely factual in the physical world. But today: It is not enough to just say that. It must be refuted, meticulously and thoroughly.

To be honest: It seems a little obvious to me to have to say all this stuff. These are fundamental principles that I had always accepted as inherent to the American experience. But I was wrong to do so. Just because I think it’s obvious, and other people who work in my field think it’s obvious, doesn’t mean it is obvious. We’re all learning lessons in this new reality. We must tackle false premises head on. This is now part of the job description. It probably always should have been.

Rams have gotten better, but still have much more to do

Vincent Bonsignore

http://www.dailynews.com/sports/20170318/bonsignore-rams-have-gotten-better-but-still-have-much-more-to-do

A steady hum of construction work echoes 24/7 across 298 acres in Inglewood these days. From which, a grand, new stadium will eventually be erected for the Los Angeles Rams and Chargers.

Nearly 50 miles away in Thousand Oaks, a different sort of job site is buzzing.

Going back to the day the Rams parted ways with Coach Jeff Fisher, the club has gotten busy rebuilding itself. If not entirely from the ground up, certainly a slew of major renovations encompassing everything from philosophy to schemes to the way they are coached.

And now, finally, the very sort of players they seek to carry out new coach Sean McVay’s vision.

One week into that phase of the renovation, the Rams have added key new pieces that, at least on paper, make them a better team than when they concluded the 2016 season a little over two months ago.

Coming off a 4-12 season, that might not be saying much. But if the goal is to get better, the Rams appear to be accomplishing their objectives with the additions of left tackle Andrew Whitworth, wide receiver Robert Woods, cornerback Kayvon Webster and defensive end Connor Barwin.

Ahead is the draft, where the Rams are armed with eight picks in a pool deep in wide receivers, safeties and defensive linemen. And while the draft appears shallow at offensive line – an area where the Rams are still tinkering – there figures to be some day one starters available when their first pick comes up at the 37th spot overall.

It’s still relatively early in the offseason, and between the second week of free agency, the draft and post-draft roster tinkering, time is on the Rams’ side to address even more areas of need.

With that in mind, here is a look at what the Rams have done so far and the work they still need to do.

BEST MOVE

It’s impossible to qualify just how important the signing of veteran left tackle Whitworth. Suffice to say, though, his impact will be felt on various different levels.

From creating peace of mind for young quarterback Jared Goff, to immediately improving the narrative of the Rams’ beleaguered offensive line, to being the catalyst that gets Todd Gurley back on track, hitworth’s influence has the potential to be every bit as big as his 6-foot-7, 335-pound frame.

Faced with addressing their single most important need, the Rams were able to tap into the best option available in Whitworth, long regarded as one of the top players at his position.

And despite being 35, he has shown no signs of letting up.

The impact Whitworth will have on the offensive line could create a far-reaching ripple effect that benefits every phase of the Rams offense.

“The first thing I have to do is do my job well and hopefully that can impact and influence throughout my group,” Whitworth said. “I know some of those guys and I think a lot of some of them. I think that from the guys that I do know, I look forward to getting the chance to know the rest of them and know them better – kind of know who they are as a player and how I can help.”

DEFENSIVE SCHEME

Back in the day a highly productive edge rush linebacker in the Rams’ Eagle 3-4 defense was forced to make a position change to a three-point 4-3 defensive end.

Ironically, it was then Rams defensive coordinator Jeff Fisher who made dominant outside linebacker Kevin Greene switch to defensive end, where he was woefully misplaced.

The result was a dramatic falloff in production and an eventual breakup with the Rams. Greene resurfaced in Pittsburgh, where he immediately got back on track by moving back to outside linebacker and producing a handful of dominant seasons that ultimately earned him induction into the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

No one is mistaking new Rams edge rusher Connor Barwin with Greene, but there are similarities to their stories that can’t be overlooked. Much like Fisher did with Greene, Eagles defensive coordinator Jeff Schwartz asked Barwin to move from a 3-4 outside linebacker to a 4-3 defensive end last year.

The result was a major dip in pass-rush production, as Barwin slumped to five sacks last year after notching 14.5 in his 2014 Pro Bowl season and 31.5 overall from 2013-16.

With the Rams, Barwin will return to his more comfortable outside linebacker role in Wade Phillips’ 3-4 scheme. The pair have a working relationship – Phillips coached Barwin in Houston – and there is every reason to believe Barwin can reclaim his pass-rush prowess, much as Greene did moving from the Rams to the Steelers back in the day.

WR STILL A WORK IN PROGRESS

If you watched the Rams last year, their lack of perimeter play-makers was glaring. The signing of former USC star Robert Woods, who spent his first four NFL seasons in Buffalo, won’t immediately fix that, but it’s a start.

Woods is a precise route runner, which is a perfect fit in McVay’s timing-based passing game. And that will make him a big-time friend to Goff, a rhythm passer who can have confidence Woods will be in the right spot and the right time when he delivers a pass.

Woods won’t take the top off a defense, but he can consistently help move the chains. He’s also a willing, effective blocker, which will help Gurley in the running game.

MISSED OUT

The Rams had a good plan in place chasing Bills restricted free agent center Ryan Groy, who started seven games last year under new Rams offensive line coach Aaron Kromer and helped the Bills average 177 yards rushing. Unfortunately the Bills were onto it, and immediately matched the two-year offer sheet. That means it’s back to the drawing board for a new starting center to replace Tim Barnes, who was released last year.

The Rams hope to reel a center in in free agency or via a trade, but if not, they may have to turn to the draft, and that’s always dicey uncovering a day one starter at such a demanding position.

NOW WHAT?

First and foremost, the Rams need a new center. Among the possibilities are veterans Nick Mangold, Broncos restricted free agent Matt Paradis and Washington free agent John Sullivan.

But they also need a safety who better fits Phillips’ defensive scheme – an assignment the Rams don’t appear confident T.J. McDonald can handle.

The draft is deep in safeties, and by addressing left tackle and wide receiver the Rams have some flexibility to look to that position with the 37th pick overall. Some names to keep an eye on are Alabama’s Eddie Jackson and Texas A&M’s Justin Evans.

More urgent, though, is getting Goff more perimeter play-makers, making a wide receiver such as East Carolina’s Zay Jones such an intriguing possibility.

from Barnwell grades the big free-agent deals

http://www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/page/Barnwellx2017FAgrades/bill-barnwell-grades-big-2017-free-agent-deals-nfl

OLB Connor Barwin, Rams
Grade: B

Even though Barwin struggled in the move to a wide-nine scheme under Eagles defensive coordinator Jim Schwartz last season, there’s probably still a productive pass-rusher lurking in there. Over the last two years, Barwin has taken down opposing quarterbacks once every 46.1 pass-rush attempts. That’s 15th in the league among guys with 800 attempts or more over that time frame (25 per game), nestling Barwin right between Ziggy Ansah and Robert Quinn, his new teammate in Los Angeles.

Barwin, 30, is capable enough to add value as a coverage guy, too, and he’ll drop back more frequently as a 3-4 outside linebacker under Rams defensive coordinator Wade Phillips. It’s a little odd to see Los Angeles targeting players such as Barwin and Andrew Whitworth as part of their rebuild, but getting useful talent without needing to make a long-term commitment beats the alternative.

InvaderRam wrote:

http://www.espn.com/blog/los-angeles-rams/post/_/id/32625/a-look-at-why-todd-gurley-never-ran-free

he talks about it a little. how the rb and ol weren’t on the same page.

Thanks.

2 Brown quotes:

“Man, honestly, that’s a tough question to answer,” Jamon Brown, one of the Rams’ young guards, said while cleaning out his locker Monday. “You can say it’s scheme, you can say it’s players; you can point the finger at anything. But at the end of the day, we just didn’t get it done.”

Brown brought up a disconnect between the running back and the offensive line.

“A lot of times you could see where it just seemed like we were on different pages,” Brown said. “I don’t know if that’s being coached differently. How it’s being conveyed in each room, we don’t know. The big thing is we have to get back on the same page, because when we’re on the same page, we’re pretty damn good.”

InvaderRam wrote:

brown made similar comments after the season was over.

Can you find Brown’s comments? I would but I don’t know where to start.

If you can’t that’s okay.

.