Gurley’s debut falls short of hype

Joe Lyons

http://www.stltoday.com/sports/football/professional/gurley-s-debut-falls-short-of-hype/article_d29255da-196f-5177-8ddb-d4b920dab01f.html?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter

For the record, Todd Gurley made his first NFL carry at 1:06 Sunday afternoon. The run off left tackle with 13 minutes to play in the second quarter started the Rams’ second drive against the visiting Pittsburgh Steelers and went for a 2-yard gain.

Sunday marked a slow start for Gurley, the highly touted running back from the University of Georgia. But it was a start, and that’s important.

“It felt great to be out there, man,” Gurley, 21, said after rushing six times for nine yards and catching a 5-yard pass in the Rams’ 12-6 loss at the Edward Jones Dome. “Definitely would’ve liked to get the win, but we’ll execute off that and try to bounce back next week. It was my first game; I’m just trying to get into the groove of things. Looking forward to tomorrow, to look at the film, to see what we did wrong and start working to be better next week.”

Selected by the Rams with the 10th pick in this spring’s NFL draft, Gurley has been brought along slowly after undergoing knee surgery in November for an ACL injury to his left knee in the final game of his stellar three-year career at Georgia.

After being inactive for the first two games of the season, Gurley said he learned that he’d play Sunday after a conversation with coaches on Saturday.

“I’ve had a good couple of weeks of practice, they asked me how I felt and it basically went from there,” Gurley said. “It had definitely been a while, but I felt good just being out there playing football again.”

Gurley was asked if he had any trouble sleeping Saturday night.

“I definitely slept. I went to bed at 9:30 last night,” he said, laughing. “I knew it was going to be a long day, so I had to get ready.”

Despite the lengthy layoff, Gurley said he didn’t feel any different Sunday.

“I feel like I still have the explosiveness,” he said. “Definitely didn’t get to show it today, but like I said, we’ll pick back up on things and try to get it rolling next week.”

Happy to have him alongside, Gurley’s teammates feel like it’s a matter of time before he becomes a cog in the Rams’ attack.

“Great to have him out there. Great to have him healthy,” quarterback Nick Foles said. “Your first rookie game, there’s always a lot of emotions. Just having him out there, he’s a huge threat and once he gets it going, it’s going to be something to see.”

Center Tim Barnes agreed: “The guy hasn’t touched a live-action ball in 10 months. It’s going to take some time, but the more comfortable he gets, the more productive he’ll become.”

Few teammates can relate to Gurley like fellow running back Benny Cunningham. Signed as a rookie free agent, Cunningham suffered a similar knee injury to end his career at Middle Tennessee State in 2013.

“I understand his situation because I went through a lot of the same things my rookie year,” Cunningham said. “The more he plays, the more reps he gets, it’s going to help slow things down and from there, we’ll start to see the player we all know he can be.”

At 6 feet 1 and 227 pounds, Gurley possesses the rare combination of speed and power that NFL teams covet. At Georgia, he ran for 1,385 yards and scored 18 touchdowns as a true freshman. An ankle injury limited him to 10 games as a sophomore but he still managed to run for 989 yards, catch 37 passes for 441 yards and score 17 times.

As a junior, an NCAA suspension for selling memorabilia and the torn ACL limited him to just six games, Still, he ran for 911 yards (averaging 7.4 per carry) while scoring nine touchdowns.

Getting the run game going is a key for the Rams. On Sunday, the team ran 18 times for 71 yards but the day’s big ground gain — a 24-yarder — came on an end-around by wide receiver Chris Givens. Tre Mason, last year’s leading rusher with 765 yards, ran nine times for 16 yards Sunday, while Cunningham’s lone carry produced a 12-yard gain.

“Pittsburgh has a strong front seven and we’re working with a lot of young guys,” Mason explained. “We have weapons here; we just have to figure out ways to win — that’s what we’re here for. It’s a long season. We just have to keep working, to keep fighting. It’s about showing up every day, putting in the work and doing what we need to do to be more productive.”

Game blog: Rams knock out Roethlisberger, still lose

Jim Thomas

http://www.stltoday.com/sports/football/professional/game-blog-rams-knock-out-roethlisberger-still-lose/article_d5650766-08f4-5411-ac4a-e0def6572f8f.html?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter

Had the Rams known going in they’d hold Pittsburgh’s top-rated offense to 12 points, they would’ve liked their chances.

“Twelve points — you expect to win those,” defensive end Robert Quinn said. “But they held us to six. We’ve just got to do a little better.”

The Rams held Pittsburgh to just 2.8 yards per carry. They knocked quarterback Ben Roethlisberger out of the game with a knee injury in the third quarter, and sacked Roethlisberger and replacement Michael Vick a combined five times.

But when all was said and done, the Rams’ offense was punchless, limited to a pair of field goals in a 12-6 loss Sunday at the Edward Jones Dome.

“Well, six points isn’t going to win you a whole lot of games, and we’re averaging eight points a game the last two weeks and that’s not going to get it done for you,” coach Jeff Fisher said.

The Rams had a few chances, at least enough to put up a couple of touchdowns. But a wide open tight end Lance Kendricks dropped what looked like a deep touchdown pass from Nick Foles, saying he lost the ball in the lights.

In the fourth quarter, Foles forced another deep pass to Kendricks who had gotten behind a Pittsburgh linebacker on the play. But Foles didn’t account for Steelers safety Will Allen who swooped in for an interception and returned it 20 yards to the St. Louis 31, setting up a key Josh Scobee field goal for the game’s final points.

On the series prior to that interception, the Rams had a first-and-goal at the Pittsburgh 7, only to settle for the second of Greg Zuerlein’s two field goals. On a day when almost half of the announced crowd of 52,433 was waving Pittsburgh Terrible Towels, the Rams had to go to the silent count in the red zone because of crowd noise.

Two false starts helped thwart any chances for a touchdown on that drive.

The Rams’ last gasp came with 1:05 to play when a booth review overturned what originally was ruled a first-down catch by Kenny Britt on fourth-and-5 from the St. Louis 39.

You could make the case it was maybe inconclusive and then the call on the field stands,” Fisher said. “But (referee John Hussey) felt the ball was loose and that’s enough.”

So as was the case last week in Washington, the Rams let a winnable game slip away. At 1-2, they must now face two of the league’s elite teams — Arizona and Green Bay — on the road in back-to-back weeks.

Pittsburgh improved to 2-1, but may have lost Roethlisberger for an extended period of time. X-rays showed no broken bones but he will undergo an MRI back in Pittsburgh.

The Rams took some early punches from the Pittsburgh offense, but yielded “only” a field goal and a touchdown early. The Steelers took only a 9-3 lead into the second half, and when Roethlisberger was knocked out of the game with a knee injury with 5 1/2 minutes to play in the third quarter, things got interesting.

“Oh yeah. I think the whole game, we thought we had a good shot,” Rams safety Rodney McLeod said. “Got some turnovers. Made some plays in the pocket (with sacks) — things that we wanted to get done. We just came up a little short.”

Safety Mark Barron got to Roethlisberger low on the pass rush, and as Roethlisberger ran forward trying to escape the pocket his left knee buckled. Enter Vick, 35, who until Sunday hadn’t thrown a regular-season pass since last Nov. 24 as a New York Jet against Buffalo.

At the game’s outset, the Steelers couldn’t wait to roll out their top-ranked offense against the Rams this week. After winning the coin toss, they took the kickoff and starting rolling. Normally the Steelers defer and sent their defense out first.

With the Rams frequently playing both safeties deep early, and giving 10-yard cushions at cornerback, it was easy pickings for Big Ben & Co. The underneath routes were there, and the Steelers took them.

In the first quarter alone, Pittsburgh’s all-world wide receiver Antonio Brown caught six passes for 71 yards.

“You’ve gotta respect that guy,” McLeod said. “He made some plays early. We adjusted a little bit to their scheme and what they were coming out in to kinda keep him from making some explosive plays today.”

Brown had a modest four catches for 37 yards the rest of the way. After piling up four pass plays of 40 yards-plus the week before against San Francisco, the Steelers’ longest reception of the day Sunday went for only 20 yards — to Le’Veon Bell.

Thanks to a third-and-goal tackle of Bell by defensive tackle Michael Brockers, the Steelers had to settle for a field goal and a 3-0 lead off the opening drive.

The Steelers second drive covered 92 yards and culminated with a one-yard touchdown run by Bell, who was making his season debut after serving a two-game league suspension.

As has been their custom this season, the Steelers went for the two-point conversion. They were 3-for-3 on 2-pointers through two games, but this time Rams cornerback Trumaine Johnson broke up the conversion pass intended for Darrius Heyward-Bey.

So the Steelers’ lead stayed at 9-0. At that point, Pittsburgh had outgained the Rams 162 yards to 28.

The Rams did stop the third Pittsburgh possession when Janoris Jenkins intercepted an overthrown Roethlisberger pass intended for Markus Wheaton. The Rams took over on their 19, and thanks to a couple of Foles completions to Britt were able to put three points on the board via a 49-yard field goal by Zuerlein.

An Alec Ogletree sack helped thwart Pittsburgh’s final drive of the half by sacking Roethlisberger. So the Steelers led 9-3 at intermission, which from a Rams perspective was a lot better than where the Steelers stood last week at intermission — leading San Francisco by 29-3 en route to a 43-18 romp.

But even once Roethlisberger was knocked out of the game, the Rams couldn’t crawl any closer than a 9-6 deficit and never could reach the end zone. On a day when the Rams’ defense reasserted itself, the offense proved to be a no-show for the second week in a row.

“We’re 1-2,” Foles said. “The world’s not ending. We’ll figure it out.”

Maybe so, but each opportunity lost means the Rams will have to steal a game no one expects them to win somewhere down the line. They let just such an opportunity slip through their hands Sunday.

Cook has had an awful day

inside the 10, they false start…sigh

Barron hurts BR, not intentional

Thanks Oahu

Sack

FG time

Tavon in a fight!

INT

This drive by the Rams, the one with Gurley, has promise but they couldn’t convert the 3rd down

Let’s keep this thread active. If this chat room is uneven, we replace it. The goal is a chat room we all like. So feedback is useful. Like I said, if we don’t like this one, we’ll fix things.

If necessary, we will even call in Tony Stark.

We will. We’ll do it.