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ZooeyModeratorNYPOST.COM
“We need to do a better job from a personnel standpoint. We’ve had some unfortunate things take place with some high picks in Stedman Bailey and Tre Mason and those kinds of things you don’t anticipate. But we’re moving forward.”
Okay, here is the quote I have from somewhere else:
“I’m so busy here, I was honestly unaware he was extended. I’m being honest with you, we’re just working here,” Fisher said. “I look at this as being my responsibility, the win-loss record. We need to do a better job from a personnel standpoint. We’ve had some unfortunate things take place with some high picks in Stedman Bailey and Tre Mason and those kinds of things you don’t anticipate.
The sentences preceding the “We need to do a better job from a personnel standpoint” are pretty important, and you get a different picture of what Fisher is saying with those sentences included.
ZooeyModeratorDo we have a video of the Fisher comment about personnel that launched a thousand ships?
I read it, and I don’t see him throwing Snead under the bus, but is there video of that I missed?
Because I’m listening to Breer up there, and it sounds like he is implying that Fisher is putting Bailey and Mason down as personnel office failures which isn’t the read I read it, and which seems absurd.
December 8, 2016 at 8:29 pm in reply to: Rams Junior High: Inside a Dysfunctional Front Office #60574ZooeyModeratorthe one thing. the only thing i can think of is fisher knows changes are coming. that’s just unavoidable. so he’s trying to tow a fine line between acknowledging he’s the one with final say and preparing to make changes in order to save his job.
and i wouldn’t put it past fisher to knock snead off a sinking ship to save himself. wouldn’t put it past any of them really.
it’s a game of thrones.
Maybe.
I will allow that that is possible i.e. Fisher would throw Snead under the bus.
But I don’t believe he would attempt to do that through the media, and I don’t think he meant Snead when he said we have to get better at personnel.
The offense was terrible this year, and if that is a coaching problem, it seems to me that you look at the offense’s coaches first. Fisher’s job is to say, “I want an offense that is built to this particular strength, and these are the kinds of players I want.” It is the job of scouting to find those types of players, and the job of the offensive coaches to train the players, and to exercise the game strategy and tactics.
That’s why I don’t think Fisher is primarily to blame.
December 8, 2016 at 1:58 pm in reply to: Jeff Fisher was 'unaware' Rams GM Les Snead also got an extension #60559ZooeyModeratorHe’s throwing Snead under the bus. And there is no way that he didn’t know Snead was extended. I don’t believe that for a second.
I don’t think he is. Fisher isn’t a 7th grader who is worried about getting in trouble. Throwing Snead under the bus would be the work of a frightened child. They may have collided in the past, but Fisher is a stable person who understands the business side of things. Blaming Snead accomplishes exactly nothing, and would be unprofessional. I just don’t think that is a Fisher style of move, myself.
I do agree that he lied about not knowing of Snead’s extension. But – putting on my mind-reading hat – I am going to guess that lie was made in an effort to emphasize that he is focused on football, and not on job security. Just an effort to say, “My head is in the coaching gig, not in office politics.” I doubt it was a jab at Snead.
ZooeyModeratorKroenke is a businessman who cares about his empire. What is important to him is building his brands. He is like a CEO of a corporation. A product may have a passionate following, but if the numbers aren’t there on sales, it will get axed. I get the feeling that fabulously rich and powerful people don’t really respect their consumers all that much.
Kroenke flat out told Arsenal supporters (his premier league soccer club in England) that if they were all about winning championships, they should change allegiance to Manchester United or Chelsea. Which they won’t. And he knows they won’t. Arsenal’s fan base is one of the most reliably loyal in the league, and that was one of the reasons Kroenke was attracted to it. Now, Arsenal is a pretty successful club. Supporters of other teams would rip off their arms to follow a team that has their consistent level of success, but while Arsenal has won a bunch of stuff (English football has a lot of cups and titles – it isn’t like our sports leagues that have a single championship each season), they don’t spend on salaries the way Man U and Chelsea do. And…fwiw…Arsenal has had the same coach for something like 25 years.
Kroenke keeps his overhead down. If you like Steinbrenner, or Cuban, or DeBartolo, Kroenke is not your guy. Go follow another team. Kroenke isn’t a fan; he is a businessman.
But the NFL is a bit different because the salary cap limits the overhead. Winning is not at odds with overhead like it is in baseball and the English Premier League. In fact, winning will improve the Rams brand, it will improve the value of the franchise.
And zn is right. Fans have decided that Fisher is a loser, and that the Rams need a new coach in order to win. But there is no indication that Kroenke has reached the same conclusion. In fact, he just signed Fisher to a new deal.
And my central argument is that Kroenke – being a consistent creature of business – did not commit money to an expense (Fisher’s salary) with an eye to making a decision about whether or not to retain him later. He made his decision to retain him, and then committed the money. That’s the way smart businessmen conduct business. This notion that he could have promised him money and then wanted to see how the Rams would do in a stretch of games in November…makes no sense. Everything we know about Kroenke is inconsistent with that idea.
Now, Kroenke HAS fired coaches, and fired coaches IN SEASON before. He has done that. Well, his son has. FWIW. His son fired Brian Shaw (in March – a month before the end of the NBA season), but the situation had completely melted down, and the entire team was in disarray.
So…imo…unless we start seeing players quit on Fisher, Fisher is here next year.
December 8, 2016 at 10:20 am in reply to: Rams Junior High: Inside a Dysfunctional Front Office #60550ZooeyModeratorYea…I tend to agree with that.
It seemed to me Fisher was also throwing himself and the scouts on the sword along with Snead.
When Fisher took over in STL one of things I noticed was he cut back the freedom the local reporters had around the team. That offended the writers in the area IMO. I would suspect he has limited the reporters in Cali just like he did in STL so now we see things like “sources” when for the last 5 years I haven’t read too many sources out of Fishers camp.
I do think Fisher is feeling a little heat though.
Oh, he’s feeling the heat. And it will increase. A wounded head coach is always blood in the water for the media, and obviously a lot of fans are out of patience.
I just don’t believe that Kroenke is all that concerned about this kind of thing, though. Look at all the heat the Rams went through over the past 24 months, and the threats of fans to not attend games, and all the rest of it. Stan never varied his step. Stan is a grownup. He sees the media circus stuff as media circus stuff.
December 8, 2016 at 9:45 am in reply to: Rams Junior High: Inside a Dysfunctional Front Office #60548ZooeyModeratorThat’s a real article. Inside info, the whole 9 yards. (And you beat me to posting it by 2 minutes! Lol.)
So it’s a real article. As in.
Ruh-roh.
Yeah, I dunno.
It relies on one statement from Fisher at a press conference, and the fact that the Rams’ temporary headquarters in Thousand Oaks is called “Rams Junior High” which he asserts is due to “bickering and finger-pointing.”
Now, I don’t read press conferences very often, but this is the first time all year I have heard any allegation of bickering and finger-pointing. The first time. And while the offices may be called Rams Junior High, I wonder if the origins of that have something more to do with the temporary nature of the offices, the fact they are moving to something Bigger in the future, and the Rams losing record. Where is this bickering?
And Fisher’s comment: “We need to do a better job from a personnel standpoint” is true, first of all, but also could include coaches. Coaches are personnel.
Then he has “one Rams source.” Who is that? Bonsignore?
I will say the article has more of a tone of legitimacy than some of its predecessors this week, but I remain skeptical of this. I still think what we are mostly seeing here is the agitation of losing growing into mob frenzy. Make the Rams great again.
ZooeyModeratorI have not heard one compelling argument for keeping Jeff Fisher.
I understand why people are out of patience with Fisher.
I mean…obviously.
But find me one example from the career of Stan Kroenke where he made a decision…a business choice…and then second guessed himself, and reversed course.
Never.
He signed Jeff Fisher for next year.
December 7, 2016 at 7:58 pm in reply to: Sanders Nailed It On Identity Politics & Inequality & the MSM missed the point #60534ZooeyModeratorThe MSM won’t let it go because to do that would mean actually becoming the fourth estate of Murrow, Severeid, Reasoner, Cronkite, and lastly Moyers.
They frankly LOVE the model where they’ve totally sold out and simply get to plagiarize dying newspapers while they ESPN the news with “panels” talking about the news…
It makes them rich, and doesn’t require any work. And they get invited to the cool kids parties.
ZooeyModeratorI used to like Krugman.
December 7, 2016 at 5:13 pm in reply to: Sanders Nailed It On Identity Politics & Inequality & the MSM missed the point #60525ZooeyModeratorGood read.
ZooeyModeratorHmm. Dick Cheney. Larry Summers. Woolsey. Rothschild. Murdoch. Who would have thought?
ZooeyModeratorWant:
Dunno. What I want is a better offense. My gut feeling is I want Turner as OC. I’d say keep Fisher, I guess, but I don’t feel strongly about it.
Think:
I think Fisher stays two more years. I think that is Kroenke’s preference. I think Kroenke wants the option of a new coach in the new facility, part of the ribbon cutting gala, but if the Rams are winning by then, he may extend Fisher into the new stadium. However, the second year of Fisher’s deal is Team Option. That tells me that Kroenke is tired of 7-9 bullshit, and Fisher knows that. That is what a 1 year deal with an option for a second year says. But I think it also says Fisher gets next year regardless, barring a Linehan level loss of the players. Bottom line: I think Fisher is here next year, but he has to have a winning season in order to make it to 2018.
December 7, 2016 at 12:30 am in reply to: Unless the Rams get good, their coach is fired PLASCHKE #60486ZooeyModeratorThe Rams have yet to publicly announce or even comment upon the extension, and why do you think that is?
Well, Bill, I think it’s because Stan doesn’t feel the need to come out and talk to you.
He conducts his business. Media is media, and he doesn’t think you are as important as you think you are.
Plaschke has a good reputation. And I like him. But this is the same standard issue, tea leaf reading BS that we have seen from many of his inferiors in journalism.
There is no inside information here. He doesn’t even pretend that he has any. He is making it up. Telling us what he feels.
Okay. So now we know he is in the “I feel Fisher is bad and want him gone” camp.
Got it.
December 6, 2016 at 11:45 pm in reply to: informal poll: what's wrong with the offense, can it pick up? #60481ZooeyModeratorAND GR progressing is good news cause since you have to expect the others will rebound from the Patz game to at least be okay again…then GR being improved will be useful.
Your optimism is depressing beyond all measure.
ZooeyModeratorI think conspiracy theories are probably about the same age as mass communications.
I imagine there have always been conspiracy theories. Which is another way of saying “projected explanations for things I don’t know about for sure.” I imagine that mass communications have enabled people to expand and more widely circulate those theories.
And, yeah, I think the fact that we are plainly marinated in lies from government and businesses and authority structures of all kinds provides fertilizer for their growth. When one is plainly being lied to, one speculates as to what the truth actually is.
ZooeyModerator“… we have been providing universal health care in this city for nearly a decade, and if the new administration follows through on its callous promise to revoke health insurance from 20 million people, San Franciscans will be protected; and, be it..”
What does that mean? How can a city provide ‘universal health care’ ?
w
vDunno. Wondered that myself.
December 6, 2016 at 6:19 pm in reply to: informal poll: what's wrong with the offense, can it pick up? #60450ZooeyModerator—————-
Well the Oline is the story of the year. The mystery story.I predicted about ten wins and a playoff berth in large part because i expected the Oline to be a team strength. What a disaster.
I am an oline skeptic at this point. An oline denier. I am afraid…that i just think…they are not good players.
w
vI expect they will be picking some OL. Probably more mediocre WRs. A LB.
Anyway. I’m not in the mood for draft talk.
But I fear that the players just aren’t good, too. How can they have gone 12 games without opening a hole for Gurley? Like…ever? Unless they just lose every battle? Because I have to think they know their blocking assignments. I don’t understand it. It’s not like they have faced the Purple People Eaters every week.
Goff is where most of us will pin the majority of our hopes for improvement, and as of now, that looks like a pretty good place for them. And I hope the OL pulls its head out, and grows into mediocrity.
And I hope they run Austin more, and throw more screens to Gurley, and I think I have a Norv Turner fantasy abrew.
December 6, 2016 at 3:31 pm in reply to: informal poll: should the Patz even bother to show up? #60437ZooeyModeratorIt is the same defense that looked pretty bad against the 49ers, you may recall. The ONLY game the 49ers have won all year.
Who will win the rematch?
I cannot wait to see that game. All the epic 9er/Rams battles over the decades! This one promising to be among the most tightly contested fiascos in that proud history.
ZooeyModeratorThe QB has to learn an entire new language.
And Marshall Faulk because he’s Marshall Faulk.
The OL have to learn just OL language, not route tree language.
But that aside, do you think – twelve weeks into the season – that there have been no plays called where the OL understood the blocking assignments before they arrived from the huddle at the line of scrimmage?
Because they SUCK. They have sucked all year long. They have blocked for Todd Gurley and the team has mounted fewer than 80 yards rushing in 8 out of 12 games this season. I just do not accept that that is a result of not knowing their blocking assignments well enough. That cannot account for this ineptitude this deep into the season. I just do not buy that explanation as adequate to explain what we see Every Single Week. The RBs are consistently getting hit earlier than any other RBs in the league. Game after game.
December 6, 2016 at 10:33 am in reply to: Army Corps Denies Easement and Blocks the Dakota Access Pipeline #60419ZooeyModeratorI DO care, in terms of the subject of this thread, about a president making a fundamentally important policy decision that is clouded by his own direct financial conflict of interest.
Trump sells his stake in Dakota Access Pipeline developer: https://www.yahoo.com/finance/news/trump-sells-stake-dakota-access-193419610.html
So he already had sold his stake of between $15K -$50K. To him that is peanuts. Lets assume his net worth is $1 billion. $50K is 5% of $1 million. Therefore $50K is 0.0001% of $1 billion. So to put that in perspective of a guy whose net worth is $200K (house paid off or considerable equity, savings, personal property etc.) that is $20. Yes, $20. Insignificant. It is why discussing this stuff with liberal minds is so frustrating.
And the reason it is frustrating to discuss this stuff with conservative minds is that you made up your mind to defend Trump well before you knew how big of a stake he had in the pipeline, and would be undeterred in your defense of him if it was $80 million. And, of course, it took a “liberal” to bring you the facts in the first place.
ZooeyModeratorOkay, but I don’t know what “new system” means.
I don’t mean to be flippant, but there’s zone blocking, and man blocking, right? I don’t know these things because the only football I ever played was, “Zooey, go to the corner of the hedge, and cut hard towards the elm tree….”
But how effing difficult can this be? You’re a blocker. Block. That’s your job. Push this guy aside, and create a seam.
The fact that I am deciding between a condo in Malibu and beach house in Santa Monica shouldn’t affect the outcome of that mano a mano contest. Especially 12 weeks into the season when that decision has been made, and I have already got carpet stains in my new place.
December 6, 2016 at 10:09 am in reply to: Wondering why the Rams gave Jeff Fisher an extension? Here’s one good reason #60417ZooeyModeratorIt’s a good article, and bound to offend many recordites.
P.S. Would #77 be under consideration for a holding penalty in the photo?
ZooeyModerator
December 5, 2016 at 8:15 pm in reply to: Army Corps Denies Easement and Blocks the Dakota Access Pipeline #60378ZooeyModeratorRed Herring?
NO!!!
Nothing of the sort!
ZooeyModeratorPeople have talked crap about me for years. But I had a sports show on a community access channel, but it is the nature of the business. Jeff Fisher is an NFL Head Coach. He and his staff are in the business to get criticized. If they have problems getting criticized, or having crap talk about them, then they are in the wrong field or business.
Well, Jack, I bet Jeff Fisher isn’t losing sleep over your criticism.
So he probably isn’t in the wrong field of business.
ZooeyModeratorI dont buy the “they had all this time” thing. So did every team that ever moved, and of them all, only one of them won. It just causes problems, and that includes having a first time OC install essentially a new offense for the first time during a move. In fact it’s LESS time than all those other teams had because the Rams are the first team to ever move since they cut back the amount of time teams can practice.
The problems they had this year remind me of 2011, and the way the Rams offense was out of sync then. Well that was the year they put in the McDaniels offense without an off-season. I saw the same level of out-of-syncness this year. It looks very similar to me.
I am a diehard contextista and that stuff is real. When I see it dismissed, I always only think, yeah well why are you dismissing something real.
And if the OLs guys they drafted aren’t very good why were they better as a unit by the end of 2015 after they settled after a bunch of injuries.
And Goff could improve from where he was before because he was a non-starting rookie qb with one on one qb coaching, with time to work on his game…something starters do not have since they have to work on implementing gameplans.
Okay, well, it is one thing to say that teams had bad years after they moved. How did those records compare with the previous year, though?
Who has moved, and what kind of team were they the year before they moved? Can you show that teams that moved mostly did worse the year they moved, or were they just bad?
The Cardinals moved. They were pretty much a lousy team anyway.
The Raiders and Rams were lousy when they left LA.
The Houston Oilers were bad when they moved.
The Colts were bad when they moved to Indianapolis.I really don’t know what we are talking about with that claim.
But the Rams showed all the signs of being a team on the rise last year. And the defense hasn’t been bad this year. Erratic, maybe. A few bad games. But overall, they seem to have been pretty good. Fewer sacks, fewer turnovers, but in the same ballpark.
The offense, though….It’s like the offense was more adversely affected by moving than the defense. And if that is the case, then Moving isn’t the main reason.
I think it is more likely that Boras’ system is the culprit, and I haven’t heard anybody claim Boras is some kind of offensive wizard with arcane schemes that take time.
To me…all signs point to Boras. Everything does.
And I admit I have Zero positive evidence to blame Boras. But it’s like…eliminate every other possibility and what remains must be true. I have been wanting to blame Boras for several weeks, and I just can’t work my way out of doing that, no matter how hard I try to find other explanations.
December 5, 2016 at 6:12 pm in reply to: Army Corps Denies Easement and Blocks the Dakota Access Pipeline #60365ZooeyModeratorSorry he isn’t mired in poverty for you.
Well that was a gigantic red herring.
I could give a crap about his money.
I DO care, in terms of the subject of this thread, about a president making a fundamentally important policy decision that is clouded by his own direct financial conflict of interest.
Fundamentally important policy decision my ass. Where were you democrats giving a shit about Buffet dangerously shipping oil by the train car directly through towns and at a far higher cost? Was there an EIS or even an EA for that given existing rail lines? Would like to see the safety implications if any that were identified.
Yeah thats right,
Silence.
Trump will look at the merit of the COE decision. Until a decision is made its nothing but conjecture.
So you respond to the accusation of using a red herring with another red herring.
Okay.
It really does seem to be your signature rhetorical move.
ZooeyModeratorWell the Rams are going to have to make some serious decisions. If the move is the cause of the problem–then I guess you keep the same guys next year and hope for the best. If the players are the problem–which ones? Who do you replace? And how? What is the quickest fix? If coaching is the problem then someone has to go.
The best situation is if the move was the problem. That won’t be a problem next year.
Of course if it’s some combination–well, it gets more complicated.
Move or not–they have not been able to fix it through twelve games. How long does a move hangover last? I’m not sold on the move explanation(see–I used an E word but not the other E word). At this point in the season the running game should be better–even if there were early stutters. I’d accept that more in the early schedule. Not so much now.
So for me, that leaves players or coaches.
I believe there will be changes. But the Rams have very few options considering the lack of draft choices. I’m not sure how much of an upgrade they will make. Coaching changes would not surprise me. I can see someone falling on the sword.
In any case–they have to address it.
Yeah, you just said that a lot better than I did. That is just it. They’ve had OTAs, Training Camp, preseason games, 12 games, and a bye week.
If Jared Goff can make the strides HE made while getting no playing time, those players on the OL should be better with 3/4 of the season gone. You’re right. If the move played a role, we should have seen improvement as the season progressed, but the running game just totally sucks.
Players or coaches.
The thing is that Boudreau is a very good coach. We’ve seen him work magic with a shattered Rams line, and elsewhere in the league. So what the hell? Now I have said several times I question the game schemes/playcalling (and I am not one to question playcalling usually – like I never jumped on the playcalling issue with previous OCs).
So. Maybe the guys they drafted just aren’t very good.
I wanna see the individual PFF rankings for these guys, or read some posts by some of the line play guys. RFL would be useful here, perhaps, if he is watching the Rams this year.
ZooeyModeratorOn the “cohesion” question, I just have to say that that was a bigger issue last year. A bunch of rookies etc. They played together last year. They had another full training camp, OTAs, and we are now 12 games in. I know there were distractions. But I just think it is a stretch to blame OL problems on the move. So ZN and I are just going to have to accept that we are lifelong enemies there.
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