That was quality. There were some poor moments, but that was the best the Rams have looked to start the season in living memory.

I did not expect the offense to be able to drive 80 yards, let alone do it THREE times. Against Seattle. In the first game with a line that hasn’t played together. Without Gurley, Quick, or Mason. I am…I dunno. Let’s say my Great Bag of Total Skepticism has a leak in it.

WTF Triplette? If that was a fair catch and the Rams should be penalized for it because the ball bounced, but the ball didn’t bounce, isn’t Seattle guilt of unnecessary roughness for hitting a guy who called fair catch? You can’t have it both ways. And that isn’t just a missed call. That’s one they stood around talking about, and they can’t have it as a penalty against the Rams, but not one against Seattle if the guy called Fair Catch.

6 sacks.

That TD to Kendricks came at the expense of Kam Chancellor’s replacement. Think he will point that out to the Seahawks money guy this week?

That was a good game, and I am all in for the season on the basis of that. Looks to me like we have a competitive team right out the chute this year. Yippee.

Hmm.

Is that the same National Geographic that was just purchased by Rubert Murdoch this week, and will no doubt be publishing climate denial stories within the year?

zn wrote:

lyser wrote:

No matter how much SMARTER, ARTICULATE, BETTER LOOKING, and MORE LIKELY TO GO TO HEAVEN I am compared to all of YOU – I’ll be Hellen sausage-stealing Keller and will stay mum in regards to all of your STUPID FUCKING GODDAMN BRAINLESS FUCKTARDED OPINIONS…

You would hate heaven.

It’s dull, believe me.

I suppose you know someone who knows someone….

I think eventually we would end up in more-or-less the same place. But it would perhaps be worth a try, since we are certainly doomed given the trajectory we are on.

I mean, if you could get rid of everyone who thinks violence is a justifiable conflict resolution, it might change things. And the irony would be worth it.

I like that. I stole it, and put it on Facebook.

wv wrote:

JT keeps acting like the Rams should have let Austin D throw
more passes in preseason — why? The coaches know
what they have in Austin. They saw him play game
after game last year. A few more passes in preseason
wouldnt change anything.

w
v

I’ve noticed that, too. I think Thomas just personally likes Davis. And Wagoner is right; Davis was a stand up guy. I think everybody likes him. But…I agree with you. I don’t think it was unfair because they know who/what Davis is.

I hope he hangs around the league for a while, and pulls some more paychecks.

Didn’t Cleveland pick up some other QB Discard from the Rams a few years ago?

Cleveland. As bad as we’ve had it in St. Louis, it could be worse, eh?

rfl wrote:

Personally, I figure this year has long since been conceded by the Ram FO as a throw-away, lame duck year. I think the decision to go with a ridiculously young OL with mid and low-round talent demonstrates that. It’s the 1st year in So Cal that it will care about.

I don’t think that is true. I don’t think they have conceded the year, and I don’t think their personnel decisions are linked to the possible move to LA in any way. I think they didn’t think they had the guys on the roster to fix the OL, with the exception of Barksdale (who obviously priced himself out of the picture), and they didn’t like anybody they saw in FA. The best way to fix the most desperate unit was through the draft, and as it happens, the aggressive, “attitude” players Fisher favors are available in the mid-rounds and late rounds. Yeah, it makes for a young line that is going to have rough days, but the alternative was some over-priced guys that don’t have the upside (Wisniewski, anyone?), don’t have the aggressiveness, and would also have rough days. What they did made sense, even though it means inflaming the impatience of fans who have borne various shades of awfulness and mediocrity for more than a decade. But I think the rebuilt line is/was their best shot at winning THIS year, as well as a long-term rebuild.

I would have LOVED to see them add a Timmerman, or some vet capable of nailing down a position on this young, young line. But without a specific name of a guy, this kind of armchair GMing drives me crazy. “They should have got somebody to play X really well!”

Great. Who?

I mean…unless you can drape out a better plan, all you’re doing, as far as I’m concerned, is venting. (And that isn’t directed at you personally, RFL – this wasn’t your complaint; I’m just digressing).

RFL, I share your perspective that the Rams showed nothing this pre-season to incite optimism. At this point, there is no evidence to suggest that the team has developed any consistency, any attitude, or any discipline that will serve to take them to playoff competitiveness. We saw signs of the GSOT in pre-season. They were playing consistently well. We didn’t know what it meant, coming off a decade of terribleness. But there was something there. We saw nothing this pre-season. And in the past, we’ve seen only sporadic quality football, and one could argue that if it is sporadic, it isn’t actually quality.

However, while I haven’t seen anything materialize on the field yet, I think we have seen some structural and systemic things happen that are reason for hope, if not faith. This team is still very young. But it is coming of age, and I THINK…I THINK… that we will start to see evidence this season. Maybe not soon enough to get a wild card. But I think enough that we enter next season with some evidence-based eagerness. We have talent. We have coaching stability on the defense. The offense is gonna suck early, but running the ball isn’t a Martz level of complication, and the OL was assembled for its aggressiveness, and the Rams have good RBs. That isn’t “rocket science,” and it will come together. It won’t be sexy, maybe. But I think the Rams will start to put teams on their heels the second half of the season.

I accidentally streamed nfl-live for the Indy game without registering/paying for it. Apparently anybody can stream pre-season games for free regardless of whether or not one signs up for gamepass.

Oh, yes, that is awesome. Thank you for that.

You’re right…many levels.

I agree that the team looks completely lackluster, and like it is offering us the same old story that we’ve seen for 10 years. The offense looks incompetent, and the defense looks mediocre.

I don’t see anything in this team that makes me think, “Oh, THAT is becoming a strength.” Really, Mariota in his second quarter of NFL football looked far more polished than Foles. And I don’t even want to get into a direct QB comparison. I’m just saying I see nothing encouraging.

I will qualify that by saying it is the pre-season, and we know the games don’t matter. So, therefore, I do not pronounce this team dead before the season begins. OTOH, I cannot say I see any signs of life (Life defined as “Oh, THAT is becoming a strength”).

Oxnard? Did you say…OXNARD?

I don’t know how I remember this. But I can’t ever get it out of my head now.

After Maclean Stevenson left MASH, he had his own sitcom that was terrible and got cancelled quickly. But I remember this ONE thing. Perhaps because I was a teenager. There was an episode where he was visiting somebody else’s house for dinner, or something, and the host had a trophy wife…big, beautiful blonde. And Stevenson just cannot wait to get out of this guy’s house, trying to make excuses to go home. And finally he reaches the front door and makes an exit line just as the guy says something like, “Too bad. I was just going to show our pictures of the volleyball tournament my trophy wife was in at the nudist camp in Oxnard.”

And Maclean Stevenson shoots back into the house saying, “Oxnard? Did you say…OXNARD?”

I had never heard of Oxnard before that, but every time I hear the name, or drive through the town, I can’t help but think of nude volleyball.

And…there you go.

I’m gone for 5 or 6 weeks, and when I come back, my first post makes an immediate contribution to understanding Training Camp.

• This reply was modified 9 years, 6 months ago by Zooey.

I understand your point, and I agree with it. I didn’t mean to be entirely dismissive of it. I was speaking in terms of the end game of actually taking action on greenhouse emissions, and not the less measurable, but still valid exercise of eradicating ignorance.

The two are certainly not mutually exclusive, anyway. So carry on, by all means. I enjoyed the read.

zn wrote:

I don’t think of this kind of thing as “revelations.”

I think of it as evidence for discussions.

So it’s useful to say to the neutrals who are hearing what deniers say, that we know for a fact oil companies were planning future policies around global warming as early as 1981, even while funding denier campaigns.

So among us it’s not a case of “can you BELIEVE it? Did you see THIS?!”

To me discussion isn’t really necessary. At this point, I don’t think it matters that neutrals become convinced. The evidence is already in, and it is overwhelming, and the real issue is that Capitol Hill and Wall Street both know it, regardless of what they say.

So the issue isn’t convincing more humans. It’s convincing the humans who do know to do something, and that’s a different battle altogether.

I left the federal/state argument for a stake in the government/anti-government argument. Water and waste are county.

But on USPS, yes, I’ve never seen it take longer than 3 days anywhere in the country first class. In my life.