Okay, I’ve read a ton of Robinson-bashing for the holding calls.

I didn’t see the first one, but the second one looked completely bogus to me, and the third one was pretty freaking marginal. That third one gets overlooked more often than it is called, imo. It was one of those nanosecond deals that didn’t even affect the play.

Well, Foles is inaccurate. Over nine games now. It isn’t just a bad game here and there. This appears to be who he is. Inaccurate. Low, behind, high, out of bounds. He doesn’t lead receivers open enough. I think I’ve said “nice pass” maybe four times this year with him, and I wince at his accuracy that often every half.

And he often gets too much loft on his deeper throws.

That is not balanced by “making plays.” I don’t see him “make” plays.

I think he is worse than his statistics which look better because 80% of his targets seem to be within 5 yards of the line of scrimmage. (That’s an eyeball statistic).

Keenum isn’t the answer, and Mannion is even ready to be tested yet. So…shit.

Honestly, I’d rather have Jaime Martin right now.

How can the Rams have Waterfield and Van Brocklin at the same time, Warner, Bulger, and Green overlapping, and spend so many, many years in total QB drought?

Foles sucks. Really, he does. I see no improvement in him at all.

I don’t know how to evaluate the WR. I know I see them open a lot, and not getting the ball in a catchable place, and I also see them dropping catches they should make. So I dunno.

Brown and Saffold are out now, so the OL is in trouble.

I can’t see any way the offense becomes more productive.

So I don’t care what Fisher has to say.

Yeah, I’m with WV. I don’t think he wastes those plays on the Bears. Trick plays are more effective the less they are used.

The Rams are different this year from past years. They are now in, I believe, the 3rd consecutive year of being the youngest team in the league. And in the past, they were erratic. Great stretches. Mind-boggling mistakes and blowups. They are more consistent this year than they have been the past two years. That, to me, is evidence of maturation. They are growing up. they are becoming more consistent.

In the past, I think, we might have seen strong performances in one area one week, and a cave-in in the areas in the next game. I’m not seeing that this year. We have seen playoff worthy play from the defense pretty consistently. And the offense, especially the passing game, has nowhere to go but up.

The team that beat Seattle, Arizona, Cleveland, and San Fran, and played well against Pittsburgh, Green Bay, and Minnesota, has enough to beat the Bears.

zn wrote:

That’s kind of amazing—I have 16 categories and they rank top 10 in 12 of them.

Hope this lasts.

If it floats your boat.

Personally, I like the kind of defense that holds the Seahawks to -7 yards of total offense for an entire game.

wv wrote:

nittany ram wrote:

I wouldn’t do it if I had his concussion history.

So you wouldnt sacrifice your brain
for the Rams?

And you call yourself a fan ?

w
v

That was in poor taste, wv, considering Nitwitany has already sacrificed his brain for something else.

zn wrote:

mfranke wrote:

The Rams were not likely to dominate the LOS this week. His receivers have been a problem a lot of the year but Foles missed some opportunities. This was never going to be a game the Rams would win with a game manager at QB. They needed Foles to be more.

What intrigues me that even with all that, they almost won it…and in fact for a lot of the game I thought they were going to win it.

Aren’t those a big set of problems to overcome? Yet they were in that game. It was a close tough game, when having that many problems on offense in the past (2007-2011) would mean that game would clearly be over long before the 4th quarter.

That fact is kind of interesting to me.

…

I copied that quote to my clipboard as I was reading this, and was going to give the glass half-empty interpretation. The Rams are solid enough all around that a game manager will be good enough to win a lot of games. But not good enough to beat the elite teams. I just don’t think Foles is good enough. Though I would like to see what he could do with a true #1 WR. Something I’ve been asking for now for 3 or 4 years.

They have a shot at the playoffs. But they most likely aren’t going to make them, and at this point, I don’t much care anymore. The offense dooms this team.

My problem is I’m not sure how much better it gets.

I will just be watching, hoping to see the offense start converting some 3rd downs, and attack the middle of the field. If I just see that development, I’m fine.

If I don’t, I enter the off-season praying for a QB.

Eternal Ramnation wrote:

I think it all just boils down to the Rams second string D battled the vikes for almost 5 quarters and fell 3pts. short.The wind was huge

Yeah, the thought has passed through my mind that with Quinn, Long, McDonald, and Havenstein, the Rams may very well have won.

But they didn’t. And they didn’t.

I agree with wv. It was not a dirty hit, but he could have made a greater effort to avoid the contact. It would have actually required contorting to avoid the contact, but he could have done it. It looked mostly like a natural hit. He could have contorted to avoid it, and he could have laid into him and knocked him into Tuesday.

20 years ago it wouldn’t have been a penalty at all. It was not egregious.

wv wrote:

zn wrote:

I don’t think it’s just Foles
Nor do I think it’s just the receivers.
I think a lot of it is the Baby OL.
My bet is there’s certain things they’re not even trying with this OL, until it stabilizes..

My own view is its almost all the OLine.
I think the OLine has affected
Foles and the OC/Fisher.

Cook is cook. I dont see much difference.
Kendricks is hurt.
Tavon looks better.

Britt is the only one that seems ‘off’
somehow. Maybe he’s injured.

w
v

I don’t see how a young OL means it’s harder to run slants, or mid-range stuff over the middle. They run post patterns. I get that a young OL could mean they don’t run the Run and Shoot, and throw it all the time, but the run/pass balance is conservative.

Quick is also “off.”

The most embarrassing part of that commercial is the voiceover.

Eternal Ramnation wrote:

I’ve been watching all the Vikings games reading their boards and some stuff that sticks out. Vikes fans in general regard both defenses equal,giving the DL some respect and with it a near constant “their secondary doesn’t scare me’ and generally claiming superiority in that area. I have no idea why, other than they have not seen a Rams game this season I mean we did pick off Rodgers twice ,Palmer ,Wilson etc. our cb’s have 4 picks theirs have a big fat goose egg and it’s not like they’ve played Rodgers at home either. They don’t seem to understand or maybe it’s accept that red zone defense and points allowed are different stats. The one thing they do have is they can come back because they’ve had to for the last 3 games at least. Of course this is just fans talking so it all means very little.My feeling is these fans have a new understanding of tough defense after this game. https://vimeo.com/10815350

Vikings fans, in my experience, are not the most well-informed and objective fans one finds on the net. I have not seen the Vikings play in a long time, so I am not familiar with them, but they have played are far softer schedule than the Rams have. One would think – if the defenses were equal – that the Vikings would be ranked significantly higher statistically than the Rams.

None of that means much, though. Let’s play ball.

nittany ram wrote:

That loss didn’t bother me so much because the Rams had rebounded to 10-6 after going 6-9 in the previous strike-shortened season. Plus it looked like the Rams *finally* had an elite passer and a solid defense under Fritz Shurmer. The future looked bright and I was looking forward to all the playoff victories to come.

Sigh…

Me, too. The loss did not sit well with me, especially since it came from the Vikings, but the expectations were MUCH higher in the 70s, and there was always an element of terrible mischance that made the losses feel like the victory was stolen from the Rams in the 70s.

Plus I was younger, and still believed in the power of prayer. So the Vikings not only stole the games, they stole my belief in a benevolent deity, and set me on the pathway to reckless despair that you see me on today.