After sleeping on this fubar of a game…

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Rams43

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Both McVay and Morris were outcoached yesterday and by a wide margin.

First, let’s talk about McVay.

His overall team wasn’t ready to play these Cards from start to finish.
Stafford was clearly struggling but the run game was kicking butt, so why not run the ball until the Cards were forced to come up and stop it? THEN go back to some passing.
But no, McVay stubbornly kept dialing up passes which Kingsbury knew he would do.
Wouldn’t be a bad idea to whisper in Stafford’s ear that Rams did have other great receivers on the field other than Kupp. Again, Cards D anticipated the constant Kupp targets and largely took them away.
How do Rams lose a home game when OL and run game are clicking and with a quality vet QB like Stafford surrounded by such receiving weapons? Mind boggling.
Card coaches studied and brilliantly schemed against Ram O tendencies and it succeeded beyond their wildest dreams. McVay needs to look in the mirror and self scout even though it’s a short week.
Rest assured that the Seahawks are studying this game film and will probably add a few wrinkles of their own. Better be prepared, Sean.

Now let’s talk about Morris.

I read that Cards only had to punt twice and at one point scored on 6 of 7 possessions. Ummmmm… WTH kind of D is THAT?
I failed to see Morris making any adjustments in this or any other game. Is he the anti-Staley?
WTH kind of a gameplan is it not to guarantee contain as Job One agains a QB like Murray? A 10 year old would do that, for crying out loud.
Morris’ D allowed 228 yards rushing. That is not a misprint.
Don’t know the TOP stats but I’m betting that they aren’t pretty. This is a major flaw in Morris’ scheme.
Gawd! Somebody tell Morris to insert Rochell for at least SOME of Long’s snaps. Would be impossible to be worse.
Use Ramsey to erase Seahawks most dangerous weapon. At least our secondary might then have a fighting chance. It’s old fashioned but it works.
Unleash the aggressiveness of DW and others and stop with this ‘prevent D’ kind of crap philosophy. It’s killing us and even Stevie Wonder can see that.
I would give strong consideration to giving snaps to Garrett at Edge. If he does well then give him more and more. What do you have to lose?
Tackling drills might be a good way to spend time in practice this week. Or is that too obvious?
Is AD sick? Or playing too many snaps? Doesn’t seem quite the same lately.
You are playing Rapp out of position, dammit! He should be a hybrid LB. Replace him with Burgess, Hughes, or whomever you please that has instincts and sufficient speed. QB’s are feasting on Rapp and Long. Fix it.
If you are unable or unwilling to discard this joke of a ‘soft zone’ D (or whatever you call it) then you should do the honorable thing and tender your resignation.

Now just a word about Stafford and Kupp.

They are 2 great players that had a terrible game at the worst possible time. Tons of credit should go to Cards players and coaches, btw. Both Stafford and Kupp will snap back, I’m sure, although I will say that Stafford has fallen into the trap of going to Kupp too much. Needs to spread it around a bit more to force D’s to cover everybody on every play.
If Kupp is double covered then somebody else is open, possibly wide open. Throw the damned ball to HIM.
Somehow, some way, you need to calibrate the range on DJ with his speed. He’s an incredible weapon but the underthrown balls are killing us.
Higbee should be getting even more targets, IMO, as well.

I do have 3 silver linings. Jefferson, Hendo, and the OL had fine games. Wish there were more.
 

Jacobarch

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Yeah Running 5 wide with No RB, telling your opponent that it's a 100% pass doesn't help either. While I don't mind the look here and there, to run it as often as they did, while they dropped 7 and sometimes 8 into coverage is mind boggling. Even when Henderson was in the backfield they would send 7 into coverage and McVay once again got cute and went away from what was working, THE RUN. You're 100% right, teams are too smart for the rams to keep on doing the same exact thing week in - week out. And we saw the adjustments today. Imagine if that was a top 5 defense, I doubt we would have put up 10 points. I'm not panicking but we've seen this before from McVay, and honestly he needs to grow up at times, brilliant playcaller, but also gets in his own way at times.

Furthermore, why barely any 11 or 12 personnel anymore? Why not change it up, why not actually get creative and come up with different looking game plans every week? I know Stafford is green in this offense and honestly it might be why we haven't seen a more developed total system thus far... But I have to believe that we have more than 2 or 3 different types of running plays from the shotgun lol. :eyeroll:


As for Morris, as we were talking about last week with the Defense not being 100% comfortable in this defense as of yet. That was a huge tell on Sunday. I also stated that I thought Morris would be smart enough to change up their look from Ramsey playing the star position to them playing more of a Staley style defense. I guess I was way wrong lol. These guys didn't look like they are gelling at all. I have to believe that each one of our defensive players on this team is at least a decent player. Lets dive into the past a little and then flip it back to this year....

The defensive line and OLBS,
take a look at almost every single game even when Fisher was our HC against mobile QB's like Wilson and now Murray. We ALWAYS played contain unless it was 3rd and forever, and even then we sent a spy. Our defense has known how to play a mobile QB since Wilson came into the league. It was obvious on Sunday, that scheme went right out the window. How did we not prepare for that? Was it coaching or players???

The DB's,
this is where my biggest concern comes from... Lets take a look at two players in particular, Ramsey and DWilliams. Both are outstanding players. Lets be honest, unless some of you have short term memories DW played at an outstanding pace last year, and had what I think was the 2nd best CB rating in the league, only behind our Ramsey. What's the difference now? Coverage scheme, plain and simple. I'd like to think I'm not a complete moron when it comes to football and playing 10 to 12 yards off a Receiver is gonna get you gashed against a good team every single time. We saw it with Phillips and now we're seeing even a worse version of it with Morris. At least Phillips would adjust after halftime, now it looks like Morris just keeps on doing the same exact thing over and over and expecting different results. Morris, if you're listening (lol) you're not calling plays that play to your players strengths, end of story.
McVay needs to step in and get this dudes ass in line, because honestly if we see that again in Seattle, Morris might be on the hot seat.
In addition, Long needs to take a seat. He looked like a boy against a man on AJ Green, and AJ Green isn't even in his prime anymore.

Expect changes, schematically over the next couple of weeks. I also expect to see a little more diversity when it comes to formations, and spreading the wealth. Stafford, is obviously very comfortable with Kupp, and for good reason but he can't become predictable, teams in our division are too good for that.
In reality I think this was just a bad game, we put all of our marbles into beating the shit out of the champs and forgot about this week. I think last week was an emotional high for this team, and it's almost always followed with a big low the next. I have confidence that the Rams will be ready for next week and can enjoy their faux bye week and get things headed in the right direction and put this behind them.
 

Psycho_X

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I mean, if Stafford hits the passes that were blatantly over or under throws by him I don't think we'd be bitching about the offensive game plan. Just thinking about the DJ under throw, the Kupp in endzone over throw, the other Kupp overthrow all though that was partially Kupp getting tripped up, and the Higbee drop in endzone we're looking at 28 probable points left on the field. Now drops and missed throws happen so can't guarantee all of those but at the end of the day McVay called a lot of plays that were there for the players to make. Sure, the higbee throw I'd rather have tried another run... always room for being better. But don't think I can fault the overall offensive game plan.
 

Ramstien

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But don't think I can fault the overall offensive game plan.
When the running game is effective stick with it until they make adjustments to stop it and then go over the top. It is pretty basic but guys like McVay tend to overthink it. I hope he learned something from this loss but I doubt it.
 

majrleaged

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On the cards goal line stand. Why do you call a play that doesn't use higbee's hight.
 

majrleaged

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By the way, the Staley effect is starting to happen to the Raiders. At this rate Morris will never get his HC job. It's like when mcvay took over from fisher in reverse. He better pull his head out of his ass
 

LA_vision

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Im not too concerned about the offense, Stafford left at least 14 off the board. The defense was a complete disaster. This soft and safe mentality is starting to annoy me.
 

HE WITH HORNS

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It was like a perfect storm for them to beat us. We were coming off a HUGE win against the Bucs, we came out flat, we were looking ahead to the seasucks. Once Kupp dropped that 3rd down pass, things went all downhill from there.
 

Oregonram

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Every now and again, I get surprised by McVays game plan. It can feel really tone deaf…I don’t know how else to put it. The run abandonment when he is down is surely a tell that every NFL coach knows at this point. I wouldn’t trade McVay for anyone, but hope he continues to grow through some of these weird Twilight Zone games. Kind of reminded me of the first half we had against Buffalo last year…it was almost as if we had no idea what to expect Buffalo to run against us…at least we made some adjustments in that game and came back…yesterday, not so much. One last comment, if Stafford doesn’t figure out some of his other receivers soon, we may see some unmotivated and unhappy campers soon…most worried about Woods..he doesn’t seem to be having as much fun as in years past. We will adjust…adversity is the mother of invention.
 

OnceARam

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Maybe this team needed a dose of humility, especially after such a big win against the Bucs. I think we forget that these guys aren’t robots.

But yeah, to @Rams43 point, it’s baffling that we aren’t making halftime adjustments. It’s either total incompetence or purhaps gamesmenship. (To not show the Cards our cards.)
 

TexasRam

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If you watch Mcvays media conversations this week, such as those at therams.com you will notice he isn't pointing fingers whatsover nor acting like he is upset with Morris. It's the whole staying connected idea. I get it. This early it makes no sense to start blasting people, rather finding solutions and working through them together can be more productive. But honestly I don't see him making any personel changes yet. This is the Ego part of coaching that destroys coaches. Sometimes players just cannot compete at the highest level and thinking a coach can fix it is a major problem. Some of the best coaches learn that sometimes you have to quickly cut bait.

I guess we will see with the snap counts this week if he does this in a "nice" way with 22 and 24. But moving quickly on this can be the difference between a few games won or lost. Ultimately, division and also home field advantage throughout the NFC is on the line if this team is as good as most of us think they are minus these two. I just hope Mcvay can be decisive and realize Team sometimes means making the hard calls rather than keeping the peace and believing in players or coaches.

There is a stank creeping into L.A. That foul shit needs to dealt with.
 
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fanotodd

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This defense has been flirting with disaster “all season”. They have relied on either the opposition beating themselves with TOs and missing on key downs, or our offense building a lead, thus creating predictability.
...kinda like zona did to us on Sunday.

It’s been posted all over this board:
The defense is playing soft. The Rams are simply not getting the most out of the talent they have in the secondary. Having Ramsey lock down one WR practically brings the game to DW, et al. They start making plays on the ball, not just covering the WR.

The DL/pass rush was nonexistent Sunday. As a poster already mentioned, the Rams wrote the book on containing running QBs during the fisher era (wilson, krapernick, bobby 3). So what happened?

Morris is showing me why he always has a job, but is never the “buzz” name when it comes to DCs.
 

CGI_Ram

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If you watch Mcvays media conversations this week, such as those at therams.com you will notice he isn't pointing fingers whatsover nor acting like he is upset with Morris.

Who knows, however, what is discussed behind the scenes?

We all respect McVay. He’s no dummy. McVay is accountable at the end of the day… If he sees “defensive calls” that are hurting us, he is making that known to Morris.
 

UKram

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They mentioned on the commentary that morris said regarding his defense “we want them to have to play one more snap” (paraphrasing) … now I’m just a middle aged dude from London but I thought that’s the exact opposite to how a defense should want to play

Ramsey should be out on an island
Rapp should be in the star position fuller and Burgess at safety
Ad looks like a lost puppy out there in this scheme and bend don’t break is pretty much like take me up the poop chute but please use lube …

I hate the scheme we run and I miss Staley
 

Ramlife

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This defensive scheme makes me dread the next game. Please make some adjustments or itll be 1st to last defensively.
 

Elmgrovegnome

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The soft coverage is not taking advantage of ADs skill set. There are too many easy options for the QB to go to and the rush hasn’t got enough time to get to the QB.

Morris is like the anti Staley. He’s not featuring his feature players and he is not capitalizing on their immense talent with his scheme.

Maybe he’s trying to be too cute by making the defense too versatile.