- Joined
- Aug 21, 2011
- Messages
- 340
- Name
- Jim Fadler
Early morning rumor that Amendola does not have a broken collar bone. I cannot confirm it yet no matter how much I try. It is almost surely not a season ending injury. Just a reminder that the half season IR tag has already been used and there isn't another one during the course of a year.
Lots of random stuff out of the game.
I thought Schotty abandoned the running game mid way in the game and it really hurt after Amendola went out. There was a sequence at the start of the second half where I think they went two three and outs without a run. Then they came out in a two tight end set and rammed the ball down the throats of the Cardinals only to inexplicably try a pass and get sacked. Then Sam threw his worst pass of the game that Peterson picked off. The rest of the way there was much better balance.
I was yelling and tweeting for them to pull Givens right before his long TD.....shows much I know. But he had a brutal sequence leading up to that falling and down and dropping two.
I think I am safe in saying the Rams Oline is making better plays with less talent than the Cardinals are with more. So many things I thought were wrong with how the Cardinals offense went about its business. Running game was getting stuffed but they made no pretense of even trying when the game was still close. They didn't keep anyone into help block for most of their plays. Early on it was obvious that Kolb was counting to two and the ball was out-and it worked to keep them off of him. And then for whatever reason they stopped doing that and he was holding the ball and taking longer drops.
Good for the Rams.
I also think the Cardinals need to realize that there are about 16 or so game films with all those A gap blitzes by now and Kendricks was playing HBack almost all night going into motion and turning into the line right between the center and guard and picking them off. They came free on a couple but they are going to change it up and come off the edge more or every team is going to do that.
Skipping the obvious work by Long and Quinn Hayes played a great game both inside and outside. When Sims comes back they have a really good pair with a lot of versatility.
On defense I watched Laurinaitis and the corners the most. Laurinaitis is still lining up very deep in the base defense and peeling back for a deep middle zone for passing downs. It seems to be a trade off the team is making on base downs to protect the big play versus getting him up closer to the gaps against run plays. He does move up in short yardage. The outside linebackers are up the box on base downs stacked into the wide 9 gaps for the most part. They are also rotating in Hull and Haggan (who was dinged up and left at one point) almost as often as they do linemen.
Its taken me this long to really start getting some kind of handle on how they deploy the backfield. For the most part (although they will change it in the early downs some) it a two or three deep zone and the corners are also staying in zone. In short yardage, some third downs and mainly Finnegan they will switch to man on the corners. Once teams hit the red zone they man up and play bump and run and will walk up a safety into the box and play one on top. Most of the time it looks to me as if the corners are playing the inside shoulder and trying to take the slant away.
Hekker scared the crap out of me by not punting everything into the third row.
Lots of random stuff out of the game.
I thought Schotty abandoned the running game mid way in the game and it really hurt after Amendola went out. There was a sequence at the start of the second half where I think they went two three and outs without a run. Then they came out in a two tight end set and rammed the ball down the throats of the Cardinals only to inexplicably try a pass and get sacked. Then Sam threw his worst pass of the game that Peterson picked off. The rest of the way there was much better balance.
I was yelling and tweeting for them to pull Givens right before his long TD.....shows much I know. But he had a brutal sequence leading up to that falling and down and dropping two.
I think I am safe in saying the Rams Oline is making better plays with less talent than the Cardinals are with more. So many things I thought were wrong with how the Cardinals offense went about its business. Running game was getting stuffed but they made no pretense of even trying when the game was still close. They didn't keep anyone into help block for most of their plays. Early on it was obvious that Kolb was counting to two and the ball was out-and it worked to keep them off of him. And then for whatever reason they stopped doing that and he was holding the ball and taking longer drops.
Good for the Rams.
I also think the Cardinals need to realize that there are about 16 or so game films with all those A gap blitzes by now and Kendricks was playing HBack almost all night going into motion and turning into the line right between the center and guard and picking them off. They came free on a couple but they are going to change it up and come off the edge more or every team is going to do that.
Skipping the obvious work by Long and Quinn Hayes played a great game both inside and outside. When Sims comes back they have a really good pair with a lot of versatility.
On defense I watched Laurinaitis and the corners the most. Laurinaitis is still lining up very deep in the base defense and peeling back for a deep middle zone for passing downs. It seems to be a trade off the team is making on base downs to protect the big play versus getting him up closer to the gaps against run plays. He does move up in short yardage. The outside linebackers are up the box on base downs stacked into the wide 9 gaps for the most part. They are also rotating in Hull and Haggan (who was dinged up and left at one point) almost as often as they do linemen.
Its taken me this long to really start getting some kind of handle on how they deploy the backfield. For the most part (although they will change it in the early downs some) it a two or three deep zone and the corners are also staying in zone. In short yardage, some third downs and mainly Finnegan they will switch to man on the corners. Once teams hit the red zone they man up and play bump and run and will walk up a safety into the box and play one on top. Most of the time it looks to me as if the corners are playing the inside shoulder and trying to take the slant away.
Hekker scared the crap out of me by not punting everything into the third row.
