Gordon: Rams must get started on 2014

[PhxRam]

I like Gordon, but it seems a little early for this talk.

Rams coach Jeff Fisher won’t concede anything, but let’s be honest about the rest of this season.

Maybe this team will win another game or two — especially Tampa Bay at home on Dec. 22 — or maybe it won’t.

The Rams are decided also-rans, again. Given the demise of Sam Bradford and the team’s stunning defensive regression, they cannot defeat many teams by forcing turnovers, controlling field position and kicking field goals.

They will take a step back in Year 2 of the Fisher Regime. There is no avoiding that. The damage is done. The consequences are inescapable.

So the organization should focus on a Year 3 breakthrough instead. The Rams should use their remaining games to sort their roster, firm up their long-term nucleus and expedite player development.

Amid all the suffering, the Rams found their new feature back: Zac Stacy. He demonstrates terrific instincts running between the tackles and the drive to gain extra yardage.

Stacy is a real NFL player. Sadly, few (if any) of the other top prospects can say the same at this early point of their careers.


Fans and experts alike blast offensive coordinator Brian Schottenheimer for pedestrian game plans and dull play-calling. The much bigger issue has been this coaching staff’s inability to develop high draft picks into productive performers.

Wide receiver Tavon Austin is an exciting athlete, but he is not an impact player. Perhaps Austin would possess more confidence if his hapless teammates hadn’t negated all those big plays by taking clumsy penalties.

But after nine games he is still just a raw prospect. Austin drops a lot of passes. He doesn’t make many first tacklers miss. He makes odd decisions on punt returns. We’re not sure how many pass routes he can run because he remains a secondary option in the passing game.

During the remaining seven games the Rams must make every effort to make Austin a factor. Why wait until the OTAs?

Wide receiver Brian Quick is an exciting athlete, but he remains a fringe player. Sometimes he runs good routes, sometimes he doesn’t. Sometimes he catches the ball, sometimes he doesn’t. Sometimes he uses his size and strength, sometimes he doesn’t.

Cornerback Janoris Jenkins is an exciting athlete, but he yields big plays and seldom forces the big turnover or big stop. Perhaps some of his regression is due to soft scheming by coordinatorTim Walton. Or maybe he is too mistake-prone to play in a more aggressive scheme.

Outside linebacker Alec Ogletree is an exciting athlete, but he alternates big plays with total whiffs. He is another reason why the Rams allow so many explosive offensive plays.

Tight end Jared Cook is an exciting athlete, but he is just a middling performer. Sometimes he runs good routes, sometimes he doesn’t. Sometimes he catches the ball, sometimes he doesn’t. Sometimes he uses his size and strength, sometimes he doesn’t.

Running back Isaiah Pead has flashed athletic ability during his limited playing time, but he can’t get on the field during the second year of his career. He is making Trung Candidate look like Jim Brown. Is he hopeless? Is he worth further investment of time and money?

Apparently he is not. But some of these other fellows could become big pieces of the turnaround ifthe Rams can transform them from athletes into players.

(That process will have to wait at quarterback, perhaps until the next NFL Draft. Bradford’s injury will allow the team to develop a young player at that position. The new guy would benefit from taking all of Bradford’s repetitions during the offseason, training camp and preseason play. That is an opportunity the Rams can’t afford to squander.)

Since the Rams’ 2013 fate is sealed, we should spend the remaining games assessing player progress instead of checking the scoreboard.

Can other Rams follow Stacy’s lead and emerge as difference-makers? Will the team emerge from the season with fewer roster holes and more players to build around?

Or will Jeff Fisher, Les Snead and Co. fail to break the cycle that sent Scott Linehan, Billy Devaney and Steve Spagnuolo circling the drain?

These last seven games offer opportunity. If the Rams can make players out of all the exciting athletes, the franchise can remain on course for contention in 2014 and beyond.

http://www.stltoday.com/sports/colu...cle_901d6bd1-5795-5054-a936-aa8a60803dfd.html

 

[Thordaddy]

Yeah I agree and IMO after 7-9 last year and Bradford going down 5-11 wouldn't constitute a "step backward" especially considering the playing time SOOO many young guys got.
But Gordon is a writer and writers hate to be called "homers" so you can give him a bit of a pass.....if you want to,ME? I say screw him,if he can't write sumthin positive like how we've found our battering Ram in Stacy,then he can just sukit.

 

[Pancake]

I thought they were close to turning the corner up until SB went down.

 

[Rabid Ram]

He did call out Stacy as a brightspot all in all I do agree we need to asses what we have

 

[V3]

I agree with everything he said.

 

[Faceplant]

Yeah, hard to disagree with anything there. This team just never seems to be able to change its stripes. Year after year after year after.....

 

[Thordaddy]

Yeah, hard to disagree with anything there. This team just never seems to be able to change its stripes. Year after year after year after.....

While I agree there is ample reason to be somewhat disheartened ,lemme say this: This past week two NFL head coaches went down ,one with a stroke,one with what amounts to a heart attack.
Throughout this week those stories have been overshadowed by the Cogs story, this week we face a team whose coach is recovering from Leukemia, so? so this is a franchise under whose leadership a coach went down with an infected heart valve a few years back and the way those other three coaches were/ are being treated vs. how our coach was treated is all I need to KNOW ,this org under this owner would NEVER lock a sick man out like that.

I think we are light years better now than we were then,perhaps the record doesn't show it as of yet ,and we've all considered the various "reasons" youth, maybe a QB whose contract cost more than his contribution,what the F ever .
As far as I'm concerned , this became a clean slate the day Stan Kroenke took over,and I see progress from that point, I refuse to lay the sins of the previous dirt bags, that did what they did to that coach ,at this guys feet.

Regardless what your perception of Mike Martz he WAS the best /most competent man IN that org and the incompetents ganged up and destroyed it when they "found the most competent man and fired him" and we have not QUITE recovered since,but we are in the process now ,so for me, I don't entertain the thought that this is ONE continuous history,that was then, this is NOW,and NOW is all I give a shit about cuz I can't change then.

 

[Ram Quixote]

Yeah, hard to disagree with anything there. This team just never seems to be able to change its stripes. Year after year after year after.....

Beg to differ ... Rams teams of the past, when faced with this kind of adversity, have crumbled under the pressure. On both sides of the ball.

Adding a little to what Thor wrote, previous ownership invented a method by which HCs were doomed to fail (with one notable exception). That Martz lasted 6 years is quite an achievement.

 

[Faceplant]

Thor and Quixote, I agree with both of you. I was referring to the stupid mistakes and finding ways to lose "stripes". The ownership and coaching is absolutely the best since Rosenbloom and Martz, no argument there. I was/am a huge Martz fan and would love to have him involved with our offense in any capacity. Again, what I meant was that this "team" seems to always shoot itself in the damn foot. It is INFURIATING!!