Perspective is badly needed here

[Merlin]

And I'm talking all over the place, from the LA Times to internet Ramsdom. I simply cannot believe the amount of butthurt takes I have seen, and it's disappointing tbh.

We just went to the Super Bowl and played a hard-fought defensive game in which we were a couple near-miss plays away from taking control and things maybe playing out much differently. We have the youngest coach in the NFL, some of the best young players in the league at key positions, and an enormously bright future.

Chin up MFers. Nothing has changed. This is an amazing time to be a Rams fan.

 

[hotanez]

Your 100% right

 

[-X-]

“But we lost the Super Bowl!”

We? What position do you play?

 

[Mojo Ram]

And I'm talking all over the place, from the LA Times to internet Ramsdom. I simply cannot believe the amount of butthurt takes I have seen, and it's disappointing tbh.

We just went to the Super Bowl and played a hard-fought defensive game in which we were a couple near-miss plays away from taking control and things maybe playing out much differently. We have the youngest coach in the NFL, some of the best young players in the league at key positions, and an enormously bright future.

Chin up MFers. Nothing has changed. This is an amazing time to be a Rams fan.

Yeah man. I'm a tad depressed today but i feel like this team is in good hands from top to bottom going forward.

This idea that the Rams pushed all their chips forward just for yesterday is quite frankly, not true. One who pays attention and does some research already knows that. This isn't the 2015 AZ Cardinals...but the media heads, most of them anyway...have been throwing this all or nothing narrative around all year.

We will lose guys sure, but the core is in place, a young, paid core, and we have one of the best young HC's and coaching staffs in the league.

The NFCW is ours. We own it. It will be challenged but it's ours until SEA, AZ or SF puts a better team on the field than ours. Chin up for sure.

 

[thirteen28]

This idea that the Rams pushed all their chips forward just for yesterday is quite frankly, not true. One who pays attention and does some research already knows that. This isn't the 2015 AZ Cardinals...but the media heads, most of them anyway...have been throwing this all or nothing narrative around all year.

We will lose guys sure, but the core is in place, a young, paid core, and we have one of the best young HC's and coaching staffs in the league.

Bingo.

As I've said on other threads, the core skill guys on our offense are still on the ascending sides of their respective careers, with several of them locked up for a number of seasons. I'm sure we'll get Goff and Kupp locked up too. We will have to tinker with the OL this offseason, but I have full confidence in Aaron Kromer to coach up whoever we get (I figure we replace Sullivan, not sure about anyone else).

I think the "pushed the chips" narrative comes from what we did on D this past offseason, and there will certainly be some changes made there. But in that process we have the opportunity to not only clear some cap space and get guys more suited for Wade's 3-4, but we still have the best DL in the league and a pretty good safety at the back end. We have impact players to build around.

 

[Mojo Ram]

I think the "pushed the chips" narrative comes from what we did on D this past offseason, and there will certainly be some changes made there. But in that process we have the opportunity to not only clear some cap space and get guys more suited for Wade's 3-4, but we still have the best DL in the league and a pretty good safety at the back end. We have impact players to build around.

That's exactly where it comes from. A trade for Peters, a trade for Talib and adding a FA in Suh.

This false narrative tends to ignore that our offense returned 10 of 11 starters from 2017 and added pieces to better fit a 4-3 to 3-4 transition.

 

[nighttrain]

“But we lost the Super Bowl!”

We? What position do you play?

But WE were there!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
train

 

[TSFH Fan]

For me, I like looking at Peyton Manning's first playoff meeting against Belichick in the 2003 post-season.

In the 2003 regular season, Manning threw for +4k yards (led the league), led the league in completion %-age, threw only 10 Ints and was sacked only 18 times. He had HOF-er Marvin Harrison, Edge, Reggie Wayne, Marcus Pollard, et, al.

Manning, 27, in his 6th year in the league, in his first time against Belichick's playoff D, went 23/47 for 237 yards, threw 4 picks, and was sacked 4 times, for a 35.5 rating.

Goff, 24, in his 3rd year in the league, in his first time against Belichick's playoff D, went 19/38 for 229, 1 pick, sacked 4 times, for a 57.9 rating.

Point? Well, yeah, it was disappointing how the SB went down, but in his history, Belichick was able to get a pass rush against arguably a better group of pass blockers and made a (future) hall of famer, Manning, who was older, with more experience, and arguably had better weapons, look bad too. In short, Belichick Belichick'ed and the Rams lost. It happens. Onward and upwards. Oh, and Goff is on pace to be better than Manning, no?

 

[London_Ram]

Sat in departures waiting for the red-eye back to London landing at 6.55am and straight to the office from there. Just typing out that sentence tells me perspective is needed. Why? Because could I envisage doing that to watch 'my' team in the Super Bowl recently? Hell no.

2 years ago we sucked, last year we lost in the Wild Card round and the common belief was that progression would be getting to the NFC Championship game. Well we did that and more.

Sure we laid an egg (offensively) last night; if I'd thought that 2 TDs would have won the game beforehand I'd habe bitten your hand-off and there's an understandable sense of dismay, regret, knowing what could have been; but there's plenty we still have.

Last night for instance - defensively we were exceptional. And with Donald more or less nullified. All year we've been calling for the rest of the D to step up and they did.

What else do we have? Ok, we have our QB, RB, 4 WR, 2 TE all coming back before you add in Kelly + potentially CJ. I'm not going to pretend I'm convinced by Goff and next year is important for him personally but that is as good a set of contracted skill players in league. I also doubted mid-season that I'd be confident about our TEs but I am now.

The OL needs depth and maybe 2 starters depending whether Whitworth decides to continue playing but we have Noteboom and Allen with a years experience under their belt. Our 2018 draftees played the least snaps of anyone last year so either we monumentally screwed up the few picks we did have; or we've allowed them a year to learn the schemes, bed in, and make a bigger impact in year 2. I favour that scenario. Added in our 1sr rounder back as it stands for the next draft, couple of picks in round 3 with a good defensive depth to the draft I can see us almost having the potential to have 2 drafts worth of players ready to make an impact.

Moving onto coaching McVay had a horror last night. No getting away from it but I think the offseason will actually be a godsend to him; review what went wrong against the Pats but also Chicago and Philly and adjust accordingly. I don't think the sun shines out his rear-end but I do think he's open enough to review what went wrong, intelligent enough to identify it, and not pigheaded enough to ignore it.

Finally Snead and Demoff I believe are the aces up our sleeves and I wouldn't swap them for any in the league. They'll surprise me no doubt again this off-season but I sure can't wait to see how.

Realise this has turned into a long monologue/rant fuelled by lack of sleep, alcohol, and pills to fight man-flu; and whilst I'm devastated about last night perspective is needed. We're an organisation who has made enormous strides in the last two years but it wasn't boom or bust. We are still well set to push on.

 

[Elmgrovegnome]

What makes it hard to swallow is that the Patriots only scored 13 points. 14 points has been an easy thing for this team to accomplish.

 

[cvramsfan]

I was told that the RAMS are the fav's to win it all next year in Vegas.

 

[Ramlock]

My perspective will be on the No Pirates, Just Booty thread now.

:yay:

 

[Loyal]

I like the positivity. I remember a lot of the same words spoken after Super Bowl 37 about that team. Great HC who got schooled by Bellicheck. But we had Faulk, Holt, Bruce, and Warner still. Orlando Pace was still in his prime. Lovie left to be HC in Chicago, but still, the team's future looked bright.

Dave waited to see that game last night and didn't quite make it. Let's hope it won't take another 17 years to get there again, because many of us are not as young as springtime anymore.

 

[VegasRam]

Look on the bright side.

Can you imagine LA Champ posting today?

 

[coconut]

I like the positivity. I remember a lot of the same words spoken after Super Bowl 37 about that team. Great HC who got schooled by Bellicheck. But we had Faulk, Holt, Bruce, and Warner still. Orlando Pace was still in his prime. Lovie left to be HC in Chicago, but still, the team's future looked bright.

Dave waited to see that game last night and didn't quite make it. Let's hope it won't take another 17 years to get there again, because many of us are not as young as springtime anymore.

Super Bowl 36

 

[Raptorman]

Hate to say it but now you guys know how some of Vikings fans felt after our Super Bowl loss to the Raiders. Just never really in the game. It sucks. The only good thing that came out of that game was I lost my virginity at halftime.

 

[coconut]

We got to see 19 games this season which is fantastic. But all wasn't roses as seen last night. Depth is a big issue. McVay was outcoached too. Need more magic from Snead to fill areas of need. Gurley and Kupp's health? Only positive I see is at least the Super Bowl experience is under this teams belt.

 

[Loyal]

Super Bowl 36

I'm old..lol

 

[thirteen28]

I like the positivity. I remember a lot of the same words spoken after Super Bowl 37 about that team. Great HC who got schooled by Bellicheck. But we had Faulk, Holt, Bruce, and Warner still. Orlando Pace was still in his prime. Lovie left to be HC in Chicago, but still, the team's future looked bright.

Dave waited to see that game last night and didn't quite make it. Let's hope it won't take another 17 years to get there again, because many of us are not as young as springtime anymore.

As someone else mentioned on another thread, our FO was a viper's nest during that time. We got there off the work of Vermiel, even if Martz was the HC. Add to that we had a number of big time FA's going into that offseason, namely Little, Fletcher, and Hakim. We lost the latter two and it really impacted things on both sides of the ball. And to boot, we had a hyper-egotistical head coach who subordinated winning to showing everybody how much of a genius he was. Martz was utterly lacking the humility McVay showed in the post-game presser.

Next year we are going to return with virtually all of the skill position players on offense, and have a good chance to return with 10 of 11 starters on O once again. There will be a lot of turnover on D, but then again, there was a lot of that the year before too.

Not only that, our FO and organization as a whole is probably healthier than it's ever been during my time as a Rams fan.

There are obviously no guarantees, but I like where we are now compared to where we were last time we were in this situation.


BTW, Lovie didn't leave for two more years to be a HC in Chicago (2003 was his last year as Rams DC)... and he's the one who convinced Martz we could let Fletcher walk and roll with Jamie Duncan.