Peter King: MMQB - 9/8/14

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PT
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http://mmqb.si.com/2014/09/08/nfl-week-1-surprises-derek-anderson-panthers-dolphins/
Everything We Thought Was Wrong
A backup quarterback rescues Carolina. Miami's D rocks Tom Brady's Pats. The Saints can't stop Matt Ryan. The Eagles nearly implode. The one lesson from Week 1: The NFL is as unpredictable as ever. Plus weekly awards, the Fine 15 and 10 things I think
By Peter King

(To read the entire article click the link. Here are the comments about the Rams.......)

rams.jpg

Zac Stacy and the Rams’ offense was shut down in a 34-6 loss to the Vikings on Sunday. (L.G. Patterson/AP)

The worst thing for the Rams: the looming schedule.


Of the 28 teams that have played so far this weekend, the Rams had the worst day. A disaster at quarterback—and whether Shaun Hill (a calf injury, no, a thigh injury) really was hurt enough to leave the game at halftime—was weird enough. But a 28-point loss at home to a team that won five games last year, and no offensive answers whatsoever, and a defense with eight first- or second-round picks on it giving up 6.2 yards per carry and 68% completions to Minnesota, was plain awful. The Rams did lead the league in something on Sunday: penalties. They committed 13. “Embarrassing,” linebacker James Laurinaitis called it.

The Rams look to have two weeks to do the unlikely, which is save their season. They play at Tampa Bay, which had a bad home loss to a backup quarterback Sunday, and then come home to face Dallas, which looked terrible Sunday. Then there’s a bye. Then there’s the toughest eight-game stretch any team has this year—or at least it looks the toughest. Seven 2013 playoff teams, and Arizona, which won 10 games. The roll call starting in Week 5: at Philadelphia, San Francisco, Seattle, at Kansas City, at San Francisco, at Arizona, Denver, at San Diego.

Jeff Fisher certainly will stress to his team this week that it’s only one loss. His team is young and impressionable, and maybe they’ll buy the optimism. But St. Louis is a show-me NFL market anyway. The locals have bought into winning through the draft, and not even the loss of Sam Bradford for the second straight year with a knee injury should have made the team bottom out like this.
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Minnesota (1-0). I know the Rams could be a bottom-five team (could?), but that was a very impressive win by a team with so much to prove. Cordarrelle Patterson (102 rushing yards, of all things) is going to be an incredible weapon in the hands of offensive coordinator Norv Turner.
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Coaches of the Week

Mike Zimmer, head coach, Minnesota. You know how many times over the years—over the last three, four, five years at least—Mike Zimmer has entered a season and looked at some of the head coaches in the league and said to himself, “That should be me.” He finally gets his chance, and he passed his first test with greatness, a 34-6 pummeling of the Rams on the road.
 

OC_Ram

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How could fisher, an experienced coach, not see this coming? A run first team that cannot run?
 

dbrooks25

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What do you mean? Going into the game everyone was optimistic that the team would be able to run the ball with this offensive line. The offensive line opened no holes and I believe this is due to the fact that they did not have enough time on the field together in the preseason. They will be able to run the ball.
 

iced

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quite frankly i am tired of hearing about players being embarrassed about penalties..

talk is one thing, actions over the past 2 years say another
 

Athos

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Take out the Patterson run, and we gave up the NFL avg 4.1 yards per carry for 119.

Patterson hosed us. AP was a fairly non-factor the entire game.

And one TD off a double coverage pick.

In my opinion, the offense gave up 14 pts to the Vikings, while the D only gave up 20. Not a lot of points considering how often our offense put the Vikings in our territory and didn't do a damn thing to score themselves.

Our D is the last thing I'm worried about right now.
 

Angry Ram

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quite frankly i am tired of hearing about players being embarrassed about penalties..

talk is one thing, actions over the past 2 years say another

They can't control judgement calls.
 

OC_Ram

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Take out the Patterson run, and we gave up the NFL avg 4.1 yards per carry for 119.

Patterson hosed us. AP was a fairly non-factor the entire game.

And one TD off a double coverage pick.

In my opinion, the offense gave up 14 pts to the Vikings, while the D only gave up 20. Not a lot of points considering how often our offense put the Vikings in our territory and didn't do a damn thing to score themselves.

Our D is the last thing I'm worried about right now.
We always have an excuse , and that's the problem.
 

Athos

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Those aren't excuses. Those are facts.

When the opponent's starting field position is constantly in YOUR territory or up at the 40-50 yard line, you ARE going to give up points when it keeps happening.

The offense was miserable. Sure the D had areas to improve upon (those quick screens and swing passes) but played fairly well sans Ogletree who gave up a lot of ground.
 

RaminExile

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What do you mean? Going into the game everyone was optimistic that the team would be able to run the ball with this offensive line. The offensive line opened no holes and I believe this is due to the fact that they did not have enough time on the field together in the preseason. They will be able to run the ball.

Thing is it looked like this in pre-season - and everyone just said "its only pre-season." We've heard that for the last 2 years aswell.
 

AZRamsFan93

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Take out the Patterson run, and we gave up the NFL avg 4.1 yards per carry for 119.

First off, I don't like revisionism (ignore the fact that the Rams were gashed by a player they know they had to stop). Even ignoring that painful fact, they gave up 119 yards and 4.1 per carry.

That, my friend, are not elite defense numbers. We as fans were widely expecting an elite defense. There was one on that field yesterday, but it wasn't wearing the helmets of the good guys.
 

Angry Ram

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There's not enough "judgement calls" to justify us consistently being one of most penalized teams year after year

Sum total looks bad. Some are mistakes by the refs, some have nothing to do with the offense/defense, and some are not warranted.

That's the issue. I don't like the fact that Chris Long may have been flagged for offsides b/c of his "rep."

I don't like how a mere graze is roughing the kicker/qb.

I don't like how a stiff arm is suddenly a face mask.

I highly doubt Jeff Fisher goes to his team "hey, fuck the flags, we'll do what we want!". We can scream at the tv all we want, rage on the internet all we want, but at the end of the day, the players need to do their part and hope refs call it fair. I think for the most part they did yesterday, but the ones they didn't really hurt us.
 

iced

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Sum total looks bad. Some are mistakes by the refs, some have nothing to do with the offense/defense, and some are not warranted.

That's the issue. I don't like the fact that Chris Long may have been flagged for offsides b/c of his "rep."
v
I don't like how a mere graze is roughing the kicker/qb.

I don't like how a stiff arm is suddenly a face mask.

I highly doubt Jeff Fisher goes to his team "hey, freak the flags, we'll do what we want!". We can scream at the tv all we want, rage on the internet all we want, but at the end of the day, the players need to do their part and hope refs call it fair. I think for the most part they did yesterday, but the ones they didn't really hurt us.

The Stiff arm is a new rule - quick earned it. The other two I agree with...

but there also have been more than a fair amount of penalties that are more than well earned..for example, even if you took those 3 out of the total,we still have 10 penalties...thats still excessive
 

Faceplant

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This team looked exactly like they did in the preseason. Can't run and can't stop the run. Keep thinking those games are meaningless if you want.......
 

Angry Ram

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The Stiff arm is a new rule - quick earned it. The other two I agree with...

but there also have been more than a fair amount of penalties that are more than well earned..for example, even if you took those 3 out of the total,we still have 10 penalties...thats still excessive

I don't. I rarely so see multiple penalties against WRs in a single game. Many teams get away with it, with a flag here or there. For some reason teh Rams get tagged for more.

False starts are an issue, tho. I dont get that.
 

Irish

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quite frankly i am tired of hearing about players being embarrassed about penalties..

talk is one thing, actions over the past 2 years say another

When I was in middle school, I had a pair of corduroy pants that my mom bought me for Christmas. They were terrible, I didn't know any better, and I wore them to school. Every week. For 2 months.

Finally my girlfriend at the time told me the pants were terrible. So what did I do? I got rid of the corduroy pants.

Moral of the story?



Don't give the Rams players corduroy pants. They will say they are embarrassed of them when their girlfriends call them on it, and then proceed to wear them, every week, on national television.
 

Ram Quixote

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Sum total looks bad. Some are mistakes by the refs, some have nothing to do with the offense/defense, and some are not warranted.

That's the issue. I don't like the fact that Chris Long may have been flagged for offsides b/c of his "rep."

I don't like how a mere graze is roughing the kicker/qb.

I don't like how a stiff arm is suddenly a face mask.

I highly doubt Jeff Fisher goes to his team "hey, freak the flags, we'll do what we want!". We can scream at the tv all we want, rage on the internet all we want, but at the end of the day, the players need to do their part and hope refs call it fair. I think for the most part they did yesterday, but the ones they didn't really hurt us.
The kicker should have gotten an Oscar for that performance.
 

Zaphod

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We always have an excuse , and that's the problem.
Forget the excuses excuse, there are 15 games left in this season and this schedule isn't going to be getting any easier.

We lost ugly, for a plethora of reasons for that have to be fixed.

Penalties and missed tackles are at the top of that list for me.