Post game thread.

[-X-]

I'm just frustrated with the same players making the same mistakes, and how the defense being called is making it easy to game plan against us. How can you not touch Tom Brady once in this game, how? It's bull patooty.

We have a couple bad eggs, but a lot of our problems are related by the style of defense that we are playing, or lack of style.

I just don't get it, how can we be having this kind of discussion about a Jeff Fisher coached team? It makes absolutely no sense to me. What possibility could be going-on internally to cause these sorts of mis-steps?

He got out-the-fuck-coached. That's all that happened.

Same thing happened to him when Bellyfat beat him 59-0.

I love Fisher, I love the staff he's assembled, I love his vision, I love his his demeanor, but let's call it like it is.

Well, why did he get out-coached? Didn't we just hire a top-tier HC and pay him like one? Hence, the question is, is the weakness that has been exposed our Head Coach's strategic sophistication, or is it player limitation?

Both. Player limitations brought about by injuries and inexperience, and (IMO) trying to exploit a weakness without the horses to do it while simultaneously going away from your strengths. Specifically, trying to pick apart their secondary just because they're statistically vulnerable, and not using 3 good running backs with an offensive line that would be more aptly suited to run the ball than fend off a pass rush they were ill-equipped to fend off.

It wasn't anything negligent, by the way. Just over-confidence that led to a huge deficit caused by giving New England too many chances with the ball. In my opinion, of course. I don't think Fisher is SO overconfident and cocky that he would forsake common sense. He took a chance and it didn't pay off.

On defense, I have no answer yet. Like Doc said, our safeties and linebackers are a liability. We knew that going in, so you can sure as hell bet Bellyfat & McDamnhim saw all of those things in spades and utilized a decade of system experience to pen about 30 different ways to exploit it. And they did. Over and over and over again. Why we couldn't immediately adjust to that and give them a different weakness to try and exploit is a mystery to me. I'd rather they run for 300 yards and take twice as long to score, personally. But it probably wasn't as easy as that either. We're all novices here.

 

[bluecoconuts]

Part of it was also our greatest weakness was their greatest strength. Patriots thrive inside of the numbers, against safeties and LB's. Our defense is best outside of the numbers where our linebackers and safety's are less of a liability. Until we get better at S and a better coverage OLB, we'll always be weak there.

 

[Speeps]

X I think you have an interesting point about our offensive philosophy against the Patriots. I have to disagree. I believe that we had a great balance of run and pass early in the game. When things got out of hand, we went to a pass happy approach which is understandable.

If your defense is not playing well, it's hard to run the ball (if you're trying to win a game that is).

Looking at the grand scheme of things, I do agree that we should be a little bit more run heavy. Running the ball accomplishes a lot. It gets your offensive line in rhythm, keep your defense off the field, keeps your QB clean, and shortens a game. Running the ball also requires patience, long drives, and readiness for 3rd and long situations.

Much like X, I believe that is the approach the Rams should take. Special Teams and Defense needs to regain their sense of identity and confidence. It's clearly been shaken. They've lost the edge they played with in the earlier games of the season.

I fully expect this team to make some serious adjustments in the second half of the season.

 

[-X-]

X I think you have an interesting point about our offensive philosophy against the Patriots. I have to disagree. I believe that we had a great balance of run and pass early in the game. When things got out of hand, we went to a pass happy approach which is understandable.

If your defense is not playing well, it's hard to run the ball (if you're trying to win a game that is).

Looking at the grand scheme of things, I do agree that we should be a little bit more run heavy. Running the ball accomplishes a lot. It gets your offensive line in rhythm, keep your defense off the field, keeps your QB clean, and shortens a game. Running the ball also requires patience, long drives, and readiness for 3rd and long situations.

Much like X, I believe that is the approach the Rams should take. Special Teams and Defense needs to regain their sense of identity and confidence. It's clearly been shaken. They've lost the edge they played with in the earlier games of the season.

I fully expect this team to make some serious adjustments in the second half of the season.

You could be right. I haven't rewatched it yet, but it just seemed to me that after the opening shot, we tried to gain a little momentum off of that. I don't remember a lot of runs early on, and we only ended up with 17 attempts. Hell, NE ended up with 22, and I think they're still over there throwing the ball as we speak. I could be a little off the mark because I'm relying on my memory, but I'll know for sure in the next couple of days.