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Rams need more magic to pull off upset
• By Jim Thomas
http://www.stltoday.com/sports/foot...cle_0969bc64-2d3d-59a2-9a99-a1b59ece6c3b.html
No doubt about it, the Rams have pulled some rabbits out of their helmets this season.
There was that 28-26 home victory over Seattle in mid October, six days after getting shut down in the second half of a frustrating 31-17 Monday night loss to San Francisco.
On the heels of a 34-7 second-half meltdown at Kansas City, a game in which the Rams lost left tackle Jake Long and wide receiver Brian Quick for the season because of injuries, they rode out of San Francisco with a 13-10 victory over the 49ers in early November.
And then came the ultimate. Following a 31-14 fourth-quarter collapse at Arizona, they dominated — yes, dominated — Denver 22-7 in quarterback Shaun Hill’s return to the starting lineup in mid November.
But if they could somehow, some way pull off the upset Sunday in Seattle over the defending Super Bowl champions, well, that would top them all.
Kickoff is 3:25 p.m. (St. Louis time) in the season finale for the Rams (6-9) and the regular-season sign-off for Seattle (11-4).
“It’s the last one,” Rams coach Jeff Fisher said. “It’s important to us, and we’re taking it very seriously.”
After last week’s bitterly disappointing 37-27 loss to the New York Giants, Fisher said part of his message to the team was, “We want to go into this offseason and offseason program playing good football. That’s very important to us.”
The Rams have lost nine in a row in Seattle; they haven’t won there since a wild-card playoff victory during the 2004 season.
Perhaps defensive end Chris Long best framed the Rams’ motivation for this one.
“I’m as excited about our future as ever,” he said. “The future starts this weekend. If you want to be somebody competing for the division (title), you’ve got to be able to go to a place like Seattle and win.
“If we’re up there next year playing for something big, which we plan on doing, you want to be able to say, ‘OK, we’ve done this before.’ So it’s important to us. I really do think we’re getting better and better every year. We’ve just got to get over the hump.”
Winning there is more like scaling a mountain than a hump.
Counting playoff games, the Seahawks have won 23 of their last 25 games at the home of the 12th Man.
“Yeah, it’s an exciting place,” Fisher said. “It’s a challenge. It’s different than most places in the league. That ‘12th Man’ is unique and special. It’s hard to hear and they force mistakes and they take advantage of it.”
For the second year in a row, the Rams close a season against a Seattle team with much to play for. As was the case in 2013, the Seahawks are in position to claim the top seed in the NFC and home-field advantage throughout the playoffs with a victory. Or possibly fall to the No. 5 seed and open the playoffs on the road as a wild-card team with a loss.
In a scheduling quirk that gets more peculiar as each season goes by, it’s the third year in a row the Rams have played their season finale in Seattle, and the fourth time in the last five seasons.
“The NFL does love putting us up there, it looks like, in the last week of the season,” linebacker James Laurinaitis said. “Just take ‘em as they roll, I guess. Got to go up there sometime.
“Last year they were playing for home field. And this year they’re playing for home field in the playoffs. So they’ll have plenty of reason to play ball. So do we.
“So it’ll be a fun Sunday.”
Last Sunday was no fun at all for the Rams, especially on defense — the secondary was awful and the Giants piled up 514 yards.
“We (allowed) four of five explosive plays on third down that’s just uncharacteristic of us because we’ve played so solid,” Rams defensive coordinator Gregg Williams said.
He further described the breakdowns as: “Head-scratching. I’m not going to use the bad words, but very irritating.”
Suffice it to say, Williams used several of the “bad words” in the defensive meeting room during the week.
“It’s not something where anybody does it on purpose, but there were just some hesitations and some miscommunications, and a couple different guys playing that haven’t been playing in a while,” Williams continued. “All of a sudden you lose your comfort zone on expecting people to do things.”
Williams also thought there were several occasions in which Rams defenders let a bad play linger in their heads, or “travel” with them for the next several plays against the Giants.
“When we let a play travel with us four or five plays later, all of a sudden it compounds, then dominos,” Williams said. “You’ve got to be able to stop the avalanche. You’ve got to be able to stop the mistake that’s going on and do it the right way.”
If the Rams’ defense doesn’t do it the right way Sunday, things could get extremely ugly. Last week, Seattle’s ninth-ranked offense piled up an astounding 596 yards against the rugged Arizona defense — at University of Phoenix Stadium, no less.
The Seahawks had running plays of 79 and 55 yards in that contest, and passing plays of 80 and 49 yards.
“I mean, 596 yards against the Arizona defense, at Arizona, says a lot for an offense,” Fisher said. “(Plus the Seahawks) have the best defense in the National Football League.”
Yes they do.
During their current five-game winning streak, they’ve allowed only 33 total points against some pretty good teams. (Arizona twice, San Francisco twice and Philadelphia.)
The Seahawks’ defensive scheme isn’t all that complicated schematically and doesn’t change much from week to week.
So much so that Rams offensive coordinator Brian Schottenheimer joked, “They’ve probably been home for Christmas all week. They don’t do too much. They do what they do, and they do it well.”
Better, in fact, than anyone in the NFL.
• By Jim Thomas
http://www.stltoday.com/sports/foot...cle_0969bc64-2d3d-59a2-9a99-a1b59ece6c3b.html
No doubt about it, the Rams have pulled some rabbits out of their helmets this season.
There was that 28-26 home victory over Seattle in mid October, six days after getting shut down in the second half of a frustrating 31-17 Monday night loss to San Francisco.
On the heels of a 34-7 second-half meltdown at Kansas City, a game in which the Rams lost left tackle Jake Long and wide receiver Brian Quick for the season because of injuries, they rode out of San Francisco with a 13-10 victory over the 49ers in early November.
And then came the ultimate. Following a 31-14 fourth-quarter collapse at Arizona, they dominated — yes, dominated — Denver 22-7 in quarterback Shaun Hill’s return to the starting lineup in mid November.
But if they could somehow, some way pull off the upset Sunday in Seattle over the defending Super Bowl champions, well, that would top them all.
Kickoff is 3:25 p.m. (St. Louis time) in the season finale for the Rams (6-9) and the regular-season sign-off for Seattle (11-4).
“It’s the last one,” Rams coach Jeff Fisher said. “It’s important to us, and we’re taking it very seriously.”
After last week’s bitterly disappointing 37-27 loss to the New York Giants, Fisher said part of his message to the team was, “We want to go into this offseason and offseason program playing good football. That’s very important to us.”
The Rams have lost nine in a row in Seattle; they haven’t won there since a wild-card playoff victory during the 2004 season.
Perhaps defensive end Chris Long best framed the Rams’ motivation for this one.
“I’m as excited about our future as ever,” he said. “The future starts this weekend. If you want to be somebody competing for the division (title), you’ve got to be able to go to a place like Seattle and win.
“If we’re up there next year playing for something big, which we plan on doing, you want to be able to say, ‘OK, we’ve done this before.’ So it’s important to us. I really do think we’re getting better and better every year. We’ve just got to get over the hump.”
Winning there is more like scaling a mountain than a hump.
Counting playoff games, the Seahawks have won 23 of their last 25 games at the home of the 12th Man.
“Yeah, it’s an exciting place,” Fisher said. “It’s a challenge. It’s different than most places in the league. That ‘12th Man’ is unique and special. It’s hard to hear and they force mistakes and they take advantage of it.”
For the second year in a row, the Rams close a season against a Seattle team with much to play for. As was the case in 2013, the Seahawks are in position to claim the top seed in the NFC and home-field advantage throughout the playoffs with a victory. Or possibly fall to the No. 5 seed and open the playoffs on the road as a wild-card team with a loss.
In a scheduling quirk that gets more peculiar as each season goes by, it’s the third year in a row the Rams have played their season finale in Seattle, and the fourth time in the last five seasons.
“The NFL does love putting us up there, it looks like, in the last week of the season,” linebacker James Laurinaitis said. “Just take ‘em as they roll, I guess. Got to go up there sometime.
“Last year they were playing for home field. And this year they’re playing for home field in the playoffs. So they’ll have plenty of reason to play ball. So do we.
“So it’ll be a fun Sunday.”
Last Sunday was no fun at all for the Rams, especially on defense — the secondary was awful and the Giants piled up 514 yards.
“We (allowed) four of five explosive plays on third down that’s just uncharacteristic of us because we’ve played so solid,” Rams defensive coordinator Gregg Williams said.
He further described the breakdowns as: “Head-scratching. I’m not going to use the bad words, but very irritating.”
Suffice it to say, Williams used several of the “bad words” in the defensive meeting room during the week.
“It’s not something where anybody does it on purpose, but there were just some hesitations and some miscommunications, and a couple different guys playing that haven’t been playing in a while,” Williams continued. “All of a sudden you lose your comfort zone on expecting people to do things.”
Williams also thought there were several occasions in which Rams defenders let a bad play linger in their heads, or “travel” with them for the next several plays against the Giants.
“When we let a play travel with us four or five plays later, all of a sudden it compounds, then dominos,” Williams said. “You’ve got to be able to stop the avalanche. You’ve got to be able to stop the mistake that’s going on and do it the right way.”
If the Rams’ defense doesn’t do it the right way Sunday, things could get extremely ugly. Last week, Seattle’s ninth-ranked offense piled up an astounding 596 yards against the rugged Arizona defense — at University of Phoenix Stadium, no less.
The Seahawks had running plays of 79 and 55 yards in that contest, and passing plays of 80 and 49 yards.
“I mean, 596 yards against the Arizona defense, at Arizona, says a lot for an offense,” Fisher said. “(Plus the Seahawks) have the best defense in the National Football League.”
Yes they do.
During their current five-game winning streak, they’ve allowed only 33 total points against some pretty good teams. (Arizona twice, San Francisco twice and Philadelphia.)
The Seahawks’ defensive scheme isn’t all that complicated schematically and doesn’t change much from week to week.
So much so that Rams offensive coordinator Brian Schottenheimer joked, “They’ve probably been home for Christmas all week. They don’t do too much. They do what they do, and they do it well.”
Better, in fact, than anyone in the NFL.
