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Trent Dilfer Believes in the Rams
- Thread starter Florida_Ram
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- Erik
Don't laugh now, but after Goff's first season, when everybody was calling him a bust, Dilfer was raving about the McVay hire and what it would mean for Goff's development (needless to say, he was extremely bullish on the topic).
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It's funny that I have been calling for a Super Bowl win since pre-season. To hear Trent Dilfer say it so confidently; "After they win the Super Bowl, they will look back at this win vs the Seahawks..."
Well...crap.
Well...crap.
Elmgrovegnome
Legend
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The best way to embrace a new/old market is with several winning seasons, including championships. Dilfer knows how it's going down is all.
Otherwise I would say Dilfer's support is the kiss of death.
Otherwise I would say Dilfer's support is the kiss of death.
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No doubt. I don't like Dilfer, never have. And I don't like him picking our Rams either.
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YxrRm_VI5Bs
Everytime I see/hear Dilfer, I think of this quote. Makes me laugh everytime.
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https://www.si.com/nfl/2018/11/15/los-angeles-rams-fires-thousand-oaks-chiefs-monday-night-football
How the Rams Have Dealt with Tragedy and Displacement
By ALBERT BREER
Rob Havenstein described what he saw a week ago Thursday at the Rams’ afternoon practice, as a plume of smoke came up over the mountains to the south of the facility: “It seemed like a volcano erupted.” Then another went up north of the building, and the 26-year-old offensive tackle realized that the first blast of smoke was in the direction of his house.
The defense was on the field, which gave operations staffer Billy Nayes—who put two and two together—the chance to go over to Havenstein, hanging on the sideline, and ask if he wanted him to send his wife a text. Havenstein said yes, and, soon enough, Meghan Havenstein sent word back that they didn’t have much choice but to make the drive over to the team’s Thousand Oaks facility.
Their neighborhood, in nearby Newbury Park, was under mandatory evacuation.
The timing could have been better for the family. Their daughter, Bria, is just six weeks old. And not only did Meghan have to round up the family’s cat and two dogs (a golden doodle and a shepherd/husky mix) along with the baby, but her brother and his wife were in from Denver and staying at the house for the week. And so when practice ended, the Havensteins gathered and game-planned, with the Rams’ help.
Their next stop was a hotel in Agoura Hills. They were there for less than two hours.
“We were smelling smoke, and [Bria] was screaming her head off, and we were like, that’s probably not what’s best for her,” Havenstein said on Wednesday. “So we figured we’d get a little further away, and so I texted some of the other guys in the organization and they gave me a heads up on where guys were going.”
After looking around, they found out that The W in Beverly Hills allowed dogs, so The W in Beverly Hills is where the family stayed. Their story, of course, wasn’t a unique one last week. Thousands of Southern Californians, and a few dozen Rams people, found themselves displaced as wildfires raged through the region. So the Havensteins, like a lot of others, did what they had to do.
But this certainly hasn’t been a normal week for the guys on that team, and the wildfires are just a part of a story that no one on the roster could possibly have prepared for. “I grew up on the East Coast,” Havenstein said. “I was used to hurricanes, not fires. People tell you hurricanes are coming. No one tells you a fire’s coming.”
Week 11 was supposed to be all about a Chiefs-Rams showdown that most of us have had circled for two months. And for the Rams, of course, it still is. It’s just that circumstances surrounding the season’s most anticipated game have changed. A lot.
Colorado Springs with the Rams.
The team, of course, traveled there to get acclimated to altitude ahead of the big one against the Chiefs in Mexico City. Except the game isn’t being played in Mexico City anymore. It’s being played in Los Angeles, just a short drive from where those fires displaced Havenstein and a bunch of other Rams staffers. Suffice it to say, it’s been a different week:
• On Wednesday, Nov. 7, about five miles from the Rams facility in another part of Thousand Oaks, 12 people were gunned down in a mass shooting at the Borderline Bar and Grill.
• On Thursday, the wildfires broke out north of Los Angeles, in close proximity to the facility.
• On Friday morning Rams coach Sean McVay canceled all teams activities in an effort to prioritize players, coaches and staff looking out for their families.
• On Saturday morning the team convened at its hotel near the Coliseum for its morning meetings, which usually would take place at the facility.
• On Sunday the Rams held off the Seahawks 36-31, with new acquisition Dante Fowler registering the game-clinching strip sack.
• On Monday, the team flew to Colorado Springs for its week at the Air Force Academy.
• On Tuesday, players were riding the bus back from a conditioning session to the hotel when word filtered through that the game had been moved from Mexico City to Los Angeles, because of the field conditions at Estadio Azteca.
“It’s been crazy,” Havenstein said. “Obviously with the tragedy that happened in Thousand Oaks, with that being our community that we work in, and a lot of guys live in, that hit very close to home. And just dealing with that, and seeing how we can help out as an organization and as individuals, and then you have the fires breaking out, obviously there was a lot of devastation there, people losing homes. It’s just been absolutely nuts.”
And it has hit everyone in different ways.
Havenstein’s situation stabilized pretty quickly. On Friday the brother-in-law and his wife headed home to Denver as scheduled. On Saturday after two nights in Beverly Hills, Havenstein put Meghan, Bria and the pets on a plane headed back to Wisconsin (they have a home in Oconomowoc, between Milwaukee and Madison). By Sunday, the evacuation order where they live was lifted, so Havenstein went back and spent the night by himself at the house.
Meanwhile, many of second-year safety John Johnson’s possessions are still loaded up in a car back in the parking lot at the facility. Johnson wasn’t evacuated from his house, but he wasn’t taking any chances either.
Like everyone else, he saw the smoke during practice. And his residence is a short walk from Hidden Hills, a gated community that was evacuated. So instead of taking any risk, he packed up to head to his buddy’s house in Van Nuys.
“It was more of a mental thing—you have all your belongings in your home,” Johnson said. “You want to make sure you’re physically safe before anything. Honestly, I just tried to put as much stuff in my car as I can, all the valuable stuff. Anything I can live with being gone, I left at my house. It was just making sure everything I really, really needed I had on me, because you just don’t know.
“They try to forecast, but you really don’t know.”
Johnson set his alarm early for Friday morning, being a little further from the facility, and instead was awoken by a mass text telling him everything was canceled. So he stayed at his friend’s house again on Friday night, before heading for L.A. early Saturday morning.
The upshot for Johnson is that, as a 22-year-old single guy, he didn’t have anyone to be responsible for but himself.
“I literally just have to stay away from the fires,” Johnson said. “That’s all I have to do.”
The one loose end is, yes, Johnson’s car, sitting at the Rams facility, packed with football memorabilia, clothes and jewelry. As Johnson describes it, “If you opened my trunk, you’d be like, ‘Yo, are you a hoarder or what?’ It’s kind of funny.”
So for now, most of the Rams’ issues are like this one: workable. Some, like Havenstein’s, have been more challenging for a day or two. And obviously, the players are all aware that it’s not that way for everyone—certainly not for the families of bar shooting victims, and not for some folks concerned for their homes in the area.
“Ultimately we work there everyday,” Johnson said. “Anything we can do, we try and do it. We’re definitely keeping an eye on everything since it’s so close to us.”
For the rest of the week, though, they’ll be working in Colorado, and toward the clearing the biggest hurdle left in their fight to keep up with the Saints in the race for home field in the NFC playoffs. As both Johnson and Havenstein see it, that extra time together, in a training camp-like setting, can’t be anything but good for a team that’s already very tight.
And when they do get to Monday, there’ll be the chance to put on a show for a city that’s still hurting, and for an organization that’s helping at every turn.
“It’s very easy to lock back in, knowing the organization definitely has your back, and that the family atmosphere that we preach about is 100 percent true,” Havenstein said. “So we were able to take care of our families, make sure everyone’s safe, and then when it’s time to go back to work, it’s time to go back to work. I don’t think we flinched, or wavered at all.”
Given the showdown ahead, this week, they know they’ll need all the work they can get. And given what they’ve been through, that work is probably a welcome reprieve from what they’ve been doing.
How the Rams Have Dealt with Tragedy and Displacement
By ALBERT BREER
Rob Havenstein described what he saw a week ago Thursday at the Rams’ afternoon practice, as a plume of smoke came up over the mountains to the south of the facility: “It seemed like a volcano erupted.” Then another went up north of the building, and the 26-year-old offensive tackle realized that the first blast of smoke was in the direction of his house.
The defense was on the field, which gave operations staffer Billy Nayes—who put two and two together—the chance to go over to Havenstein, hanging on the sideline, and ask if he wanted him to send his wife a text. Havenstein said yes, and, soon enough, Meghan Havenstein sent word back that they didn’t have much choice but to make the drive over to the team’s Thousand Oaks facility.
Their neighborhood, in nearby Newbury Park, was under mandatory evacuation.
The timing could have been better for the family. Their daughter, Bria, is just six weeks old. And not only did Meghan have to round up the family’s cat and two dogs (a golden doodle and a shepherd/husky mix) along with the baby, but her brother and his wife were in from Denver and staying at the house for the week. And so when practice ended, the Havensteins gathered and game-planned, with the Rams’ help.
Their next stop was a hotel in Agoura Hills. They were there for less than two hours.
“We were smelling smoke, and [Bria] was screaming her head off, and we were like, that’s probably not what’s best for her,” Havenstein said on Wednesday. “So we figured we’d get a little further away, and so I texted some of the other guys in the organization and they gave me a heads up on where guys were going.”
After looking around, they found out that The W in Beverly Hills allowed dogs, so The W in Beverly Hills is where the family stayed. Their story, of course, wasn’t a unique one last week. Thousands of Southern Californians, and a few dozen Rams people, found themselves displaced as wildfires raged through the region. So the Havensteins, like a lot of others, did what they had to do.
But this certainly hasn’t been a normal week for the guys on that team, and the wildfires are just a part of a story that no one on the roster could possibly have prepared for. “I grew up on the East Coast,” Havenstein said. “I was used to hurricanes, not fires. People tell you hurricanes are coming. No one tells you a fire’s coming.”
Week 11 was supposed to be all about a Chiefs-Rams showdown that most of us have had circled for two months. And for the Rams, of course, it still is. It’s just that circumstances surrounding the season’s most anticipated game have changed. A lot.
Colorado Springs with the Rams.
The team, of course, traveled there to get acclimated to altitude ahead of the big one against the Chiefs in Mexico City. Except the game isn’t being played in Mexico City anymore. It’s being played in Los Angeles, just a short drive from where those fires displaced Havenstein and a bunch of other Rams staffers. Suffice it to say, it’s been a different week:
• On Wednesday, Nov. 7, about five miles from the Rams facility in another part of Thousand Oaks, 12 people were gunned down in a mass shooting at the Borderline Bar and Grill.
• On Thursday, the wildfires broke out north of Los Angeles, in close proximity to the facility.
• On Friday morning Rams coach Sean McVay canceled all teams activities in an effort to prioritize players, coaches and staff looking out for their families.
• On Saturday morning the team convened at its hotel near the Coliseum for its morning meetings, which usually would take place at the facility.
• On Sunday the Rams held off the Seahawks 36-31, with new acquisition Dante Fowler registering the game-clinching strip sack.
• On Monday, the team flew to Colorado Springs for its week at the Air Force Academy.
• On Tuesday, players were riding the bus back from a conditioning session to the hotel when word filtered through that the game had been moved from Mexico City to Los Angeles, because of the field conditions at Estadio Azteca.
“It’s been crazy,” Havenstein said. “Obviously with the tragedy that happened in Thousand Oaks, with that being our community that we work in, and a lot of guys live in, that hit very close to home. And just dealing with that, and seeing how we can help out as an organization and as individuals, and then you have the fires breaking out, obviously there was a lot of devastation there, people losing homes. It’s just been absolutely nuts.”
And it has hit everyone in different ways.
Havenstein’s situation stabilized pretty quickly. On Friday the brother-in-law and his wife headed home to Denver as scheduled. On Saturday after two nights in Beverly Hills, Havenstein put Meghan, Bria and the pets on a plane headed back to Wisconsin (they have a home in Oconomowoc, between Milwaukee and Madison). By Sunday, the evacuation order where they live was lifted, so Havenstein went back and spent the night by himself at the house.
Meanwhile, many of second-year safety John Johnson’s possessions are still loaded up in a car back in the parking lot at the facility. Johnson wasn’t evacuated from his house, but he wasn’t taking any chances either.
Like everyone else, he saw the smoke during practice. And his residence is a short walk from Hidden Hills, a gated community that was evacuated. So instead of taking any risk, he packed up to head to his buddy’s house in Van Nuys.
“It was more of a mental thing—you have all your belongings in your home,” Johnson said. “You want to make sure you’re physically safe before anything. Honestly, I just tried to put as much stuff in my car as I can, all the valuable stuff. Anything I can live with being gone, I left at my house. It was just making sure everything I really, really needed I had on me, because you just don’t know.
“They try to forecast, but you really don’t know.”
Johnson set his alarm early for Friday morning, being a little further from the facility, and instead was awoken by a mass text telling him everything was canceled. So he stayed at his friend’s house again on Friday night, before heading for L.A. early Saturday morning.
The upshot for Johnson is that, as a 22-year-old single guy, he didn’t have anyone to be responsible for but himself.
“I literally just have to stay away from the fires,” Johnson said. “That’s all I have to do.”
The one loose end is, yes, Johnson’s car, sitting at the Rams facility, packed with football memorabilia, clothes and jewelry. As Johnson describes it, “If you opened my trunk, you’d be like, ‘Yo, are you a hoarder or what?’ It’s kind of funny.”
So for now, most of the Rams’ issues are like this one: workable. Some, like Havenstein’s, have been more challenging for a day or two. And obviously, the players are all aware that it’s not that way for everyone—certainly not for the families of bar shooting victims, and not for some folks concerned for their homes in the area.
“Ultimately we work there everyday,” Johnson said. “Anything we can do, we try and do it. We’re definitely keeping an eye on everything since it’s so close to us.”
For the rest of the week, though, they’ll be working in Colorado, and toward the clearing the biggest hurdle left in their fight to keep up with the Saints in the race for home field in the NFC playoffs. As both Johnson and Havenstein see it, that extra time together, in a training camp-like setting, can’t be anything but good for a team that’s already very tight.
And when they do get to Monday, there’ll be the chance to put on a show for a city that’s still hurting, and for an organization that’s helping at every turn.
“It’s very easy to lock back in, knowing the organization definitely has your back, and that the family atmosphere that we preach about is 100 percent true,” Havenstein said. “So we were able to take care of our families, make sure everyone’s safe, and then when it’s time to go back to work, it’s time to go back to work. I don’t think we flinched, or wavered at all.”
Given the showdown ahead, this week, they know they’ll need all the work they can get. And given what they’ve been through, that work is probably a welcome reprieve from what they’ve been doing.
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- Peter
Starts at 44:55. "There needs to be an evolution to the Rams offense."
https://www.theringer.com/2018/12/19/18148142/trent-dilfer-on-tom-brady-panic-saints-rams
https://www.theringer.com/2018/12/19/18148142/trent-dilfer-on-tom-brady-panic-saints-rams
I like Rams
Hall of Fame
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- Tom
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- FaulkSF
Evolution! Coach just needs to take what the defense gives. Loaded box = quick slant. Deep shell = Attack the middle of the field with runs and short passes. Don't over complicate the offense.
Rainram
Starter
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Sheesh.
The Bears actually stifled us with a good plan and good individual performances across the board. They have a very good Defense.
We ‘evolved’ just fine against the Eagles. We made a shit ton of mistakes and didn’t execute things well, but the offensive scheme and game plan were fine.
The Bears actually stifled us with a good plan and good individual performances across the board. They have a very good Defense.
We ‘evolved’ just fine against the Eagles. We made a shit ton of mistakes and didn’t execute things well, but the offensive scheme and game plan were fine.