What are they going to do about this O Line?

[fearsomefour]

Despite another year of talk about being a ground control team that can shorten the game and dominate with defense the offense is going to pass a lot early out of necessity I think.
Yet again.
The idea of bringing in so many young guys and redirect the O through them was probably a bit delusional. The biggest red flag to me is the switching Brown to the left side. There appears to be a general plan but not much else. Why the F they are switching guys around two weeks before the season starts is beyond me. That is basically an admission that they are failing at their grand scheme. The general consensus was that Saffold was better at RG than LG....so why keep him at LG just to move him back? It seems they don't really have a firm grasp on what they have in terms of talent on the O line. Brown is better than expected? The Centers are worse? Who knows?
Maybe Saffold will come back and do well. Maybe it will all come together quickly and Rams can put together a game with more rushing yards than penalty yards. I am not hopeful. Not trying to be negative but there are no signs that the team can run the ball.
Robinson is solid but in year 2 is still learning. Saffold is good when he is available. Barnes has to be the starter at C from what I have seen. The other two get pushed back too often. Brown appears good. Havenstein is a real worry with speed rushers at RT. Time will tell. Playing Seattle and Washington, two teams that should have some good 3/4 speed rushers will be a great early test for him. If he does well here the worries will be put to bed.
On the flip side the team has the D and enough play makers on O to make a couple of big plays and win some games....against anyone really if the D plays well. When Gurley is fully involved maybe he will make the O line better than it is now. Turning a 2 yard run into a 4 yard run and a 4 yard run into an 8 yard run can change how an O works. Great running backs do this all the time. Perhaps the Rams O line just needs time to settle in....development of individual skills and chemistry. Maybe the new direction will blow up. Its up in the air to me at this point.

 

[snackdaddy]

I ain't worried about the line. I tapered my enthusiasm for 2015 long before camp started. The off season just felt like they were conceding 2015 for a better future starting 2016 and beyond. The only disappointment is teams do that with first or second year coaches. Not 4th year coaches.

 

[Memphis Ram]

It's way to early to panic. Guys are bitching because we are 0-3, really? This team looked progressively better yesterday than the two games before and there's still a lot of 'the sky is falling' crap.

Who is bitching about the record?

 

[PhillyRam]

At least this OL has upside, its not like we are hoping for beaten down vets like Joseph or Wells to recapture their lost youth. These guys have a good chance to be good or possibly great. The D, good coaching and special teams have to steal some games early.

 

[fearsomefour]

Look I'm not being totally negative. Fisher and Snead have built a super talented roster. Probably the best roster we have had since 2004. They are human and nobody is batting 1.000 when it comes to building a team and drafting. I think their biggest mistake is not having an identity on offense and building accordingly. Our inexperienced line has talent, it's just going to take us time to develop it. It's super hard for rookies to step in day one and compete at a high enough level and win games. We will be a better team in the long run for the 2015 offensive line draft, but we will struggle early due to inexperience along the line.

I think they were trying to build an identity around Bradford and his strengths. The roster on that side of the ball was seriously devoid of talent. The drafting (and signing) of talent at WR, TE etc. was an effort to give the Rams an explosive O. They talked running game but in reality they wanted to pass and attack with the passing game. Didn't work out. Ok. Time to reset. The O is certainly better than it was when they came on board in terms of talent. Being able to say we are 3 or 4 deep at WR, TE and RB is a major step. The O line is going to be a work in progress. It could very easily be ugly early and improve as the season moves on.
Things don't always work out. A line of Long/Robinson/Wells/Saffold/Barksdale should have been a dominant group last year. It didn't go as planned. The plan is in place....from what we are told....but growing pains are part of the process.

 

[fearsomefour]

Guys wtf? Yes we would all like for our players to look like all pros in the pre season but that isn't going to happen for various reasons. I know you want to rant, rave, and brag about G-Rob or whoever is killing it or have the national media write articles to put your mind at ease we are doing good.

It's way to early to panic. Guys are bitching because we are 0-3, really? This team looked progressively better yesterday than the two games before and there's still a lot of 'the sky is falling' crap.

Understood.
Preseason or not when the starting line of a team that professes to be a run first team has more yards in penalties than rushing....there are concerns.
We will see.

 

[fearsomefour]

I ain't worried about the line. I tapered my enthusiasm for 2015 long before camp started. The off season just felt like they were conceding 2015 for a better future starting 2016 and beyond. The only disappointment is teams do that with first or second year coaches. Not 4th year coaches.

Which is why I have been saying there is no hot seat for Fisher. The good part is the talent in the other areas is there....if we can keep it together through FA....the Oline should be able to come together relatively quickly compared to the other units......IF that talent is really there.

 

[Fatbot]

The biggest failure of the coaching staff IMO, was that year of the Spread Offense for 4 games...

Despite another year of talk about being a ground control team that can shorten the game and dominate with defense the offense is going to pass a lot early out of necessity I think

This is definitely my biggest worry. The "First Four Games Re-do" season wasn't a spread attempt -- it was a pure west coast offense. Schotty felt he could go back to the roots of WCO of substituting a short pass for a running game (the classic "long handoff" theory). That crap doesn't work in the NFL any more, it has to be a hugely modified WCO that bears little resemblance to the original thing (see GB's so-called WCO, it's aggressive, attacking, and has a running game). There's been a lot of WCO language surrounding Cignetti so I am concerned, but still hoping he's more McCarthy than Martyball.

 

[V3]

Guys wtf? Yes we would all like for our players to look like all pros in the pre season but that isn't going to happen for various reasons. I know you want to rant, rave, and brag about G-Rob or whoever is killing it or have the national media write articles to put your mind at ease we are doing good.

It's way to early to panic. Guys are bitching because we are 0-3, really? This team looked progressively better yesterday than the two games before and there's still a lot of 'the sky is falling' crap.

Who said they were upset that we're 0-3 in the preseason?

 

[SierraRam]

blah blah boo fuckety hoo.

It is a nice Sunday to be outside. Soon we'll be watching (and critiquing) the real thing

 

[LACHAMP46]

They should have staked out what they wanted the offense to look like early and built it accordingly.

Just think they skipped some minor(major?) details...Like the type of lineman needed in todays NFL...Perhaps due to the draft, you may want a certain TYPE of player, but what if he's not there?

Don't feel like getting out of bed just to hang my head. Last night got me excited for some real Rams football (win or lose), but instead I get to read about how the O-line sucks, Fisher freaked up the rebuild, we can't stop committing penalties, pre-season matters for suck-ass teams, we overreached for Tavon, and blah blah boo fuckety hoo. It's a beautiful morning, so I'm gonna go enjoy it.

Fixed it for ya -X-, blue'd it up.....know you're just BS'ing everybody!

Why the F they are switching guys around two weeks before the season starts is beyond me. That is basically an admission that they are failing at their grand scheme. The general consensus was that Saffold was better at RG than LG....so why keep him at LG just to move him back? It seems they don't really have a firm grasp on what they have in terms of talent on the O line.

Biggest concern...It's like, they THINK no one recognizes this is, ummm, dangerous? Continuity...why move a rookie that's doing well so late b4 a game? This guy was a LT in college...Saffold played RG very well last year...something is up with Saff...or something is up with G-Rob...where they THINK an experienced OG could help him..I guess the great news is, now they DON'T think Saff is needed besided G-Rob...Except a bunch of guys say G-Rob played like shit...Oh well...Now Mason tweaked his hammy...Still confusing...I can't wait to watch this game.

 

[Yamahopper]

Rams are going to line up and play at least 16 games with this line. That's what going to happen.

 

[HometownBoy]

Probably let them play and gain experience since a vast majority of it was so young. Are we seriously losing our cool over growing pains in the preseason?

They've already been a hell of a lot more rock solid than anything we've had in a long, long while. I'd rather they have some bum play and get it out of the way than revolving doors like Wells, Long, giving up their man on almost every play.

 

[8to12]

If I remember correctly, the Snead/Fisher plan was to pick a unit and make that unit great. He picked the defense first...It isn't fair to compare a normal bad team that makes a big jump, like Cards did under Arians....We were historically bad...Expansion team Bad..JOHN FREAKIN MCKAY BUCCS, bad. R-E-L-A-X.relax

I disagree. You can't wait 4 years to start building your O-line through the draft. 3 or 4 tears building the defense? The Cardinals and Seahawks achieved much greater success in less time.

 

[FRO]

Probably let them play and gain experience since a vast majority of it was so young. Are we seriously losing our cool over growing pains in the preseason?

They've already been a hell of a lot more rock solid than anything we've had in a long, long while. I'd rather they have some bum play and get it out of the way than revolving doors like Wells, Long, giving up their man on almost every play.

I think people are coming to reality that there will be growing pains along the line. The hope is that the line doesn't cost us early on. Hopefully by mid season they will be rocking and rolling. It's very possible however that they may not be ready until 2016. With rookies and inexperienced players you just don't know. The talent is there. The upside is there. It takes live action and time.

 

[HometownBoy]

I disagree. You can't wait 4 years to start building your O-line through the draft. 3 or 4 tears building the defense? The Cardinals and Seahawks achieved much greater success in less time.

So? Everyone always looks at these outliers and is like WE JUST CAN'T WAIT, says who?

Also the Seahawks and Cardinals had better rosters than ours, their coaches inherited a lot more of the players that are still contributing to their team or players that could continue to contribute til their replacements came than ours.

Fisher inherited Quinn, Long and JL55 and Saffold. Only 4 positions on our team solidified and only one on offense and at the time of 2012 what... 6 years of abysmal play and bad drafting?

In comparison Caroll inherited Lynch and reduced and used a lot of players from a Seahawks team that I remind you was only 4 years removed from a run to the Superbowl with most of the main contributors still there, like Hasselbeck, Trufant, Locklear, Babineux and others.

Arians inherited Fitzgerald, Lyle Sendlein, Housler, Massie, Peterson, Campbell, Rashad Johnson, Floyd, Dan Williams etc etc

It's a hell of a lot easier to maintain a team you don't have to redo from top to bottom. Lot easier to get better in (insert number of years to impress me here) when half the starters on the team were already there before you were. Everyone acts like all the teams were the exact same type of bad because they both had bad records. Our team was completely strapped for talent and had nothing from top to bottom, these teams already had pretty much most of their big contributors already on their team and needed just a few more pieces to get up there.

It's time to stop comparing the situations because they're nothing alike.

 

[-X-]

So now that we know everything is all messed up, and Fisher/Snead are the ones who messed it up, is it time to see how it plays out now? I mean, there are tons of ways to mask inefficiencies on the line because I've seen teams do it all the time. Jeez, Minnesota figured out how to do it to us the very first game last year. Play a little shotgun, use some motion, get rid of the ball after a 3-step drop, pound the ball and get defenses focused on someone other than the QB, etc. I realize our line is now the equivalent of 5 subway turnstiles, but there are ways to make this work.

The veteran linemen method didn't work, so we're doing something else now.
Lap up your spilled milk and get on with your lives already. It's all gon b k.

 

[V3]

So? Everyone always looks at these outliers and is like WE JUST CAN'T WAIT, says who?

Also the Seahawks and Cardinals had better rosters than ours, their coaches inherited a lot more of the players that are still contributing to their team or players that could continue to contribute til their replacements came than ours.

Fisher inherited Quinn, Long and JL55 and Saffold. Only 4 positions on our team solidified and only one on offense and at the time of 2012 what... 6 years of abysmal play and bad drafting?

In comparison Caroll inherited Lynch and reduced and used a lot of players from a Seahawks team that I remind you was only 4 years removed from a run to the Superbowl with most of the main contributors still there, like Hasselbeck, Trufant, Locklear, Babineux and others.

Arians inherited Fitzgerald, Lyle Sendlein, Housler, Massie, Peterson, Campbell, Rashad Johnson, Floyd, Dan Williams etc etc

It's a hell of a lot easier to maintain a team you don't have to redo from top to bottom. Lot easier to get better in (insert number of years to impress me here) when half the starters on the team were already there before you were. Everyone acts like all the teams were the exact same type of bad because they both had bad records. Our team was completely strapped for talent and had nothing from top to bottom, these teams already had pretty much most of their big contributors already on their team and needed just a few more pieces to get up there.

It's time to stop comparing the situations because they're nothing alike.

That's just not true. The Seahawks had just as much roster turnover as the Rams did in the same amount of time. We even had our QB(you left him off your list). Seattle had to draft theirs. Also, Carroll did NOT inherit Lynch. He traded a 4th round pick for him. Wanna know how many inherited players were still on Seattle's team by year four of their rebuild when they won the SB? Three: Red Bryant, Max Unger, and John Ryan. That's actually more turnover than the Rams.

I'm getting tired of hearing we need to cut Fisher some slack because the team was so bad. Other teams have done much more with less. Other teams weren't consistently picking at the top of the draft with multiple first and second round picks like the Rams did.

 

[-X-]

I'm getting tired of hearing we need to cut Fisher some slack because the team was so bad.

What's the alternative?
Can you fire him?
Can I?

There's always the petition to get him fired method, but I've found nobody really cares about those.

 

[RamzFanz]

At least this OL has upside, its not like we are hoping for beaten down vets like Joseph or Wells to recapture their lost youth. These guys have a good chance to be good or possibly great. The D, good coaching and special teams have to steal some games early.

This ^^^^

I'll take upside over Wells every day and twice on Sunday. There were mistakes but their was also some good o line play. Jones held up pretty good and so did Rhaney at guard. Those are good things! We still have Saffold coming back! Brown put in another solid performance!

...and Holy shit, Donald was blowing the place up!