Bernie: Jeff Fisher’s Rams are Heading the Wrong Way

[Robocop]

can't disagree with much of that. but I'm not hating on cignetti yet. how can you blame him when he has absolutely no chance to run the ball. they drafted a pathetic line and they shouldn't have been put in that position in the first place. and Fisher doesn't seem to give a shit at all. I'm about done with this Jeff Fisher show

 

[GabesHorn]

Worst part of it all is that Enos does not care one little bit. Why is the Fish so great to have around even if a team was to move from A to B.? I think (IMPO) the NFL owners won't give stan the votes he WILL need. Get ready to play outside next to the Arch at least till I'm dead. Maybe we can get a QB by then. I'm not sold on ANY QB's coming in the Draft next season. Even if we were given the first pick. I'm seeing tons of OT's mostly in the draft and I like Reggie Ragland at 6'2" and 254lbs to play MLB for us as Reggie can play pass defense also. Can a couple years of QB training turn Mannion's catapillar into an NFL butterfly QB? I want to pay for a vet WR over one of Ole Miss' young WR's. I predicted a 5-11 season as I saw during pre-season just how far our OL is from being able to open holes or pass block well enough for an avg. QB. I'm not as big a fan as most are with Coach Paul B. I see tiny steps made each of our first 3 games but its gonna take HEALTH along with a 16 game season before this crew is ready to try to make the Playoffs. Wish Harkey had speed as his hands are much better then Kendricks and Cook , which neither can block. Lots of giant TE's can't block tho.

Why zone block with big Mauling (supposedly) run blockers? We never blocked the backside and its sad we left the door open for easy tackles. (backside) why no adjustments Coach Paul? We did seem to take another (tiny) step forward in pass blocking over the skins game. We MUST keep (Quinn,Brockers & Donald) together no matter what it costs. Lots of CB's in the draft and hopefully E.J. Gaines can come back and be able to improve from where he was. Free Safety must finally be addressed. Most importantly a HC that knows offense and all about how to throw the ball in the NFL. Throwing the football can't be like you just discovered Fire every play. Living like this is INSANE in its 4th season. 50 actual years of RAMS everything. Not good for your health if you don't have a real life outside fandom. WE must increase our margin of error and be able to still win if a player drops a sure TD pass and a game changing INT. is dropped or a stupid critical penalty is called stopping a drive. The ability to recover has to be built in on the whole team. Too much head hanging and Leadership needed badly. I thought the get rid of Martz stuff got bad with the depth of stuff done before he was replaced .

I see things twice that bad or worse before we get rid of the stinking Fish. Shame I like Snead and Demoff in the FO. It may take longer than I'm even thinking before we can get a new Head coach. All blame on an absent owner with no heart for football. Its just one spoke of the mans sports Franchise's. So very sorry so negative of a rant guys. Thought I'd just tag mine on to Bernie's who held nothing back either. Love being here and not just being negative but try to be positive and help lift each other up as we do have some very destructive parts of this team and I see no team wanting to line up against the RAMS on any given day as you may be out for a long while like Big Ben is today. Don't think the refs call EVEN HALF of the holding calls of our DL every game. Its ridiculous. I'm gonna try hard to win the Pickem this year if I can get by CGI.

 

[dhaab]

Bernie-The-Hut loves it when the Rams don't win.

This is nonsense. You honestly believe a sports writer would rather cover a bumbling mess of a team like the Rams are now than a winning team that is fun to watch? Stupid.

 

[CodeMonkey]

The thing I keep going back to is the Seattle game. This team showed us that it has the capability to beat any team in this league. The massive underwhelming efforts of the last couple games is what is most disturbing.

I know I'm going to take arrows for this but there is a nagging thought poisoning my mind and I have to spit it out. I expect others may have had a similar idea cross their mind...

[Tin Foil Hat]
Fisher has been acting quite odd and detached...eg. the Quick situation, etc. It seems we often lately have a hard time figuring out what the heck he is thinking. I cant help but get the idea that this year is a set up for next season. Fisher is Stan's guy and Kroenke WANTS this team to lose. It would be much more difficult to move a contender. A packed house to cap a playoff season at home against Tampa is the last thing he wants. After watching that Seattle performance Fisher was instructed to cool it down a little. Keep the locals disenfranchised. He'd prefer to have a marquee top ten pick to lead the parade into LA than to have to deal with the challenge of a renewed fan base at home. Perhaps this is all just incompetence but I can't help but think there's something more to the story.
[/Tin Foil Hat]

I am probably completely full of crap and deserve every shot I'm about to get but I had to get that off my chest.

 

[beej]

You want to prevent Rams owner Stan Kroenke from running to Los Angeles? Easy: just put him behind this massive but passive Rams’ offensive line stocked with carefully scouted, hand-picked draft choices. And The Kronk won’t be able to go anywhere.

My favorite quote from the article

 

[dhaab]

The thing I keep going back to is the Seattle game. This team showed us that it has the capability to beat any team in this league. The massive underwhelming efforts of the last couple games is what is most disturbing.

I know I'm going to take arrows for this but there is a nagging thought poisoning my mind and I have to spit it out. I expect others may have had a similar idea cross their mind...

[Tin Foil Hat]
Fisher has been acting quite odd and detached...eg. the Quick situation, etc. It seems we often lately have a hard time figuring out what the heck he is thinking. I cant help but get the idea that this year is a set up for next season. Fisher is Stan's guy and Kroenke WANTS this team to lose. It would be much more difficult to move a contender. A packed house to cap a playoff season at home against Tampa is the last thing he wants. After watching that Seattle performance Fisher was instructed to cool it down a little. Keep the locals disenfranchised. He'd prefer to have a marquee top ten pick to lead the parade into LA than to have to deal with the challenge of a renewed fan base at home. Perhaps this is all just incompetence but I can't help but think there's something more to the story.
[/Tin Foil Hat]

I am probably completely full of crap and deserve every shot I'm about to get but I had to get that off my chest.

I don't think your thoughts are as crazy as you think. If the Rams were successful this year and the fans in St. Louis started filling the stadium, it would be EXTREMELY tough for the league to move them, and it would be much more of a PR nightmare. That's a big reason why I think they just went young on the O-line and traded for a different starting QB this year, so they could have more excuses for the poor play on offense.

 

[nanotech]

If you want to be thoroughly entertained, edified, and/or educated, follow me blindly.[/QUOTE]

 

[bwdenverram]

I'm not a Bernie fan but it's hard to argue with him on this one. After 4 years we're talking about the same "corrections" week in and week out.

I'm really happy players like playing for him, but the lack of execution, drive killing penalties and excuses are getting old.

When I look at the Arizona Cardinals I do not see a team that has more raw talent than our Rams. But I see a team that seems to be coached better and just flat out executes better.

Yet they are 3-0 and have scored a ton of points and not given up much.

It's time to stop making excuses and step up and play like this team should be playing.

There is far to much talent in this entire organization to continue with this ineptitude.

 

[LACHAMP46]

In the two losses they converted only 4 of 22 third-down plays … and we can make that 4 of 25 if we include three failures on fourth down. The Rams have only 23 first downs in their last two games — the lowest two-game total during Fishers’s four seasons here.

During the pre-season, there was a 4th down situation that could have been attempted but instead they ran out the FG team...I thought, they should be practicing converting 3rd downs now, not FG's from 35 yards....It leads to another point....

. I cant help but get the idea that this year is a set up for next season. Fisher is Stan's guy and Kroenke WANTS this team to lose. It would be much more difficult to move a contender.

This..is this some fucking tank season...Intentionally?!?!

I'm not sold on ANY QB's coming in the Draft next season.

Goff looks like the real deal...Cook can play...Hell, I'd see if we could fix Hackensack...I'm cooling on Cordale Jones, but it's still early. I'd take Hogan....and his coach in a second. Always talent coming out....

 

[Selassie I]

This is nonsense. You honestly believe a sports writer would rather cover a bumbling mess of a team like the Rams are now than a winning team that is fun to watch? Stupid.

You Sir, must not be very familiar with Bernie's style.

2nd... Leave your PD style posting at the door when spending time here.

 

[BadCompany]

The thing I keep going back to is the Seattle game. This team showed us that it has the capability to beat any team in this league. The massive underwhelming efforts of the last couple games is what is most disturbing.

I know I'm going to take arrows for this but there is a nagging thought poisoning my mind and I have to spit it out. I expect others may have had a similar idea cross their mind...

[Tin Foil Hat]
Fisher has been acting quite odd and detached...eg. the Quick situation, etc. It seems we often lately have a hard time figuring out what the heck he is thinking. I cant help but get the idea that this year is a set up for next season. Fisher is Stan's guy and Kroenke WANTS this team to lose. It would be much more difficult to move a contender. A packed house to cap a playoff season at home against Tampa is the last thing he wants. After watching that Seattle performance Fisher was instructed to cool it down a little. Keep the locals disenfranchised. He'd prefer to have a marquee top ten pick to lead the parade into LA than to have to deal with the challenge of a renewed fan base at home. Perhaps this is all just incompetence but I can't help but think there's something more to the story.
[/Tin Foil Hat]

I am probably completely full of crap and deserve every shot I'm about to get but I had to get that off my chest.

I don't know if this is what is going on here... but it wouldn't surprise me.

I'm a Montreal Expos fan. Life-long, and the crap we went through is nothing compared to what Rams fans are currently going through. Which isn't too diminish Ram-fan pain, just a fact. We had to put up with the same sort of awful management for decades, only we got to see star player after star player traded away, season after season. Imagine if this summer the team had of traded not just Bradford, but Quinn, Donald and Mason? For low picks? That’s what my Expos went through year after year, until the fans simply stopped going…

… except one year. 2003. From Wikipedia:

The Expos again found themselves in contention for the playoffs: on August 29, the team was tied with four other clubs for the National League Wild Card spot.However, when MLB's rosters expanded on September 1, Selig announced that the Expos would not be recalling any additional players from the minor leagues; the other owners had decided against spending a few thousand extra dollars, a small fraction of the team's $35 million payroll, to bolster the team.Several players, including relief pitcher Eric Knott, were sent back to the minors due to budget constraints. The team faded again and missed the post-season. Later, Minaya said that the denial of the September call-ups was "a message to the players" and "a momentum killer."

….On September 29, 2004, Major League Baseball announced that the franchise would relocate to Washington for the 2005 season.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montreal_Expos

Attendance on August 25th of that year, with the Expos fighting for a wildcard spot, was over 30,000. Six days later they went on a 12 game road trip, during which they were quite literally short-handed compared to their adversaries, and they fell out of a playoff spot. A year later the official announcement was made that the team was moving.

Get a few drinks into me and I'll really pull out my tin foil hat and tell you all about Jamie Carroll playing third base.

But I digress.

The point is I've personally seen a big league team purposely throw games in order to facilitate moving. So I can't say it would never happen here.

 

[HometownBoy]

Yeah, as much as I dislike Bernie's approach to the Rams there's really no arguing that the Rams have earned this reputation and nothing else. Our team is still the same clunky, inconsistent mess where even players who shouldn't be playing like it anymore continue to play like rookies and make basic mistakes at the most rudimentary facets of football.

And it's not unfair to point to the coach, in fact that should always be the first person you point to when your team is failing on even the basics. Until Fisher proves he can get both sides of the ball motivated and active consistently then he deserves to have his coaching questioned.

 

[fancents86]

I don't have anything to really disagree on except the cignetti comment. I don't think we've seen enough to determine much but I like how he has at least tried to utilize TA in many different routes.

He brings up good points. When Fisher first came into this organization he had a ton of crappy players, yet with that roster and a few young draft picks we went 7-8-1. Now, with a butt load of draft picks (many first rounders) and vet free agent picks, are we really any better? Absolutely not. Our D is better, but even then their not 2000 Ravens good where they can take us to a Super Bowl.

I understand we have been working with mostly back up qb's through out the Fisher tenure, but I'm looking at that as less of an excuse now because what I'm seeing out of our offense is just the same if not worse with our starter under center.

 

[dhaab]

You Sir, must not be very familiar with Bernie's style.

2nd... Leave your PD style posting at the door when spending time here.

I've read Bernie's stuff for 20+ years, so I'm extremely familiar with his style. And what the hell is PD style posting? Just because I don't despise Miklasz like some of you do, doesn't mean I think he's a great writer. It's just silly to think a guy who's lived and worked in St. Louis for 25 years, wants the Rams to lose.

 

[-X-]

I've read Bernie's stuff for 20+ years, so I'm extremely familiar with his style. And what the hell is PD style posting? Just because I don't despise Miklasz like some of you do, doesn't mean I think he's a great writer. It's just silly to think a guy who's lived and worked in St. Louis for 25 years, wants the Rams to lose.

I'm pretty sure he meant you calling this team a bumbling mess, and then finishing it up with calling his opinion stupid.

That's what the hell PD style posting is.

 

[Selassie I]

I've read Bernie's stuff for 20+ years, so I'm extremely familiar with his style. And what the hell is PD style posting? Just because I don't despise Miklasz like some of you do, doesn't mean I think he's a great writer. It's just silly to think a guy who's lived and worked in St. Louis for 25 years, wants the Rams to lose.

Looks like X already explained it perfectly.

Not like you needed a real explanation though.

 

[RAGRam]

The thing I keep going back to is the Seattle game. This team showed us that it has the capability to beat any team in this league. The massive underwhelming efforts of the last couple games is what is most disturbing.

I know I'm going to take arrows for this but there is a nagging thought poisoning my mind and I have to spit it out. I expect others may have had a similar idea cross their mind...

[Tin Foil Hat]
Fisher has been acting quite odd and detached...eg. the Quick situation, etc. It seems we often lately have a hard time figuring out what the heck he is thinking. I cant help but get the idea that this year is a set up for next season. Fisher is Stan's guy and Kroenke WANTS this team to lose. It would be much more difficult to move a contender. A packed house to cap a playoff season at home against Tampa is the last thing he wants. After watching that Seattle performance Fisher was instructed to cool it down a little. Keep the locals disenfranchised. He'd prefer to have a marquee top ten pick to lead the parade into LA than to have to deal with the challenge of a renewed fan base at home. Perhaps this is all just incompetence but I can't help but think there's something more to the story.
[/Tin Foil Hat]

I am probably completely full of crap and deserve every shot I'm about to get but I had to get that off my chest.

As much as I love a good conspiracy I think it's far simpler, Fisher just isn't a good coach.

 

[SierraRam]

I don’t have anything clever to say.

On this point (and unfortunately a few others) I agree with Bernie..

I cant help but get the idea that this year is a set up for next season.

Wow! That's a wild and disturbing thought. Somebody needs to tell Donald and Ogletree - They're going to steal a game or two by themselves

 

[Irish]

I get the feeling it makes his day.

I would direct the both of you to the glowing praise he so readily heaped on the team during the GSOT days and the like, but it is clear that the hive mind has more or less dug their heels in on their opinions of Bernie Miklasz.

All I can say is that it is really hard to argue with pretty much all of the points he made above, but if you take umbrage with his sarcasm, then you have a problem with his delivery vehicle, not his content.

Outside of the defense (which he heavily praises), the only thing worthy of any praise was the Edward Jones Dome Hook and Ladder #95.

 

[Mackeyser]

I respectfully disagree. This article came off like an ill-informed long time fan rant.

It lacked any context.

The defense suffered the beginning last year. Why? NEW SYSTEM.

The offense is suffering now. Why? NEW SYSTEM. Frank Cignetti isn't running Schotty's playbook. He didn't just take the job at Rams Park as OC and use the Rams OC playbook assigned to him. He has HIS playbook. Now, Fisher has things he wants his offense to do, but he hired Cignetti to do a job and we're already seeing Tavon Austin more involved in 3 games than we saw of him in all the games since he was drafted. We've seen more diverse playcalling and better utilization of personnel.

Moreover, Cignetti has rookies and GRob who, like Quick 2 years ago, isn't quite there yet. When he gets there, he has the potential to be spectacular, and he flashes brilliance, but he's just not there, yet.

He also is missing his bellcow back in Gurley who WILL make a substantial difference once he's fully integrated into this offense and he's missing his true #1 WR.

Oh, and not only do we have one of the toughest schedules in the NFL, but our first 5 games before the bye were the toughest stretch of one the toughest schedules.

So, Cignetti's trying to win with a NEW QB, installing a NEW offense, without his Star rookie RB and without even a set rotation at RB due to injury, without his #1 WR and with the WRs and TEs performing inconsistently.

And, somehow, this is a function of Fisher being of the stone age or Cignetti being incompetent?

What a crock of complete crap. When Seattle steamrolled the league a few years ago doing the exact same thing and no one could stop them, I didn't see Bernie telling Pete Carroll to "get with the times".

And I tired of losing?

HELL YES.

That said, our defense last year wasn't going to be where we wanted it to be after 3 games in a new system.

Neither will our offense.

Why is that so hard? Look at our D now? Granted, they laid an egg in Washington, but look at what they did against Pittsburgh? They held LeVeon Bell to 62 yards and entire Steeler O to 72 yards in the second half and that's WITH our O being inept and giving the ball back a bunch of times. 72 yards, people. Pittsburgh's O was #1 in the NFL by a bunch before that game. If our O was farther along, we win that game. Heck, I think we win that game later in the year. Heck, we still win that game if Kendricks catches that ball, warts on that game and all.

Part of why we had to get off of the FA carousel was because we had to build to last. We had to move away from Schotty because we needed an O that we could build on. Later this season, we'll be better. We may or may not make the playoffs. I don't know.

We said after the RG3 trade that 2015 was probably our year. Well, if that's off a year, so be it. If that takes to build something that will last longer than a year, then so be it. I don't want to do what Washington did, get into the playoffs 1 year and then go right back to losing.

I still have faith we're on the right track. I mean.... it takes time for cement to dry and we have an awful lot of solid pieces already in place.