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Bryan Burwell
http://www.stltoday.com/sports/colu...cle_476c5b6e-0ce9-5cee-8abd-f2f4422d4ef5.html
Inside the near-empty home team’s locker room at the Edward Jones Dome late Sunday afternoon, long after all the players, coaches and media types had filtered out the large metal doors, assorted members of the Rams’ support staff were busy scraping up shards of mirrored glass strewn across the carpeted floor.
An hour earlier, as the Rams streamed back into the locker room after suffering yet another bitter, down-to-the-wire loss — this one an agonizing 28-21 shortfall against the Tennessee Titans — defensive end William Hayes took out a season’s worth of unfettered frustration on an unarmed, full-length bathroom mirror.
Hayes’ angry forearm smashed into the mirror, leaving a pile of debris and a pool of his blood all over the carpet.
Before the media hordes descended on the place, Hayes was swept into the training room to take four stitches and the mess he left behind was covered up by rubber mats and piles of towels. But if you’re into metaphors or symbolism, this pretty much said it all about the rapidly declining fortunes of this football team.
Shattered pieces of a once-promising image strewn everywhere.
Oh yes, this was another Sunday that ended in fist-pounding frustration. This was another hopeful Sunday smashed to smithereens. This was another maddening football game that the Rams could have won, absolutely should have won, yet once again found every conceivable hair-pulling, stomach-tumbling, fist-punching manner to ruin.
“This,” said defensive tackle Kendall Lankford, “is frustrating. Very frustrating. It’s ... like ... I mean ... pffffft ... just frustrating.”
The deeper we go into this season that began with so much promise, but now seems to be falling apart in so many brittle pieces, the more it’s starting to feel like all of Jeff Fisher’s horses and all his men won’t be able to put this back together again.
For the second game in a row — heck, why stop there? For six weeks worth of this endlessly recurring nightmare, the Rams conspired with themselves to lose another contest that was theirs for the taking.
Don’t blame this one on Kellen Clemens. Sam Bradford’s backup played more than good enough Sunday, completing 20 of 35 attempts for 210 yards and one TD and engineering two other TD drives.
But there were just too many self-inflicted wounds for a team with such a thin margin for error to overcome.
Stop me if you’ve seen this movie before. They kicked the game away (paging Greg The Leg. Where are you, Young GeeZy?). They fumbled when they were untouched. Wide-open receivers dropped passes. They seemed to forget in less than six days how to play stout run defense. They committed every conceivable self-destructive breakdown you could imagine. And still with all that, with less than 30 seconds to go, they controlled their own destiny.
But of course, they failed to take advantage.
All together now:
Arrrrrrrrrrrgghhh!!!
“Some of the things that happened today were simple stuff that shouldn’t have happened,” said linebacker James Laurinaitis. “I’m not going to sugarcoat it. We didn’t do well. ... Quite frankly it’s embarrassing.”
How long ago was it that a lot of NFL wise guys were considering the Rams as one of the more promising young teams on the rise? How long ago was it that preseason prognostications had the Rams as an ascending team loaded with young talent?
Now look at them. They’re 3-6 and sinking fast; an underachieving team crashed up against some jagged NFL reef. And just like Laurinaitis told reporters after the game, the most maddening thing about this football team is how you can look around the locker room and see real NFL talent in there. A lot more talent than we saw in any of the depressing days of Linehan and Spags. With or without Bradford, they should be so much better than this.
It’s why Laurinaitis and so many of his teammates understand Hayes’ mirror-smashing frustration.
But here’s the unavoidable truth that I always come back to when I look at teams like this gifted, but underachieving Rams outfit. I quote that great football philosopher Bill Parcells, who said famously, “You are what your record says you are.”
Right now, the Rams are a mediocre 3-6 football team heading on a furious beeline to the top of the NFL draft’s first round.
In the back of the locker room Sunday, Fisher was getting dressed and feeling that same frustration. He probably thought his team had made some sort of important breakthrough last week against the Seattle Seahawks on Monday night. And he no doubt figured that with a roster loaded with former Titans, they surely would be properly motivated for a visit from their old team.
As he motioned in the direction of the destroyed mirror, Fisher said, “That shows just how many people in this room cared deeply about winning this ballgame.”
But caring deeply didn’t add up where it mattered most.
It’s the same old story. A never-ending reel of Groundhog Day misadventures that creeps into every game for this team, ruining prime opportunities for sure victory. By my count, they left at least 12 points off the board in the first half on fumbles, dropped passes and missed field goal tries.
Throughout the second half, a defense that showed Monday night that it’s capable of being one of the nastiest run-stuffing units in football reverted back to those nagging old habits of missed gap assignments that allowed Chris Johnson to gash them for two touchdowns and 98 of his 150 total rushing yards in the second half.
All around the locker room, Rams players said all the right things. They never pointed fingers and took ownership of their failures. They talked about how lack of consistency wrecked them. They talked about how it was the “little things” that hurt them. Players dropping balls. Players missing tackles. Nine or 10 people doing it right and one or two drifting off into their own little worlds.
And without fail, they also said it’s not about an inexperienced team showing its age.
It’s nine weeks deep into the season, and young and old alike are still making the same infuriating mistakes.
It reminded me of something Mizzou coach Gary Pinkel said Saturday night, talking about the importance of playing well this time of the year.
“When you get to November, (saying) ‘My bad’ doesn’t work,” said Pinkel. “You have to play your best football. You have to play your ‘A game’ if you want to accomplish your goals. There are a lot of things out there.”
It’s November now, and there are far too many Rams players who are still saying “My bad.”
It’s why this team’s lofty preseason goals can be found scattered about like so much shattered glass.
http://www.stltoday.com/sports/colu...cle_476c5b6e-0ce9-5cee-8abd-f2f4422d4ef5.html
Inside the near-empty home team’s locker room at the Edward Jones Dome late Sunday afternoon, long after all the players, coaches and media types had filtered out the large metal doors, assorted members of the Rams’ support staff were busy scraping up shards of mirrored glass strewn across the carpeted floor.
An hour earlier, as the Rams streamed back into the locker room after suffering yet another bitter, down-to-the-wire loss — this one an agonizing 28-21 shortfall against the Tennessee Titans — defensive end William Hayes took out a season’s worth of unfettered frustration on an unarmed, full-length bathroom mirror.
Hayes’ angry forearm smashed into the mirror, leaving a pile of debris and a pool of his blood all over the carpet.
Before the media hordes descended on the place, Hayes was swept into the training room to take four stitches and the mess he left behind was covered up by rubber mats and piles of towels. But if you’re into metaphors or symbolism, this pretty much said it all about the rapidly declining fortunes of this football team.
Shattered pieces of a once-promising image strewn everywhere.
Oh yes, this was another Sunday that ended in fist-pounding frustration. This was another hopeful Sunday smashed to smithereens. This was another maddening football game that the Rams could have won, absolutely should have won, yet once again found every conceivable hair-pulling, stomach-tumbling, fist-punching manner to ruin.
“This,” said defensive tackle Kendall Lankford, “is frustrating. Very frustrating. It’s ... like ... I mean ... pffffft ... just frustrating.”
The deeper we go into this season that began with so much promise, but now seems to be falling apart in so many brittle pieces, the more it’s starting to feel like all of Jeff Fisher’s horses and all his men won’t be able to put this back together again.
For the second game in a row — heck, why stop there? For six weeks worth of this endlessly recurring nightmare, the Rams conspired with themselves to lose another contest that was theirs for the taking.
Don’t blame this one on Kellen Clemens. Sam Bradford’s backup played more than good enough Sunday, completing 20 of 35 attempts for 210 yards and one TD and engineering two other TD drives.
But there were just too many self-inflicted wounds for a team with such a thin margin for error to overcome.
Stop me if you’ve seen this movie before. They kicked the game away (paging Greg The Leg. Where are you, Young GeeZy?). They fumbled when they were untouched. Wide-open receivers dropped passes. They seemed to forget in less than six days how to play stout run defense. They committed every conceivable self-destructive breakdown you could imagine. And still with all that, with less than 30 seconds to go, they controlled their own destiny.
But of course, they failed to take advantage.
All together now:
Arrrrrrrrrrrgghhh!!!
“Some of the things that happened today were simple stuff that shouldn’t have happened,” said linebacker James Laurinaitis. “I’m not going to sugarcoat it. We didn’t do well. ... Quite frankly it’s embarrassing.”
How long ago was it that a lot of NFL wise guys were considering the Rams as one of the more promising young teams on the rise? How long ago was it that preseason prognostications had the Rams as an ascending team loaded with young talent?
Now look at them. They’re 3-6 and sinking fast; an underachieving team crashed up against some jagged NFL reef. And just like Laurinaitis told reporters after the game, the most maddening thing about this football team is how you can look around the locker room and see real NFL talent in there. A lot more talent than we saw in any of the depressing days of Linehan and Spags. With or without Bradford, they should be so much better than this.
It’s why Laurinaitis and so many of his teammates understand Hayes’ mirror-smashing frustration.
But here’s the unavoidable truth that I always come back to when I look at teams like this gifted, but underachieving Rams outfit. I quote that great football philosopher Bill Parcells, who said famously, “You are what your record says you are.”
Right now, the Rams are a mediocre 3-6 football team heading on a furious beeline to the top of the NFL draft’s first round.
In the back of the locker room Sunday, Fisher was getting dressed and feeling that same frustration. He probably thought his team had made some sort of important breakthrough last week against the Seattle Seahawks on Monday night. And he no doubt figured that with a roster loaded with former Titans, they surely would be properly motivated for a visit from their old team.
As he motioned in the direction of the destroyed mirror, Fisher said, “That shows just how many people in this room cared deeply about winning this ballgame.”
But caring deeply didn’t add up where it mattered most.
It’s the same old story. A never-ending reel of Groundhog Day misadventures that creeps into every game for this team, ruining prime opportunities for sure victory. By my count, they left at least 12 points off the board in the first half on fumbles, dropped passes and missed field goal tries.
Throughout the second half, a defense that showed Monday night that it’s capable of being one of the nastiest run-stuffing units in football reverted back to those nagging old habits of missed gap assignments that allowed Chris Johnson to gash them for two touchdowns and 98 of his 150 total rushing yards in the second half.
All around the locker room, Rams players said all the right things. They never pointed fingers and took ownership of their failures. They talked about how lack of consistency wrecked them. They talked about how it was the “little things” that hurt them. Players dropping balls. Players missing tackles. Nine or 10 people doing it right and one or two drifting off into their own little worlds.
And without fail, they also said it’s not about an inexperienced team showing its age.
It’s nine weeks deep into the season, and young and old alike are still making the same infuriating mistakes.
It reminded me of something Mizzou coach Gary Pinkel said Saturday night, talking about the importance of playing well this time of the year.
“When you get to November, (saying) ‘My bad’ doesn’t work,” said Pinkel. “You have to play your best football. You have to play your ‘A game’ if you want to accomplish your goals. There are a lot of things out there.”
It’s November now, and there are far too many Rams players who are still saying “My bad.”
It’s why this team’s lofty preseason goals can be found scattered about like so much shattered glass.
