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- May 8, 2014
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I'd like to discuss our young Head Coach a bit, and by that I mean the areas he needs to adjust and improve. Prefer not to rant and light him on fire here as there's plenty of that elsewhere. I believe he is still the same guy, but he is a young coach who is still learning on the job and this season is a big slice of humble pie for him. Anyway here goes fwiw...
1. Route combinations. Been saying for a while after weekly film review that teams are all over his tendencies. Basically teams are hell bent on not letting us pass the ball, yes, but also they have been pattern matching at a very high success rate week to week. Whether it's zone (which is where we have struggled most) or man coverage teams are winning a lot of routes due to anticipation and that's on the gameplanning side. I feel he needs to get back to basics here and we will also see a move made on the staff as McVay is probably dealing with a gameplanning dropoff in the passing game coordinator side where they have relied too much on existing playbook and tendencies.
2. Physicality. It just seems like our linemen aren't ready for physicality and the book up front is to bring it with most teams having a high success rate. I find myself wondering whether the "vet rest days" or overall lack of contact practices is hurting their preparation. When you get away with that stuff it's great of course. But when your guys look outmatched left and right it makes me feel like there might be a contributing factor from that practice side of things. Either way the Rams right now are a finesse offense. Look at the Bengals tape. Goff converted a ton of non-optimal down/distance situations and that's why we won. Vs better defenses that is more difficult to pull off particularly when your protections aren't there. Obviously this goes back to the run game but I suspect it might be a bit more than that, i.e. this team could use some more full pad practices to help them get on track.
3. Unnecessary delay in benching players. I think this is what happens when you're riding that Super Bowl high, where you feel comfortable letting things go longer than a staff who doesn't have that kind of clout. Some of the decisions have been due to a lack of depth which relates back to trades for veterans. But not all of them. When you don't have a quick hook for non-performance what it means is performance is no longer the standard. This needs to be how they do things going forward, ensuring performance IS the standard.
In summary I don't think this is a playoff roster right now due to the OL and it's affected everything else. But I do think McVay can improve in the areas above. And if they can work those things while they use the remainder of the season to find out which of these OL can play, they can set themselves up for a nice rebound season in 2020 by adding a couple key pieces to the OL.
1. Route combinations. Been saying for a while after weekly film review that teams are all over his tendencies. Basically teams are hell bent on not letting us pass the ball, yes, but also they have been pattern matching at a very high success rate week to week. Whether it's zone (which is where we have struggled most) or man coverage teams are winning a lot of routes due to anticipation and that's on the gameplanning side. I feel he needs to get back to basics here and we will also see a move made on the staff as McVay is probably dealing with a gameplanning dropoff in the passing game coordinator side where they have relied too much on existing playbook and tendencies.
2. Physicality. It just seems like our linemen aren't ready for physicality and the book up front is to bring it with most teams having a high success rate. I find myself wondering whether the "vet rest days" or overall lack of contact practices is hurting their preparation. When you get away with that stuff it's great of course. But when your guys look outmatched left and right it makes me feel like there might be a contributing factor from that practice side of things. Either way the Rams right now are a finesse offense. Look at the Bengals tape. Goff converted a ton of non-optimal down/distance situations and that's why we won. Vs better defenses that is more difficult to pull off particularly when your protections aren't there. Obviously this goes back to the run game but I suspect it might be a bit more than that, i.e. this team could use some more full pad practices to help them get on track.
3. Unnecessary delay in benching players. I think this is what happens when you're riding that Super Bowl high, where you feel comfortable letting things go longer than a staff who doesn't have that kind of clout. Some of the decisions have been due to a lack of depth which relates back to trades for veterans. But not all of them. When you don't have a quick hook for non-performance what it means is performance is no longer the standard. This needs to be how they do things going forward, ensuring performance IS the standard.
In summary I don't think this is a playoff roster right now due to the OL and it's affected everything else. But I do think McVay can improve in the areas above. And if they can work those things while they use the remainder of the season to find out which of these OL can play, they can set themselves up for a nice rebound season in 2020 by adding a couple key pieces to the OL.
