Fisher: "We’re going to do a little more"

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Ramathon

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I hate to be a Dudley Downer, but at least on the D side of the ball, it would be hard for them to do less.

And I may wind up sounding like a broken record on this, but I just don't get the whole 'vanilla' concept. I just don't understand how a team can effectively evaluate their players' ability to play within the intended system, if they're not, at least to some degree, playing that system even in preseason.
 

DaveFan'51

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I hate to be a Dudley Downer, but at least on the D side of the ball, it would be hard for them to do less.

And I may wind up sounding like a broken record on this, but I just don't get the whole 'vanilla' concept. I just don't understand how a team can effectively evaluate their players' ability to play within the intended system, if they're not, at least to some degree, playing that system even in preseason.
I can agree with you to a degree, Fisher feels them doing it in practice and not in preseason is OK with him. then again games , even preseason are Faster. But then again you don't want to show anyone anything! so it's a Catch 22 thing!
 

rhinobean

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I hate to be a Dudley Downer, but at least on the D side of the ball, it would be hard for them to do less.

And I may wind up sounding like a broken record on this, but I just don't get the whole 'vanilla' concept. I just don't understand how a team can effectively evaluate their players' ability to play within the intended system, if they're not, at least to some degree, playing that system even in preseason.
I suppose we have to trust that the coaches know what there doing. If they play like that in season, then you have to question what's going on!
 

SaneRamsFan

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I completely understand preseason football. I know it means less than zero. But I also know that horrible feeling of getting your lunch handed to you. Complete demoralization as the other team pounds you into submission. We have had a lot of experience with that around here the last 10 years. Sunday wasn't as close as the score. I am not alarmed. I trust Fisher and his coaching staff. I believe we are playoff bound. But that deal sunday still wasn't any fun and until they actually win some games and prove themselves on the field there is going to be a fair amount of backlash when the team looks like they did sunday-whatever the reason may be.
 

Faceplant

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Well stated sane. This team does not have the luxury of using the preseason to "fine tune" themselves. They are a fourth place team in a tough division and have not sniffed the post season in 10 years. Ouch, that hurt to type. Anyway, it would be nice to see the first unit on both sides if the ball play well.
 

MrMotes

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I completely understand preseason football. I know it means less than zero. But I also know that horrible feeling of getting your lunch handed to you. Complete demoralization as the other team pounds you into submission. We have had a lot of experience with that around here the last 10 years. Sunday wasn't as close as the score. I am not alarmed. I trust Fisher and his coaching staff. I believe we are playoff bound. But that deal sunday still wasn't any fun and until they actually win some games and prove themselves on the field there is going to be a fair amount of backlash when the team looks like they did sunday-whatever the reason may be.

Spagnulo was 10-2 in preseason.

Only the real games count. I don't know how good we're gonna be this year, but i know you can't tell from the preseason games...
 

Alaskan Ram

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I completely understand preseason football. I know it means less than zero. But I also know that horrible feeling of getting your lunch handed to you. Complete demoralization as the other team pounds you into submission. We have had a lot of experience with that around here the last 10 years. Sunday wasn't as close as the score. I am not alarmed. I trust Fisher and his coaching staff. I believe we are playoff bound. But that deal sunday still wasn't any fun and until they actually win some games and prove themselves on the field there is going to be a fair amount of backlash when the team looks like they did sunday-whatever the reason may be.

Our first string, minus JL and Brockers, Jake Long and Saffold, were only down 3 points to the pack. And they were starting to get their groove on.
 

RamBall

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Its no big deal. By playing a basic simple D, keep the ball in front of you and tackle, the D will most likely get more reps to evaluate, and it makes it easier for all the depth guys to be on the same page. It would be hard for the LBs and DBs to get much live tackling to evaluate if GW blitzed every down and the DL got 3 straight TFL or sacks, would be fun to watch for the fans. JF, GW and the players believe in the scheme, they practice it every day. Whats wrong with getting extra reps of live tackling, and maybe getting some film to point out and correct poor form or a bad angle.
 

ChrisW

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The only thing I'm scared of at this point is we should have seen some more pressure from our front 4 regardless of game planning.
 

Erictg29

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The thing is Fisher can talk all he wants about vannila, and saying their not trying much. But they worked on the running game almost exclusively the 2 days prior to the game, he wanted to run all over GB, and I think he thought they were gonna. Then during the game he pounded away with the running game to no avail. I'll tell you something... Fishers constant praise for every Player regardless of his play is getting old, and not helping to improve the team.
 

Ramathon

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... But then again you don't want to show anyone anything! so it's a Catch 22 thing!

See..., that's what everybody in the world says. But I think that's the NFL equivalent of an 'urban legend'. Who in the world that knows anything about pro football doesn't know where the strength/weaknesses of the Rams' D lies. And/or who doesn't know how Greg Williams coaches defenses. There just ain't no secrets there.

If the Rams were switching over to an entirely new style of D, or if GW was a new first time DC, or the entire Fisher regime was new to the Rams, they might have a sliver of an advantage over the opposition by hiding things in preseason. But even then, probably only for 3-4 games at most.

But none of those things are true for the Rams. There's a 'book' with 2 years of Fisher history on the Rams D that every other team has. And everybody and their uncle knows what to expect from a Greg Williams coached D.

And I get that Fisher & co can probably see, in practice, how players are adapting to the system, and may not need to see it in a preseason game. But how can a 'practice game' using the same game philosophy that they'll use in the regular season be anything other than beneficial.(??) Who gives a hoot if you let the opposition get a glimpse at your game plan. Big freakin'deal. They still have to line up and beat it.

So, what are they gaining from playing 'vanilla'? The only advant I see is that it gives the coaching staff some idea of how their team looks when they just line up mano a mano and see who beats who. Thus far, it doesn't seem many of the Rams are consistently winning those battles.

Quite honestly, I fear the Packers laid out the blueprint for taking advantage of the Rams' D....
- Go no huddle and don't give them the opportunity to sub lineman as frequently as they like.
- Mix in a good dose of the running game....which, until the Rams show some ability to stop it (they haven't any time in recent history), every opposing team should be doing.
- Throw lots of quick 3 step drop (or QB rollout), short, in front of the CB's, stuff.....especially if the Rams CB's are going to continue to play 10 yd off the line of scrimmage. Essentially take the Rams' vaunted pass rush out of the equation.
- In other words, there's no question that rushing the passer is going to be the strength of the Rams' D. Beyond that, they're an avg defense...at best. And if you take away their strength, scoring on the Rams' D just won't be all that difficult.

Now granted, the opposition has to actually be able to do all those things for my paranoid fears to prove true. And some won't. And others will be too stupid to adapt and instead will......'play our game' (THE dumbest coaching maxim there is) and hope it's good enough.

And ya know what bothers me most about all this......I am THE dumbest know-nothing SOB west of the Mississippi. And if my dumb arse can figure some of this out, it will be child's play for Harbaugh and Carroll to do so.

Sorry for the rant. I had toio much high octane java this am, and am still buzzin'. :)
 

Ramathon

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Fishers constant praise for every Player regardless of his play is getting old, and not helping to improve the team.

S-o-o-o-o-O-O....what would you have Fisher do? Stand at the presser after every game and say 'Roscoe Raswell sucked swamp gas in yesterday's game and we'll be looking at the wire for a real player to replace him next week'. (??)

Would calling them out each week 'improve the team'?