Keep Fisher?
- Thread starter Rambitious1
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I am in the keep him camp. We are clearly better, and you just can't keep hitting the reset button every 3-4 years. Look at the teams that are always at the top, and look at the teams that are always at the bottom, continuity is important. With better QB and OL play this year we are probably 10-6 or better, and improving. Contrast that with a new OC, DC, HC, and possibly GM, and we are starting all over, with potentially a different scheme and good players that don't fit the new scheme. We have tried the coach carousel for a long time now, I would like to try some continuity for once.
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The bitterness isn't constant, but is surely there. I think positivity is a great thing, as i normally am. The real problem is that I live and die Rams football. I'm 51 years old and have followed this team pretty much since 1968, and of late it seems is that all they do is break my heart. In all of those years, I have lived through one Super Bowl win..One. I am patient, and i really like Jeff Fischer...The thing is, he has been given more chances for good results than almost any HC in recent history and he hasn't delivered a playoff team. We can go to the micro level and find many reasons for this...I do this in year one..year two...and even for a while in year three..Year four is one year too many to look at the minutia without taking the macro view and say the various reasonings for failure don't absolve the HC anymore. He's the man responsible for everything. All personnel deicsions and hirings, its all on him. It's time for a change...a new direction.
Ramrasta
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Thankfully the fan base does not control the direction of this team. We would end up in the same boat as the Browns if we just ran through coaches every time we get overly emotional about the season. Bringing in a new HC would almost certainly not benefit next year due to the player flux and system adjustments. I'm as passionate as anyone here about my Rams and the utter pain each season brings is almost unhealthy but I have seen this play out in so many different situations. The bottom line is that this team was a few kicks away from being a playoff team despite not having a QB. I'm confident in what Fisher is building here and if you don't think he is the man for the job, just listen to the players speak on him.
Ram Quixote
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The Rams Need a New Head Coach, But Don’t Hold Your Breath
Posted by: Bernie Miklasz i
http://www.101sports.com/2016/01/03...characteristic-loss-by-rams-at-san-francisco/
You could see this coming from St. Louis, you could see this coming from the Rams’ vacation-practice site in Napa Valley, you could see this coming as soon as the team boarded the busses to depart Seattle following last week’s 23-17 upset victory over the Seahawks.
You could see this coming because they are the Rams and this is what they do.
You could see it coming because they are coached by Jeff Fisher.
Final score: San Francisco 19, St. Louis 16.
In overtime.
Which only made it worse. This Rams-Niners scrimmage often looked like a preseason game. As the rivals stumbled through the long afternoon in Santa Clara, I was hoping the head coaches would handle it like one of those marathon spring-training games we see in major-league baseball every March. Both managers look at the scoreboard, see the tie score, stifle a yawn, and agree to call it a day after nine innings instead of taking the mess into extra frames.
It wasn’t meant to be. The game slogged on. And as the Rams got blanked in the second half and OT to squander a 16-10 halftime lead, one thought stayed in my head: this was a fitting way for the Rams to close out another unsuccessful season.
Finishing 8-8 would have meant nothing. And this pregame talk of “momentum” to be gained by the Rams if they could finish with four consecutive wins … well, that was nothing but pure horseradish, anyway. But at least 8-8 would have looked a little better than 7-9.
An 8-8 record is mediocre — but at least it’s tidy. No matter. By ending yet another disappointing season with a 7-9 mark, the Rams threw another losing record onto a towering pile.
For those still keeping score at home, the franchise last posted a winning record in 2003.
From the start of the 2004 season until San Francisco kicker Phil Dawson lofted the winning field goal to boot Fisher’s team into the offseason, the Rams have gone 64-127-1 for a winning percentage of .336.
Only Oakland (.307) and Cleveland (.318) have been worse over the last 12 seasons. Moreover, the Rams continued their streak of being the only NFC team to fail to make the playoffs since 2004.
And to widen the perspective, 49 NFL seasons are in the books for St. Louis teams (Cardinals, Rams) and only 16 of the 49 have resulted in 16 winning records. Only eight of the 49 led to the postseason.
(But remember: it’s the St. Louis fans’ fault.)
The Rams’ sinking at Santa Clara was typical, predictable and characteristic of a Fisher-coached team.
The Rams lost for the third time this season after leading at the half.
Of Fisher’s 36 losses as STL coach, his team was up at the half 10 times.
This is a coach who went a combined 3-1 this season against Seattle’s Pete Carroll and Arizona’s Bruce Arians — who have a combined 69-27 record over the last three seasons — only to go 1-1 against San Francisco coach Jim Tomsula, who was 4-11 before coming back with Blaine Gabbert at QB to knock off the Rams.
Tomsula was rewarded by being fired after the game. Gone after only one season. At least he went out as a winner.
Good grief. How can a Rams team that rises up to smack Arizona and Seattle in the mouth go to San Francisco and lose to the depleted and dysfunctional 49ers and a hapless coach that was a couple of hours away from being shoved into unemployment?
The short answer: we’ve seen this too many times.
Fisher’s Rams have a tendency to play up or down to the level of the competition. For example: the Rams were the betting-line favorite to win Sunday — and flopped. Over the last two seasons, Fisher has a 5-6 record as the betting-line favorite. But over the same two seasons, he’s a more-than-respectable 6-9 as the betting-line underdog.
For some reason, Coach Fisher gets his team synched and inspired to kayo the big boys — only to lose to the Tomsulas of the NFL. It’s mystifying, frustrating. And it should be unacceptable.
The NFL’s upcoming Los Angeles decision aside … where do the Rams go from here?
The obvious first step: make a coaching change.
But don’t lose any sleep on that one… the odds are heavily against it.
When he signed on in St. Louis, Fisher inherited the considerable carnage, and the daunting cleanup, of a Rams organization that had produced the worst five-season stretch (15-65) in NFL history. It would take some time to clear the massive amount of debris, begin repairing the damage, and get the Rams healthy.
And for a while, Fisher made progress. Working with new GM Les Snead, the Rams were a respectable 14-17-1 in the first two seasons of the reconstruction. You may ask: what’s so great about 14-17-1? I didn’t say it was great. But the .453 winning percentage represented a significant improvement over the .188 winning percentage over the five seasons that preceded Fisher’s appointment.
But after grinding out that encouraging 14-17-1 (.453) in his first two seasons here, Fisher’s record fell off to 13-19 (.406) over the next two years. And the loss to the 49ers left the Fisher-led Rams with a 27-36-1 record since he came aboard; the team’s .430 winning percentage ranks only 26th among the 32 teams since 2012. And the Rams are 7-12 (.368) over their last 19 games.
As we’ve noted from this soapbox before: the Rams have drifted the wrong way. If you go with the bottom-line record, this team has regressed over the last two seasons. By now, the Rams should have taken that step and evolved into winners.
In the present-day NFL, coaches aren’t given four years to turn teams around. And a coach being granted a fifth year after four consecutive losing seasons — well, that’s virtually unheard of. Since the 1970 AFL-NFL merger, only one coach, Cincinnati’s David Shula (1992-1996), was given a fifth season after enduring four straight losing records. And Shula lasted only seven games into that fifth season.
I wanted Fisher to succeed; I really did. After a dreadful swoon that’s now stretched through nine consecutive losing seasons and 12 non-winning seasons in a row, I would truly enjoy writing about a triumphant coach, the surging Rams, and the joys of seeing a sorry franchise transformed into postseason-bound winners.
But it ain’t happening.
What, pray tell, would be the basis for optimism?
In Fisher, we’re talking about a head coach that’s had six winning records in his full 20 NFL seasons.
Six.
Out of 20.
Combing his work in Tennessee and St. Louis, Fisher has only two winning records in his last 11 seasons.
Since 2004, he has a winning percentage of .463; his teams have been outscored by 324 points.
With vulnerable NFL head coaches getting set for the annual “Black Monday” firings, Fisher has nothing to worry about. In recent seasons we’ve seen successful coaches such as Andy Reid (Philadelphia) and Jim Harbaugh (San Francisco) get terminated from their jobs. That’s the trend. The Indianapolis Colts are said to be on the verge of firing head coach Chuck Pagano. He’s 41-23 (.641) at Indy and finished the 2015 season with a better record (8-8) than Fisher despite getting only seven starts from the injured star quarterback Andrew Luck. The New York Giants may fire Tom Coughlin; all he’s done in 12 years there is win five division titles and two Super Bowls. New Orleans coach Asshole Face (87-57, overall, .604, one Super Bowl title) may not survive his 14-18 record over the last two seasons.
Chip Kelly just got dumped in Philadelphia after two 10-win seasons and a 26-21 record. He was given 47 games.Joe Philbin received only 52 games, and went a Fisher-like 24-28, before getting bounced by Miami. Cleveland is done with Mike Pettine after only two seasons; it’s not as if the dude took over a winning enterprise there. The Browns saddled him with the hopelessly irresponsible quarterback Johnny Manziel, and expected a miracle? Laughable. Ken Whisenhunt — who did lead Arizona to an NFC title — got all of 23 games before Tennessee dumped him.
Other than Fisher, no NFL coach in this league had even a thread of chance of lasting into a fifth year after producing the league’s seventh-worst record over the last four seasons. But Fisher rolls on, as mighty as the muddy Mississippi. He’ll apparently last longer than the Alps. Hell, even the immortal Paul Brown got fired in Cleveland after winning nearly 77 percent of his games (and seven league championships) in his 14 years as Browns’ coach.
But unless he has a surprise planned, Rams owner Stan Kroenke apparently will stick with Fisher for another season. Fisher has a year remaining on his Kroenke-issued contract, at a salary of $7 million. (Fun with numbers: through his four seasons in St. Louis, Fisher has been paid $28 million. And he’s won 27 games. Is that a good rate of return?)
No one can read ES Kroenke’s mind, so we are left to speculate.
If the owner keeps Fisher in place, it will be for one of five reasons — or perhaps a combination:
(1) Kroenke still believes Fisher is the right coach for the job.
(2) Kroenke doesn’t want to throw $7 million away. (And he’s barely getting by, after all.)
(3) Kroenke is obsessed with getting the Rams to Inglewood, and has no time to worry about the on-field product.
(4) Just in case Kroenke wins the LA race, it probably helps to have a head coach that’s already supervised an NFL franchise relocation, as Fisher did for the late Houston-Tennessee owner, Bud Adams, in 1997.
(5) If Kroenke believes he’ll prevail in the LA sweepstakes, why change now? He can have Fisher lead the transition season — with fans in LA just happy to have a team — then start fresh in 2017 after the Rams are settled in.
I don’t think Fisher will retire and give up $7 million worth of 2016 paydays. So unless something unexpected occurs, Fisher will continue to make history. The Cleveland-LA-STL Rams have been in continuous operation since 1944. The franchise has never employed a head coach that’s lasted beyond three consecutive losing seasons. Fisher’s losing streak is up to four seasons. He may outlast Bill Belichick in New England. If you’re searching for a remarkable coaching achievement in Fisher’s career, that’s it.
Thanks for reading … and a belated happy and healthy New Year to everyone.
–Bernie
Posted by: Bernie Miklasz i
http://www.101sports.com/2016/01/03...characteristic-loss-by-rams-at-san-francisco/
You could see this coming from St. Louis, you could see this coming from the Rams’ vacation-practice site in Napa Valley, you could see this coming as soon as the team boarded the busses to depart Seattle following last week’s 23-17 upset victory over the Seahawks.
You could see this coming because they are the Rams and this is what they do.
You could see it coming because they are coached by Jeff Fisher.
Final score: San Francisco 19, St. Louis 16.
In overtime.
Which only made it worse. This Rams-Niners scrimmage often looked like a preseason game. As the rivals stumbled through the long afternoon in Santa Clara, I was hoping the head coaches would handle it like one of those marathon spring-training games we see in major-league baseball every March. Both managers look at the scoreboard, see the tie score, stifle a yawn, and agree to call it a day after nine innings instead of taking the mess into extra frames.
It wasn’t meant to be. The game slogged on. And as the Rams got blanked in the second half and OT to squander a 16-10 halftime lead, one thought stayed in my head: this was a fitting way for the Rams to close out another unsuccessful season.
Finishing 8-8 would have meant nothing. And this pregame talk of “momentum” to be gained by the Rams if they could finish with four consecutive wins … well, that was nothing but pure horseradish, anyway. But at least 8-8 would have looked a little better than 7-9.
An 8-8 record is mediocre — but at least it’s tidy. No matter. By ending yet another disappointing season with a 7-9 mark, the Rams threw another losing record onto a towering pile.
For those still keeping score at home, the franchise last posted a winning record in 2003.
From the start of the 2004 season until San Francisco kicker Phil Dawson lofted the winning field goal to boot Fisher’s team into the offseason, the Rams have gone 64-127-1 for a winning percentage of .336.
Only Oakland (.307) and Cleveland (.318) have been worse over the last 12 seasons. Moreover, the Rams continued their streak of being the only NFC team to fail to make the playoffs since 2004.
And to widen the perspective, 49 NFL seasons are in the books for St. Louis teams (Cardinals, Rams) and only 16 of the 49 have resulted in 16 winning records. Only eight of the 49 led to the postseason.
(But remember: it’s the St. Louis fans’ fault.)
The Rams’ sinking at Santa Clara was typical, predictable and characteristic of a Fisher-coached team.
The Rams lost for the third time this season after leading at the half.
Of Fisher’s 36 losses as STL coach, his team was up at the half 10 times.
This is a coach who went a combined 3-1 this season against Seattle’s Pete Carroll and Arizona’s Bruce Arians — who have a combined 69-27 record over the last three seasons — only to go 1-1 against San Francisco coach Jim Tomsula, who was 4-11 before coming back with Blaine Gabbert at QB to knock off the Rams.
Tomsula was rewarded by being fired after the game. Gone after only one season. At least he went out as a winner.
Good grief. How can a Rams team that rises up to smack Arizona and Seattle in the mouth go to San Francisco and lose to the depleted and dysfunctional 49ers and a hapless coach that was a couple of hours away from being shoved into unemployment?
The short answer: we’ve seen this too many times.
Fisher’s Rams have a tendency to play up or down to the level of the competition. For example: the Rams were the betting-line favorite to win Sunday — and flopped. Over the last two seasons, Fisher has a 5-6 record as the betting-line favorite. But over the same two seasons, he’s a more-than-respectable 6-9 as the betting-line underdog.
For some reason, Coach Fisher gets his team synched and inspired to kayo the big boys — only to lose to the Tomsulas of the NFL. It’s mystifying, frustrating. And it should be unacceptable.
The NFL’s upcoming Los Angeles decision aside … where do the Rams go from here?
The obvious first step: make a coaching change.
But don’t lose any sleep on that one… the odds are heavily against it.
When he signed on in St. Louis, Fisher inherited the considerable carnage, and the daunting cleanup, of a Rams organization that had produced the worst five-season stretch (15-65) in NFL history. It would take some time to clear the massive amount of debris, begin repairing the damage, and get the Rams healthy.
And for a while, Fisher made progress. Working with new GM Les Snead, the Rams were a respectable 14-17-1 in the first two seasons of the reconstruction. You may ask: what’s so great about 14-17-1? I didn’t say it was great. But the .453 winning percentage represented a significant improvement over the .188 winning percentage over the five seasons that preceded Fisher’s appointment.
But after grinding out that encouraging 14-17-1 (.453) in his first two seasons here, Fisher’s record fell off to 13-19 (.406) over the next two years. And the loss to the 49ers left the Fisher-led Rams with a 27-36-1 record since he came aboard; the team’s .430 winning percentage ranks only 26th among the 32 teams since 2012. And the Rams are 7-12 (.368) over their last 19 games.
As we’ve noted from this soapbox before: the Rams have drifted the wrong way. If you go with the bottom-line record, this team has regressed over the last two seasons. By now, the Rams should have taken that step and evolved into winners.
In the present-day NFL, coaches aren’t given four years to turn teams around. And a coach being granted a fifth year after four consecutive losing seasons — well, that’s virtually unheard of. Since the 1970 AFL-NFL merger, only one coach, Cincinnati’s David Shula (1992-1996), was given a fifth season after enduring four straight losing records. And Shula lasted only seven games into that fifth season.
I wanted Fisher to succeed; I really did. After a dreadful swoon that’s now stretched through nine consecutive losing seasons and 12 non-winning seasons in a row, I would truly enjoy writing about a triumphant coach, the surging Rams, and the joys of seeing a sorry franchise transformed into postseason-bound winners.
But it ain’t happening.
What, pray tell, would be the basis for optimism?
In Fisher, we’re talking about a head coach that’s had six winning records in his full 20 NFL seasons.
Six.
Out of 20.
Combing his work in Tennessee and St. Louis, Fisher has only two winning records in his last 11 seasons.
Since 2004, he has a winning percentage of .463; his teams have been outscored by 324 points.
With vulnerable NFL head coaches getting set for the annual “Black Monday” firings, Fisher has nothing to worry about. In recent seasons we’ve seen successful coaches such as Andy Reid (Philadelphia) and Jim Harbaugh (San Francisco) get terminated from their jobs. That’s the trend. The Indianapolis Colts are said to be on the verge of firing head coach Chuck Pagano. He’s 41-23 (.641) at Indy and finished the 2015 season with a better record (8-8) than Fisher despite getting only seven starts from the injured star quarterback Andrew Luck. The New York Giants may fire Tom Coughlin; all he’s done in 12 years there is win five division titles and two Super Bowls. New Orleans coach Asshole Face (87-57, overall, .604, one Super Bowl title) may not survive his 14-18 record over the last two seasons.
Chip Kelly just got dumped in Philadelphia after two 10-win seasons and a 26-21 record. He was given 47 games.Joe Philbin received only 52 games, and went a Fisher-like 24-28, before getting bounced by Miami. Cleveland is done with Mike Pettine after only two seasons; it’s not as if the dude took over a winning enterprise there. The Browns saddled him with the hopelessly irresponsible quarterback Johnny Manziel, and expected a miracle? Laughable. Ken Whisenhunt — who did lead Arizona to an NFC title — got all of 23 games before Tennessee dumped him.
Other than Fisher, no NFL coach in this league had even a thread of chance of lasting into a fifth year after producing the league’s seventh-worst record over the last four seasons. But Fisher rolls on, as mighty as the muddy Mississippi. He’ll apparently last longer than the Alps. Hell, even the immortal Paul Brown got fired in Cleveland after winning nearly 77 percent of his games (and seven league championships) in his 14 years as Browns’ coach.
But unless he has a surprise planned, Rams owner Stan Kroenke apparently will stick with Fisher for another season. Fisher has a year remaining on his Kroenke-issued contract, at a salary of $7 million. (Fun with numbers: through his four seasons in St. Louis, Fisher has been paid $28 million. And he’s won 27 games. Is that a good rate of return?)
No one can read ES Kroenke’s mind, so we are left to speculate.
If the owner keeps Fisher in place, it will be for one of five reasons — or perhaps a combination:
(1) Kroenke still believes Fisher is the right coach for the job.
(2) Kroenke doesn’t want to throw $7 million away. (And he’s barely getting by, after all.)
(3) Kroenke is obsessed with getting the Rams to Inglewood, and has no time to worry about the on-field product.
(4) Just in case Kroenke wins the LA race, it probably helps to have a head coach that’s already supervised an NFL franchise relocation, as Fisher did for the late Houston-Tennessee owner, Bud Adams, in 1997.
(5) If Kroenke believes he’ll prevail in the LA sweepstakes, why change now? He can have Fisher lead the transition season — with fans in LA just happy to have a team — then start fresh in 2017 after the Rams are settled in.
I don’t think Fisher will retire and give up $7 million worth of 2016 paydays. So unless something unexpected occurs, Fisher will continue to make history. The Cleveland-LA-STL Rams have been in continuous operation since 1944. The franchise has never employed a head coach that’s lasted beyond three consecutive losing seasons. Fisher’s losing streak is up to four seasons. He may outlast Bill Belichick in New England. If you’re searching for a remarkable coaching achievement in Fisher’s career, that’s it.
Thanks for reading … and a belated happy and healthy New Year to everyone.
–Bernie
He has one year left on his contract and our Rams did make some improvement on both sides of the ball. If Sam B had worked out (No. 1 pick in the draft), the Rams certainly would be in the playoffs this year. Of course, as a die-hard Rams' fan I want more than just playoffs. I want to win in the playoffs. I hate "One and Done" or even to lose in either the Divisional or Conference Round. I guess we gotta look at the draft for a QB but the pickings are slim this year. And that Spartan QB looked terrible in that CFB playoff game against the Crimson Tide, didn't he. I hope the Rams keep Case as our backup; he's more than adequate. Just don't know what to do about QB situation. Happy New Year to all my "friends" on these boards and "Go Rams"!
FrankenRam
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LOL! I was going to post virtually the same thing. And then I thought....hmmmm...., why do I suspect somebody has beat me to it. And sure enough......
FrankenRam
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I think about half the current fan base needs to take a break from football. Too many act like a losing NFL team is akin to having a 5yr old child with cancer.
FrankenRam
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IMO, the language is getting pretty out of hand on a regular basis. And it's not like I'm a stranger to the use of 4 letter words, but sheesh....I sure wouldn't want my 10yr old son reading this board of late.
FrankenRam
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You do realize that you basically just told one of the forum's staff to go take a hike.(??)
blue4
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There's a difference between discussing what is pretty much the only relevant thing to be discussed now that our season has ended, and just venting. I don't see why part of you hopes we lose our football team. I doubt the fans in another city will be any happier with consistent losing, and I doubt the message boards will be any gentler after a solid decade of really bad teams. If it's no fault of our own, then why do we need to be thinned?
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Had my say in the vent thread.
Fact is, he's our coach, and going to be our coach for 2016.
Time to put the support hat back on because 1) nothing we can do about it and 2) what fun is there in doom and gloom?
God the off season is soooooooooooo longggggggggggg.....................
Go Rams, playoffs in 2016!!!
Fact is, he's our coach, and going to be our coach for 2016.
Time to put the support hat back on because 1) nothing we can do about it and 2) what fun is there in doom and gloom?
God the off season is soooooooooooo longggggggggggg.....................
Go Rams, playoffs in 2016!!!
OntarioRam
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As bad as I want Fisher gone, the obvious choice is #3. Only let him go if there is an upgrade. As much as we dislike Fisher, getting worse just to spite him would be ill advised. Same for a purely lateral move. Continuity is valuable.
Having said that, I'm pretty sure we can find an upgrade. Unproven doesn't mean bad. Every great coach and player gets their first shot somewhere.
Having said that, I'm pretty sure we can find an upgrade. Unproven doesn't mean bad. Every great coach and player gets their first shot somewhere.
blue4
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For me the fun is in discussing football. Sometimes things aren't positive. For me, I don't get the push to be "positive" as if you can't support your team fully and still want to talk about coaching changes and roster moves. I liken this place to sitting in a bar, or leaning on your neighbors fence. A neighbor isn't going to hold his opinion back to order to keep to my version of "supportive". I know my neighbor is a Rams fan even if he doesn't like the QB. I don't see his opinion as doom and gloom, but as his real thoughts on the state of the team. A friend at the bar isn't going to say "oh well, what are you going to do?", he's going to say "Paul, we need a new @#+?$@# coach." Anyway, that's JMO.