- Joined
- Jun 20, 2010
- Messages
- 35,576
- Name
- The Dude
by mfranke
RamView, October 28, 2012
From The Couch
(Report and opinions on the game.)
Game #8: Patriots 45, Rams 7
The Rams arrived in London four days earlier, but still played like they were jet-lagged, and got whipped soundly again by the Patriot dynasty. The only silver lining to this ludicrous display was that St. Louis fans didn't have to pay to watch this flashback to 2011 in person.
Position by position:
* QB: Sam Bradford (22-30-205, 88.9 PR) was one of a handful of Rams to have so much as a so-so game against the Patriots. He got the Rams off to a jolly good start, hitting Chris Givens with a perfect 50-yard bomb to give the Rams the lead just 2:30 into the game. And they'd never score again, despite Bradford completing 14 of his first 16 attempts without a sack or a turnover. The fast start fell apart after Givens went to the locker room with a foot ailment. The Rams never seemed to get anyone open downfield after that, blowing up the gameplan on the launching pad. A missed blitz pickup flushed Bradford into a grounding penalty. Another drive stalled on a false start and a dropped pass. A holding penalty killed another drive, but not before Dont'a Hightower nearly killed Bradford by driving him into the ground on the point of his left shoulder. Bradford survived that shot and hit Lance Kendricks twice to get the Rams close enough to botch a field goal attempt. Not much changed after halftime. A missed block flushed Bradford into what might have been an illegal forward pass to kill a drive. A missed block got Bradford dropped for about a hundred yard loss to end another. Bradford got the Rams into long FG range in the 3rd on a 15-yard dig and a pretty 22-yard corner route to Brandon Gibson, but the 2nd-string right tackle who's been a Ram for less than a week got beat on 3rd- and 4th-down for hits that resulted in an incomplete pass and a sack. Bradford got one last chance in the 4th down 45-7; the Rams ran their way into scoring range before another missed block let another Patriot in on him untouched, and he got hit as he threw to cough up an interception. The Rams didn't re-enter the red zone until the final 2:00, thanks to a sweet 39-yard sideline bomb from Kellen Clemens to Brian Quick, but Clemens fouled it up almost instantly with a goal line INT that Tayvon Wilson returned, and despite a good chance at a pick-six, he took a mercy slide at midfield to put the game on ice. Couple more weeks like this from his teammates and Bradford's going to be begging for mercy, and Kellen Clemens is going to be doing a lot more than mopping up.
* RB: For all the trade talk surrounding Steven Jackson (7-23, 2-22 receiving), the Rams didn’t go to much length to feature him in London, though he “popped” a few times. He got the TD drive moving with a 14-yard reception and later stiff-armed Dont’a Hightower for 7 yards. He helped set up the Rams’ FG attempt with a one-handed catch in the flat for 8, followed by a run he bounced outside, putting his head down to churn out a classic Jackson 5. But Steven also got stuffed a couple of times by the hard-to-block Kyle Love, and he disappeared into the London fog with the Rams down 4-plus TDs in the 2nd half. Daryl Richardson (7-53) didn’t really break loose until the 4th, with a 13-yard run through a huge lane behind Brit Miller, and a 20-yard run bounced outside behind Kendricks and Harvey Dahl. Again, the Rams’ problems the rest of the game seemed to affect the amount of action D-Rich got, though it looked like they were going to get him more involved in the short passing game early. Isaiah Pead (3-32) played the last 5:00 and showed a little something. On his first carry, he swept left, then cut back swiftly for 19 behind blocking from Shelley Smith and Robert Turner. The next play, he did a nice job making himself small in the hole and popping through for 5, and he tacked on an 8-yard run up the middle. It was in trash time, but we finally got to see some of the field vision, speed and cutback ability we were expecting from Pead when the Rams drafted him. Whether to trust him with carries in games that aren’t blowouts is the next question.
* Receivers: Chris Givens (3-63) got the offense going in electrifying fashion, whipping safety Tayvon Wilson with a double move to get behind the coverage for a 50-yard TD bomb and a rookie-record fifth-straight game with a play that long. He also sustained some kind of foot injury on that play, though, and was ineffective the rest of the game. That really thwarted the Rams’ plans, because they were pretty clearly planning to attack the Patriots deep, early and often. Brandon Gibson (3-46) made a nice diving 22-yard catch in the 4th, but almost all his production came in garbage time. Austin Pettis’ (3-15) lack of production hasn’t kept him out of the starting slot receiver position, though he did make a nice play to extend the ball across the plane on a 4th-and-1 catch. He’s got no competition from useless (0-0) Steve Smith, though, who only contributed a dropped pass. The tight ends had their heaviest involvement all year. Lance Kendricks (4-32) showed excellent hands a couple of times, and Matthew Mulligan had an 18-yard catch. Kendricks also had blocking problems and a false start, though. Brian Quick again showed up only in garbage time, and though he made one very good 39-yard catch down the sideline, his clueless play hurt the Rams on both interceptions. He quit on the play and failed to touch Alfonzo Dennard down on the first, and Wilson’s late INT might not have happened had Quick gone strong after the ball, which just shouldn’t be a flaw in a big wideout’s play, but has been in Quick’s from the day he arrived in camp. More work for the TEs may help Bradford, but we all know how badly they need Danny Amendola back. Will he be enough, though?
* Offensive line: The number of injuries the Ram offensive line has sustained, and the number of new guys they've had to break in, finally crossed the breaking point this week. The line still run-blocked well, but there was an epidemic of mistakes pass-blocking. It's not really hard to understand why. After injuries to both tackles, one of them the 3rd-string LT, for one play in the 4th, the Rams had Chris Williams, who's been a Ram less than a week, at RT, Tim Barnes, making his pro debut, at LG, and Shelley Smith, brought here to play LG, at LT. That line actually got the Rams one of their best plays of the game, a 13-yard run by D-Rich behind Barnes and Brit Miller. But there's so little experience, let alone experience playing together, that pass-blocking had many disastrous moments. Robert Turner didn't pick up Brandon Spikes on the fire zone blitz that forced Bradford into grounding in the 1st. Smith's blatant hold killed a 2nd-quarter drive that had crossed midfield, then Hightower ran right by Joe Barksdale for the big hit that briefly put Bradford out of the game. Rob Ninkovich made the Rams look like nincompoops in the 2nd half. He beat Kendricks to pressure Bradford into an illegal forward pass. In the 4th, he whipped Williams on back-to-back plays to force an incomplete pass and then sack Bradford on 4th down. Inexperienced tackles + a Bill Belichick defense is not a good combination for an offense. Barksdale gave up the Rams' other sack again not knowing who to block, picking Smith's man instead of Chandler Jones, who stormed in on Bradford untouched. At the end of the game, it was Williams turning the wrong way and letting another Patriot rookie, Justin Francis, run right by and hit Bradford to force an INT. The o-line did run-block well, especially Harvey Dahl, and the middle did good run-blocking work in 4th-quarter garbage time. But in pass protection, they were in so far over their heads this week they were always much likelier to end up like the Titanic than like Michael Phelps. The Rams desperately need Rodger Saffold, if not also Scott Wells, to return to the starting lineup during the bye.
* Defensive line/LB: Defense is supposed to be the anchor of this team, but the overrated defensive line has been more of a boat anchor wrapped around the team’s neck lately. Tom Brady was under no pressure at all this week. Brady got the ball out quickly, Chris Long was unable to get off a block, ever, and with Robert Quinn ineffective on the right side, the Patriots might as well have been scrimmaging 7-on-7. I don’t even have any interesting pass pressures on Brady to talk about. With ineffective blitzes and a shiftless 4-man (and bizarrely at times, 3-man) rush, Brady was not hurried into doing anything a single time. OK, maybe one incompletion in the 3rd. The Rams combined as bad a pass rush as you can get with even worse run defense. It was just pathetic how badly the line got manhandled at times. Long was completely whipped by Rob Gronkowski to spring Stefan Ridley for 30 in the 3rd. That wasn’t even Ridley’s longest run of the half! Later he’d spring for 41, cutting back inside Long lurching 8 yards into the Patriot backfield like a rogue electric football player. Gronkowski was equal opportunity, whipping Quinn on a 10-yard Ridley run in the 4th, but the piece de resistance had to be Ridley’s 20-yard sweep left in the 1st, where Quinn let himself get blocked by… Julian Edelman. Shane Vereen tap-danced in for a TD in the 2nd, behind a block by… Michael Hoomanawanui. Right before halftime, Ridley surged in to make it 28-7, AGAIN behind a block by Illini Mike. When former Rams fullbacks are blocking you, you are having a pathetic game. The guys who are supposed to be the main run supporters, James Laurinaitis and Quintin Mikell, got blocked out of more plays than they made, and spent the day lost and confused in pass coverage as well. Jo-Lonn Dunbar was about the only one of the front seven to make a play, stuffing a couple of runs and blowing up a screen, but even he fouled up on Gronkowski’s 2nd TD. In the middle of the line, all I have from Kendall Langford was a tipped pass that was still caught. From Michael Brockers, just that play where Gronk beat him for a TD. William Hayes had a big tackle-for-loss that enabled the only 3-and-out of the day but committed an undisciplined personal foul later. Tackling was poor, and the Rams’ ability and will to compete with the Patriots physically was worse. Final exhibit: yet another long Ridley run, for 16, in the 3rd. He jump-cuts over Kellen Heard, who’s been knocked to the ground, and creams Craig Dahl at the end of the play for an extra 6-7 yards. The Rams didn’t come to London to play. They’ve gone from having a defensive line that made the team competitive to a defensive line that can’t compete.
* Secondary: The Ram secondary followed its disastrous game against the Packers with an abominable performance against the Patriots. (Please improve soon; I am running out of negative adjectives to surpass “abominable”.) Bradley Fletcher kept two Patriot TD drives alive with THREE pass interference penalties, all on third downs, two of them because he’s unable to cover 63-year old Deion Branch without holding him. Well, that’s lovely progress for him. Janoris Jenkins gave up TWO TDs to Brandon Lloyd, one because he couldn’t figure out what to do with the Patriots in a bunch right formation, the other because he got horribly faked out man-to-man by a Lloyd jab-step and got whipped from the snap. At least Jenkins rallied a little in the 2nd half, saving a TD by stopping Ridley’s 41-yard run and breaking up a couple of passes. If not for the TDs, he might have had an OK game. Cortland Finnegan continues to be the strength of the Ram secondary, holding Wes Welker to 6 catches for 48. Maybe the Rams should have had Finnegan cover Rob Gronkowski (8-146, 2 TD). Maybe they should have had ANYBODY cover Gronkowski. He’s 6'6”, 265; he’s not hard to miss out there. But late in the 1st, he’s wide open for 25 because James Laurinaitis got lost at the LOS. He’s wide open for another 25 two plays later because Quintin Mikell stopped covering him after about a yard. The hell? London became Gronk City on the Patriots’ 3rd TD drive. 17-yard screen catches Craig Dahl blitzing. Mikell useless again on 3rd-and-4, getting beaten for 32. Then, 3rd-and-goal, somebody gets the brilliant idea to cover Gronkowski with… Michael Brockers. TD, Gronkowski, and he’d get a second in the 4th after Jo-Lonn Dunbar couldn’t decide whether to blitz or cover, did neither, and got no rotating help from Laurinaitis or Dahl. If the Rams had a plan to account for Gronkowski, it wasn’t a coherent one. The Rams actually did break up a few attempted passes to Gronkowski; Finnegan, Laurinaitis, Mikell and Trumaine Johnson, who I’m thinking is spoiling for a starting job sometime soon, all pulled off the feat, but that’s lost in the miserable failure of the other plays. Tom Brady is a mortal lock to go into the Hall of Fame, but this week was much too easy, even for him.
* Special teams: Most of the Rams team highlights in London were on punt coverage. Good second effort by Rodney McLeod held Julian Edelman to a 1-yard return in the 1st. And Fletcher stuffed Edelman in the 3rd on the only play all day he didn’t commit a DPI. Most of Johnny Hekker’s punts were close to 50 yards, though he needed a healthy roll on one. Both of Greg Zuerlein’s kickoffs were puzzlingly short, and his only FG attempt never got off the ground after Hekker couldn’t handle a terrible high snap from Jake McQuaide. Only the rainy London weather is sparing you all my Chris Massey rant. Kick return game was inconsistent. A couple got out across the 25, but bad decisions, poor blocking and penalties set the Rams back a couple of other times. Just another aspect of the team that needs to get cleaned up over the bye.
* Strategery: Jeff Fisher's done a good job leading the Rams so far this season, but he appears to be completely out of his league against Bill Belichick, having lost his last two appearances to the Hoodie by the combined score of 104-7, and like the rest of the Rams franchise, hasn't won over the Patriots in a decade. Fisher can carry a grudge against the Rams for ten years – remember him running up the score in a 47-7 Titans win just a couple of years ago? - but against Belichick, he's as helpless as Mr. Coach Klein at the start of the Bourbon Bowl. Maybe he should picture the Hoodie as a puppy dog or a widdle baby. I expected Fisher-led Rams teams to put up a hell of a lot better of a fight than they did in London. Especially given the fight his Titans always put up against the Rams, watching the Rams play today with all the fire of President Obama at the first debate was a bitter pill to swallow. The defense looked completely unprepared for the Patriots, especially in their non-plan for not covering Gronkowski. Especially with Aaron Hernandez out – good Lord, what would New England have scored with him on the field? - that should have been a double-team all day. Instead, the Rams barely single-teamed Gronk and got schooled by Josh Freaking McDaniels. I hope the Ram defense enjoyed the Tower of London and frolicking about the English countryside, because they sure weren't ready for this damn game. The Seahawks beat the Patriots, and the Big Dead beat them IN Foxborough. Losing to them by 38 anywhere is completely unacceptable.
Brian Schottenheimer and the offense I'll cut a tiny bit of slack to. With Givens up and down and offensive linemen dropping like flies, he was working with as little talent as Pat Shurmur ever had to, and it sabotaged a gameplan which appeared poised to bomb away on the Patriots at will. The Rams scored on their opening drive with a beautiful play mix. But Bradford sure was looking deep a lot, and finding no one, even after Givens slowed down and the Rams became unable to stretch the field. I would have expected an adjustment to a shorter-range passing game instead, so I think that’s where Schottenheimer messed up. A pretty big messup, if you ask me. But at least his side of the ball showed a little readiness to play.
* Upon further review: I really did not want to have to write another Rams-Patriots game where the referees were clearly in Bill Belichick’s pocket, but here we are again. Walt Coleman was so pro-Patriot in this game he even pointed in the Rams’ direction when the Patriots committed penalties. We knew it would be a long day early on when they let Lloyd illegally block Dunbar in the 1st to spring Danny Woodhead for 23. It’s OPI to block while a pass is in the air, unless you’re a Patriot. If the refs want to make tight DPI calls on Fletcher, that’s fine, but call it both ways. When Pettis went out of bounds in the 1st, there was contact beyond five yards. He got grabbed by Marquise Cole again in the 4th; no call for that. Lloyd broke up an end zone INT for Fletcher by grabbing him just as much as anything Fletcher got flagged for. A lot of flags came out WELL after the end of the plays to boot. But Bradford gets driven into the ground well after he’s released the ball in the 2nd – Hightower had plenty of time to let up – and there’s no flag. The Fox blue line, which I realize is not official, showed Bradford’s back foot on or behind the LOS on his illegal forward pass, so that may have been a legal play. Rams were blatantly held on some of the long Patriot runs, including Cudjo and Stewart on Ridley’s 41-yard run. No calls. Ridley deserved a taunting penalty after getting in Dahl’s face after his first good run. But of course there’d be no flag there. He’s a Patriot! The Rams ended up with 102 penalty yards; New England, 42. You tell me.
* Cheers: The game broadcast by CBS' #1 team was good at times, and at other times sounded like Jim Nantz and Phil Simms had done too much sight-seeing, or pub-crawling. Nantz misses more spots than I do, which is an achievement, and described Brandon Gibson as “impressive.” No hint from the booth that Hightower's big hit on Bradford ought to have been a penalty. Simms did a good job describing the illegal forward pass rule, but the call itself certainly was not borne out by the CBS blue line, making it a lot less obvious than the booth suggested. CBS and Simms did show a lot of good footage of Ram receivers failing to get open downfield, which isn't often shown well on TV. Enjoyed that the CBS crew actually found Stan Kroenke at a Rams game, and found him picking his nose. And are the Patriots really London's favorite NFL team? Dynastic success aside, how illogical is it that Englishmen root for a team named for American Revolution patriots? Is Atlanta's favorite team the Yankees? Is Eastern Europe's favorite team the Reds?
* Who’s next?: The Rams will very much need their upcoming bye week, not just to recover from this miserable performance, but to prepare for what's easily their toughest divisional game of the season, a road visit to the NFC West-leading 49ers. Jeff Fisher and company better start working on the 9-hour flight back from London, too; the Rams will surely lose by 4 TDs (the 49ers always settle for a couple of FGs) if they keep playing like they did in London. San Francisco won both meetings last year, blanking the Rams 26-0 in Candlestick and holding the Rams to 31 yards rushing. There's one player on each side of the ball for San Francisco the Rams need to take special pains to slow down. They can actually win there if they do.
Unfortunately, the first of those players is tight end Vernon Davis, who seems poised for a monster game given the way the Rams non-planned for Rob Gronkowski this week. But it's Davis who's Alex Smith's favorite receiver and who makes the 49ers' downfield game go. The Giants whipped the Niners 26-3 in Candlestick in part because they had a plan for Davis. They bracketed and double-teamed him all day – usually had a LB jam him at the line and release him to the safety. Davis (3-37) barely registered on the boxscore. Without Davis opening up the field, Alex Smith is not a confident downfield thrower, (or a very good one, even – Bradford is markedly better) and the Giants shortened the field on him. They practically conceded the deep ball and jumped all over the short stuff Smith is much more comfortable throwing. That helped them jump out front on the scoreboard, panicking 49ers OC Greg Roman into inadvisedly calling a pass-heavy game plan. Frank Gore carried the ball 8 times against New York. The week prior, Buffalo had no evidence of planning for Davis. He carved them up, making room for Gore and for Michael Crabtree to amplify the damage in a 45-3 pounding. If the Rams are to stop their “Return to 2011” World Tour, they have to stop Vernon Davis. I'm done pretending the Rams have anywhere close to the elite level defensive line I've thought they had. San Francisco's is widely regarded the best offensive line in the league and the Rams may not dent them much anyway. The way the Rams didn't run-defend this week, Gore should be heading their way early and often. So, yes, they have to stop that and they have to be prepared for Colin Kaepernick (who I can totally see breaking loose for an 80-yard TD) out of the Wildcat, but any defensive plan that doesn't have a plan for Davis that's executed successfully is not a winning plan. The Rams lost a lot of confidence in that regard this week and need to make some believers again week after next.
When the Rams are on offense, the 49er they have to stop is Justin Smith. Stopping Justin Smith obviously is easier said than done. You can't do it with just one guy. And the Giants didn't try to. They double-teamed Justin, usually with two linemen, the majority of plays, and when they weren't, they were running or throwing away from him, except in the 2nd half, by which point they'd worn him down. It was a brilliant plan. Double-team Smith and run behind the double-team. That made Ahmad Bradshaw a rare 100-yard rusher against that defense and controlled the clock for New York. The great LBs Patrick Willis and Navarro Bowman had to do most of their tackling downfield. Eli Manning also worked the edges of the field a lot to keep those two out of the middle. The last piece of their plan was to make sure to get a lot of chips on Aldon Smith, who's getting double-teamed a lot more his second season and has been nowhere near as productive as he was last year. (It also helps that the 49ers are one of the league's lightest-blitzing defenses.) The Rams definitely do not have the Giants' receivers or offensive line. But they're likely getting Danny Amendola back, which will help the quick-tempo passing game a lot and limit Aldon Smith as a factor. Getting Rodger Saffold back would be a big boost toward better offensive execution. The 49ers don't have the #1 pass defense in the league for nothing, but the Giants have offered a “blueprint” to beating them. Have and execute a good plan against Justin Smith and make somebody else on that line beat you.
The Rams haven't hit the bye week with any flourish, but they're still a much-improved 3-5 at the halfway point, and could have easily been 5-3. A competitive 3-5 is a decent start, but Jeff Fisher's work is obviously far from done. The Rams have looked pretty flat the last couple of weeks, and almost all of the team looks like it's regressing to some degree. Trips to London don't help that much, but an extra week off should. Time for Fisher to stop this teams' slippage off the rails and get it back on track.
-- Mike
Game stats from nfl.com
RamView, October 28, 2012
From The Couch
(Report and opinions on the game.)
Game #8: Patriots 45, Rams 7
The Rams arrived in London four days earlier, but still played like they were jet-lagged, and got whipped soundly again by the Patriot dynasty. The only silver lining to this ludicrous display was that St. Louis fans didn't have to pay to watch this flashback to 2011 in person.
Position by position:
* QB: Sam Bradford (22-30-205, 88.9 PR) was one of a handful of Rams to have so much as a so-so game against the Patriots. He got the Rams off to a jolly good start, hitting Chris Givens with a perfect 50-yard bomb to give the Rams the lead just 2:30 into the game. And they'd never score again, despite Bradford completing 14 of his first 16 attempts without a sack or a turnover. The fast start fell apart after Givens went to the locker room with a foot ailment. The Rams never seemed to get anyone open downfield after that, blowing up the gameplan on the launching pad. A missed blitz pickup flushed Bradford into a grounding penalty. Another drive stalled on a false start and a dropped pass. A holding penalty killed another drive, but not before Dont'a Hightower nearly killed Bradford by driving him into the ground on the point of his left shoulder. Bradford survived that shot and hit Lance Kendricks twice to get the Rams close enough to botch a field goal attempt. Not much changed after halftime. A missed block flushed Bradford into what might have been an illegal forward pass to kill a drive. A missed block got Bradford dropped for about a hundred yard loss to end another. Bradford got the Rams into long FG range in the 3rd on a 15-yard dig and a pretty 22-yard corner route to Brandon Gibson, but the 2nd-string right tackle who's been a Ram for less than a week got beat on 3rd- and 4th-down for hits that resulted in an incomplete pass and a sack. Bradford got one last chance in the 4th down 45-7; the Rams ran their way into scoring range before another missed block let another Patriot in on him untouched, and he got hit as he threw to cough up an interception. The Rams didn't re-enter the red zone until the final 2:00, thanks to a sweet 39-yard sideline bomb from Kellen Clemens to Brian Quick, but Clemens fouled it up almost instantly with a goal line INT that Tayvon Wilson returned, and despite a good chance at a pick-six, he took a mercy slide at midfield to put the game on ice. Couple more weeks like this from his teammates and Bradford's going to be begging for mercy, and Kellen Clemens is going to be doing a lot more than mopping up.
* RB: For all the trade talk surrounding Steven Jackson (7-23, 2-22 receiving), the Rams didn’t go to much length to feature him in London, though he “popped” a few times. He got the TD drive moving with a 14-yard reception and later stiff-armed Dont’a Hightower for 7 yards. He helped set up the Rams’ FG attempt with a one-handed catch in the flat for 8, followed by a run he bounced outside, putting his head down to churn out a classic Jackson 5. But Steven also got stuffed a couple of times by the hard-to-block Kyle Love, and he disappeared into the London fog with the Rams down 4-plus TDs in the 2nd half. Daryl Richardson (7-53) didn’t really break loose until the 4th, with a 13-yard run through a huge lane behind Brit Miller, and a 20-yard run bounced outside behind Kendricks and Harvey Dahl. Again, the Rams’ problems the rest of the game seemed to affect the amount of action D-Rich got, though it looked like they were going to get him more involved in the short passing game early. Isaiah Pead (3-32) played the last 5:00 and showed a little something. On his first carry, he swept left, then cut back swiftly for 19 behind blocking from Shelley Smith and Robert Turner. The next play, he did a nice job making himself small in the hole and popping through for 5, and he tacked on an 8-yard run up the middle. It was in trash time, but we finally got to see some of the field vision, speed and cutback ability we were expecting from Pead when the Rams drafted him. Whether to trust him with carries in games that aren’t blowouts is the next question.
* Receivers: Chris Givens (3-63) got the offense going in electrifying fashion, whipping safety Tayvon Wilson with a double move to get behind the coverage for a 50-yard TD bomb and a rookie-record fifth-straight game with a play that long. He also sustained some kind of foot injury on that play, though, and was ineffective the rest of the game. That really thwarted the Rams’ plans, because they were pretty clearly planning to attack the Patriots deep, early and often. Brandon Gibson (3-46) made a nice diving 22-yard catch in the 4th, but almost all his production came in garbage time. Austin Pettis’ (3-15) lack of production hasn’t kept him out of the starting slot receiver position, though he did make a nice play to extend the ball across the plane on a 4th-and-1 catch. He’s got no competition from useless (0-0) Steve Smith, though, who only contributed a dropped pass. The tight ends had their heaviest involvement all year. Lance Kendricks (4-32) showed excellent hands a couple of times, and Matthew Mulligan had an 18-yard catch. Kendricks also had blocking problems and a false start, though. Brian Quick again showed up only in garbage time, and though he made one very good 39-yard catch down the sideline, his clueless play hurt the Rams on both interceptions. He quit on the play and failed to touch Alfonzo Dennard down on the first, and Wilson’s late INT might not have happened had Quick gone strong after the ball, which just shouldn’t be a flaw in a big wideout’s play, but has been in Quick’s from the day he arrived in camp. More work for the TEs may help Bradford, but we all know how badly they need Danny Amendola back. Will he be enough, though?
* Offensive line: The number of injuries the Ram offensive line has sustained, and the number of new guys they've had to break in, finally crossed the breaking point this week. The line still run-blocked well, but there was an epidemic of mistakes pass-blocking. It's not really hard to understand why. After injuries to both tackles, one of them the 3rd-string LT, for one play in the 4th, the Rams had Chris Williams, who's been a Ram less than a week, at RT, Tim Barnes, making his pro debut, at LG, and Shelley Smith, brought here to play LG, at LT. That line actually got the Rams one of their best plays of the game, a 13-yard run by D-Rich behind Barnes and Brit Miller. But there's so little experience, let alone experience playing together, that pass-blocking had many disastrous moments. Robert Turner didn't pick up Brandon Spikes on the fire zone blitz that forced Bradford into grounding in the 1st. Smith's blatant hold killed a 2nd-quarter drive that had crossed midfield, then Hightower ran right by Joe Barksdale for the big hit that briefly put Bradford out of the game. Rob Ninkovich made the Rams look like nincompoops in the 2nd half. He beat Kendricks to pressure Bradford into an illegal forward pass. In the 4th, he whipped Williams on back-to-back plays to force an incomplete pass and then sack Bradford on 4th down. Inexperienced tackles + a Bill Belichick defense is not a good combination for an offense. Barksdale gave up the Rams' other sack again not knowing who to block, picking Smith's man instead of Chandler Jones, who stormed in on Bradford untouched. At the end of the game, it was Williams turning the wrong way and letting another Patriot rookie, Justin Francis, run right by and hit Bradford to force an INT. The o-line did run-block well, especially Harvey Dahl, and the middle did good run-blocking work in 4th-quarter garbage time. But in pass protection, they were in so far over their heads this week they were always much likelier to end up like the Titanic than like Michael Phelps. The Rams desperately need Rodger Saffold, if not also Scott Wells, to return to the starting lineup during the bye.
* Defensive line/LB: Defense is supposed to be the anchor of this team, but the overrated defensive line has been more of a boat anchor wrapped around the team’s neck lately. Tom Brady was under no pressure at all this week. Brady got the ball out quickly, Chris Long was unable to get off a block, ever, and with Robert Quinn ineffective on the right side, the Patriots might as well have been scrimmaging 7-on-7. I don’t even have any interesting pass pressures on Brady to talk about. With ineffective blitzes and a shiftless 4-man (and bizarrely at times, 3-man) rush, Brady was not hurried into doing anything a single time. OK, maybe one incompletion in the 3rd. The Rams combined as bad a pass rush as you can get with even worse run defense. It was just pathetic how badly the line got manhandled at times. Long was completely whipped by Rob Gronkowski to spring Stefan Ridley for 30 in the 3rd. That wasn’t even Ridley’s longest run of the half! Later he’d spring for 41, cutting back inside Long lurching 8 yards into the Patriot backfield like a rogue electric football player. Gronkowski was equal opportunity, whipping Quinn on a 10-yard Ridley run in the 4th, but the piece de resistance had to be Ridley’s 20-yard sweep left in the 1st, where Quinn let himself get blocked by… Julian Edelman. Shane Vereen tap-danced in for a TD in the 2nd, behind a block by… Michael Hoomanawanui. Right before halftime, Ridley surged in to make it 28-7, AGAIN behind a block by Illini Mike. When former Rams fullbacks are blocking you, you are having a pathetic game. The guys who are supposed to be the main run supporters, James Laurinaitis and Quintin Mikell, got blocked out of more plays than they made, and spent the day lost and confused in pass coverage as well. Jo-Lonn Dunbar was about the only one of the front seven to make a play, stuffing a couple of runs and blowing up a screen, but even he fouled up on Gronkowski’s 2nd TD. In the middle of the line, all I have from Kendall Langford was a tipped pass that was still caught. From Michael Brockers, just that play where Gronk beat him for a TD. William Hayes had a big tackle-for-loss that enabled the only 3-and-out of the day but committed an undisciplined personal foul later. Tackling was poor, and the Rams’ ability and will to compete with the Patriots physically was worse. Final exhibit: yet another long Ridley run, for 16, in the 3rd. He jump-cuts over Kellen Heard, who’s been knocked to the ground, and creams Craig Dahl at the end of the play for an extra 6-7 yards. The Rams didn’t come to London to play. They’ve gone from having a defensive line that made the team competitive to a defensive line that can’t compete.
* Secondary: The Ram secondary followed its disastrous game against the Packers with an abominable performance against the Patriots. (Please improve soon; I am running out of negative adjectives to surpass “abominable”.) Bradley Fletcher kept two Patriot TD drives alive with THREE pass interference penalties, all on third downs, two of them because he’s unable to cover 63-year old Deion Branch without holding him. Well, that’s lovely progress for him. Janoris Jenkins gave up TWO TDs to Brandon Lloyd, one because he couldn’t figure out what to do with the Patriots in a bunch right formation, the other because he got horribly faked out man-to-man by a Lloyd jab-step and got whipped from the snap. At least Jenkins rallied a little in the 2nd half, saving a TD by stopping Ridley’s 41-yard run and breaking up a couple of passes. If not for the TDs, he might have had an OK game. Cortland Finnegan continues to be the strength of the Ram secondary, holding Wes Welker to 6 catches for 48. Maybe the Rams should have had Finnegan cover Rob Gronkowski (8-146, 2 TD). Maybe they should have had ANYBODY cover Gronkowski. He’s 6'6”, 265; he’s not hard to miss out there. But late in the 1st, he’s wide open for 25 because James Laurinaitis got lost at the LOS. He’s wide open for another 25 two plays later because Quintin Mikell stopped covering him after about a yard. The hell? London became Gronk City on the Patriots’ 3rd TD drive. 17-yard screen catches Craig Dahl blitzing. Mikell useless again on 3rd-and-4, getting beaten for 32. Then, 3rd-and-goal, somebody gets the brilliant idea to cover Gronkowski with… Michael Brockers. TD, Gronkowski, and he’d get a second in the 4th after Jo-Lonn Dunbar couldn’t decide whether to blitz or cover, did neither, and got no rotating help from Laurinaitis or Dahl. If the Rams had a plan to account for Gronkowski, it wasn’t a coherent one. The Rams actually did break up a few attempted passes to Gronkowski; Finnegan, Laurinaitis, Mikell and Trumaine Johnson, who I’m thinking is spoiling for a starting job sometime soon, all pulled off the feat, but that’s lost in the miserable failure of the other plays. Tom Brady is a mortal lock to go into the Hall of Fame, but this week was much too easy, even for him.
* Special teams: Most of the Rams team highlights in London were on punt coverage. Good second effort by Rodney McLeod held Julian Edelman to a 1-yard return in the 1st. And Fletcher stuffed Edelman in the 3rd on the only play all day he didn’t commit a DPI. Most of Johnny Hekker’s punts were close to 50 yards, though he needed a healthy roll on one. Both of Greg Zuerlein’s kickoffs were puzzlingly short, and his only FG attempt never got off the ground after Hekker couldn’t handle a terrible high snap from Jake McQuaide. Only the rainy London weather is sparing you all my Chris Massey rant. Kick return game was inconsistent. A couple got out across the 25, but bad decisions, poor blocking and penalties set the Rams back a couple of other times. Just another aspect of the team that needs to get cleaned up over the bye.
* Strategery: Jeff Fisher's done a good job leading the Rams so far this season, but he appears to be completely out of his league against Bill Belichick, having lost his last two appearances to the Hoodie by the combined score of 104-7, and like the rest of the Rams franchise, hasn't won over the Patriots in a decade. Fisher can carry a grudge against the Rams for ten years – remember him running up the score in a 47-7 Titans win just a couple of years ago? - but against Belichick, he's as helpless as Mr. Coach Klein at the start of the Bourbon Bowl. Maybe he should picture the Hoodie as a puppy dog or a widdle baby. I expected Fisher-led Rams teams to put up a hell of a lot better of a fight than they did in London. Especially given the fight his Titans always put up against the Rams, watching the Rams play today with all the fire of President Obama at the first debate was a bitter pill to swallow. The defense looked completely unprepared for the Patriots, especially in their non-plan for not covering Gronkowski. Especially with Aaron Hernandez out – good Lord, what would New England have scored with him on the field? - that should have been a double-team all day. Instead, the Rams barely single-teamed Gronk and got schooled by Josh Freaking McDaniels. I hope the Ram defense enjoyed the Tower of London and frolicking about the English countryside, because they sure weren't ready for this damn game. The Seahawks beat the Patriots, and the Big Dead beat them IN Foxborough. Losing to them by 38 anywhere is completely unacceptable.
Brian Schottenheimer and the offense I'll cut a tiny bit of slack to. With Givens up and down and offensive linemen dropping like flies, he was working with as little talent as Pat Shurmur ever had to, and it sabotaged a gameplan which appeared poised to bomb away on the Patriots at will. The Rams scored on their opening drive with a beautiful play mix. But Bradford sure was looking deep a lot, and finding no one, even after Givens slowed down and the Rams became unable to stretch the field. I would have expected an adjustment to a shorter-range passing game instead, so I think that’s where Schottenheimer messed up. A pretty big messup, if you ask me. But at least his side of the ball showed a little readiness to play.
* Upon further review: I really did not want to have to write another Rams-Patriots game where the referees were clearly in Bill Belichick’s pocket, but here we are again. Walt Coleman was so pro-Patriot in this game he even pointed in the Rams’ direction when the Patriots committed penalties. We knew it would be a long day early on when they let Lloyd illegally block Dunbar in the 1st to spring Danny Woodhead for 23. It’s OPI to block while a pass is in the air, unless you’re a Patriot. If the refs want to make tight DPI calls on Fletcher, that’s fine, but call it both ways. When Pettis went out of bounds in the 1st, there was contact beyond five yards. He got grabbed by Marquise Cole again in the 4th; no call for that. Lloyd broke up an end zone INT for Fletcher by grabbing him just as much as anything Fletcher got flagged for. A lot of flags came out WELL after the end of the plays to boot. But Bradford gets driven into the ground well after he’s released the ball in the 2nd – Hightower had plenty of time to let up – and there’s no flag. The Fox blue line, which I realize is not official, showed Bradford’s back foot on or behind the LOS on his illegal forward pass, so that may have been a legal play. Rams were blatantly held on some of the long Patriot runs, including Cudjo and Stewart on Ridley’s 41-yard run. No calls. Ridley deserved a taunting penalty after getting in Dahl’s face after his first good run. But of course there’d be no flag there. He’s a Patriot! The Rams ended up with 102 penalty yards; New England, 42. You tell me.
* Cheers: The game broadcast by CBS' #1 team was good at times, and at other times sounded like Jim Nantz and Phil Simms had done too much sight-seeing, or pub-crawling. Nantz misses more spots than I do, which is an achievement, and described Brandon Gibson as “impressive.” No hint from the booth that Hightower's big hit on Bradford ought to have been a penalty. Simms did a good job describing the illegal forward pass rule, but the call itself certainly was not borne out by the CBS blue line, making it a lot less obvious than the booth suggested. CBS and Simms did show a lot of good footage of Ram receivers failing to get open downfield, which isn't often shown well on TV. Enjoyed that the CBS crew actually found Stan Kroenke at a Rams game, and found him picking his nose. And are the Patriots really London's favorite NFL team? Dynastic success aside, how illogical is it that Englishmen root for a team named for American Revolution patriots? Is Atlanta's favorite team the Yankees? Is Eastern Europe's favorite team the Reds?
* Who’s next?: The Rams will very much need their upcoming bye week, not just to recover from this miserable performance, but to prepare for what's easily their toughest divisional game of the season, a road visit to the NFC West-leading 49ers. Jeff Fisher and company better start working on the 9-hour flight back from London, too; the Rams will surely lose by 4 TDs (the 49ers always settle for a couple of FGs) if they keep playing like they did in London. San Francisco won both meetings last year, blanking the Rams 26-0 in Candlestick and holding the Rams to 31 yards rushing. There's one player on each side of the ball for San Francisco the Rams need to take special pains to slow down. They can actually win there if they do.
Unfortunately, the first of those players is tight end Vernon Davis, who seems poised for a monster game given the way the Rams non-planned for Rob Gronkowski this week. But it's Davis who's Alex Smith's favorite receiver and who makes the 49ers' downfield game go. The Giants whipped the Niners 26-3 in Candlestick in part because they had a plan for Davis. They bracketed and double-teamed him all day – usually had a LB jam him at the line and release him to the safety. Davis (3-37) barely registered on the boxscore. Without Davis opening up the field, Alex Smith is not a confident downfield thrower, (or a very good one, even – Bradford is markedly better) and the Giants shortened the field on him. They practically conceded the deep ball and jumped all over the short stuff Smith is much more comfortable throwing. That helped them jump out front on the scoreboard, panicking 49ers OC Greg Roman into inadvisedly calling a pass-heavy game plan. Frank Gore carried the ball 8 times against New York. The week prior, Buffalo had no evidence of planning for Davis. He carved them up, making room for Gore and for Michael Crabtree to amplify the damage in a 45-3 pounding. If the Rams are to stop their “Return to 2011” World Tour, they have to stop Vernon Davis. I'm done pretending the Rams have anywhere close to the elite level defensive line I've thought they had. San Francisco's is widely regarded the best offensive line in the league and the Rams may not dent them much anyway. The way the Rams didn't run-defend this week, Gore should be heading their way early and often. So, yes, they have to stop that and they have to be prepared for Colin Kaepernick (who I can totally see breaking loose for an 80-yard TD) out of the Wildcat, but any defensive plan that doesn't have a plan for Davis that's executed successfully is not a winning plan. The Rams lost a lot of confidence in that regard this week and need to make some believers again week after next.
When the Rams are on offense, the 49er they have to stop is Justin Smith. Stopping Justin Smith obviously is easier said than done. You can't do it with just one guy. And the Giants didn't try to. They double-teamed Justin, usually with two linemen, the majority of plays, and when they weren't, they were running or throwing away from him, except in the 2nd half, by which point they'd worn him down. It was a brilliant plan. Double-team Smith and run behind the double-team. That made Ahmad Bradshaw a rare 100-yard rusher against that defense and controlled the clock for New York. The great LBs Patrick Willis and Navarro Bowman had to do most of their tackling downfield. Eli Manning also worked the edges of the field a lot to keep those two out of the middle. The last piece of their plan was to make sure to get a lot of chips on Aldon Smith, who's getting double-teamed a lot more his second season and has been nowhere near as productive as he was last year. (It also helps that the 49ers are one of the league's lightest-blitzing defenses.) The Rams definitely do not have the Giants' receivers or offensive line. But they're likely getting Danny Amendola back, which will help the quick-tempo passing game a lot and limit Aldon Smith as a factor. Getting Rodger Saffold back would be a big boost toward better offensive execution. The 49ers don't have the #1 pass defense in the league for nothing, but the Giants have offered a “blueprint” to beating them. Have and execute a good plan against Justin Smith and make somebody else on that line beat you.
The Rams haven't hit the bye week with any flourish, but they're still a much-improved 3-5 at the halfway point, and could have easily been 5-3. A competitive 3-5 is a decent start, but Jeff Fisher's work is obviously far from done. The Rams have looked pretty flat the last couple of weeks, and almost all of the team looks like it's regressing to some degree. Trips to London don't help that much, but an extra week off should. Time for Fisher to stop this teams' slippage off the rails and get it back on track.
-- Mike
Game stats from nfl.com
