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Rams will try to top the talk in Arizona
• By Jim Thomas
http://www.stltoday.com/sports/foot...cle_79933f00-19d4-551a-8e28-50327c592ac1.html
Blunt-talking Bruce Arians couldn’t resist rubbing the Rams’ noses in it late last season when his Arizona Cardinals won a Thursday night slugfest 12-6. His one-two punch in his postgame press conference went as follows:
“Everybody that wanted to talk all that stuff about how great their defense is, I think they saw a good defense tonight. It was in red and white.”
Ouch! And he followed that with:
“I love it when nobody says you’re gonna have a chance to win. There’s an 11-3 team, and a team that’s always 8-8. You figure it out.”
Double ouch!
At the time, the Rams were coming off back-to-back shutouts of Oakland and Washington. As for the Cardinals, they were en route to an 11-5 record and a wild-card playoff berth — doing so despite the absence of star quarterback Carson Palmer for 10 games due to injury.
In a sense, not that much has changed as the NFC West foes renew their rivalry Sunday in Glendale, Ariz. Kickoff is 3:25 p.m. (St. Louis time) at University of Phoenix Stadium.
The Cardinals, with a healthy Palmer, are 3-0 and one of the NFL’s hottest teams.
As for the Rams (1-2), well, they haven’t even been 8-8 since 2006, so maybe Arians — now in his third season as Big Red coach — was being too kind.
Save for a bad first half in Washington, the Rams’ defense has played well. As for the offense? After a promising opening-day performance against Seattle, it has degenerated to milk carton status. That’s right, disappeared.
Arians’ comments were in circulation this week, and several Rams defenders were aware of them during the practice week at Rams Park. But most declined to nibble when reminded.
Any thoughts on Arians’ remarks, coach Jeff Fisher?
“No, none whatsoever,” Fisher said evenly, with his best poker face. “He’s an outstanding coach. They’ve got one of the top teams in the NFC, and that’s a great challenge for us.”
How about you, linebacker James Laurinaitis?
“He’s entitled to his opinion,” Laurinaitis replied.
Do you have an opinion?
“I do have an opinion,” Laurinaitis said. “I will keep it to myself.”
But defensive tackle Michael Brockers elaborated on what many on the probably team felt.
“When somebody takes a shot like that, at your team, you try not to look into it,” Brockers said. “But deep inside, it’s a little fire in you saying, ‘OK, I’ve got to get these guys back.’
“We haven’t taken any shots at them, any shots in the media at all. We have a lot of respect for them, to be honest with you. We’ll see Sunday who’s the better team. If it’s them, it’s them. If it’s us, it’s us.”
Almost universally, most people outside the confines of Rams Park expect Arizona to be the better team Sunday.
“We really don’t care about those people,” said Rams tight end Jared Cook. “All the naysayers and the negatives, we don’t even condone any of that. We don’t put any of that in our head.”
But who wouldn’t feel that way on the outside? The Cardinals are firing on all cylinders.
Coming off a 47-7 crush job of San Francisco, Bill Bidwill’s Big Red have scored 126 points in three games. Not only does that point total lead the NFL, it’s tied for fourth-most in league history after three games.
They have scored 40 points in back-to-back games for the first time since 1969, when Charley Winner was the coach, Charley Johnson and Jim Hart were the quarterbacks, and Busch Stadium was home.
Palmer has won his last nine starts, wide receiver Larry Fitzgerald is one of the league’s hottest pass-catchers, and the Arizona secondary — AKA the “No Fly Zone” — already has seven interceptions with three returned for touchdowns.
“I’ve said it before, they’re playing at a really high level right now,” Cook said. “So we have to get our minds right to go in there and do something to disrupt that. We know it’s not gonna be easy.”
“They have a lot of weapons,” Brockers said. “Those guys are good, so we’ve gotta bring our ‘A’ game. I think if we can win this game, it’ll bump our confidence up.”
The Rams have reason to take at least some degree of confidence into the game. They’ve played the Cardinals pretty tough in recent seasons; Fisher’s Rams are 3-3 against them.
The Cardinals swept the season series in 2014, with that 12-6 contest last Dec. 11 in St. Louis preceded by a 31-14 loss at Arizona on Nov. 9. But Arizona led by just 17-14 midway through the fourth quarter in that one before the Cardinals returned an Austin Davis interception and a Davis fumble for touchdowns to close out the game.
“We feel we’ve played these guys very hard the last few times we’ve played ’em defensively,” Laurinaitis said. “When we were down there last time, we really got after ’em.
“We feel very confident on how we match up to them. And it’s a division game. You don’t need any motivation. When you play anybody in the division, it’s time to roll, and things get more intense.”
But if the Rams needed any additional motivation, there are always those words from Arians last time they met.
“I try not to really read into press conferences and newspaper articles too much,” said defensive end William Hayes, one of the Rams’ elder statesmen at age 30. “We’ll just see Sunday. Our goal is go out there and be the best defense on the field. And I’m pretty sure they’ll say the same goal. So we’re just gonna go out there and play good, solid football.”
And see who’s talking afterwards.
Jim Thomas @jthom1 on Twitter jthomas@post-dispatch.com
• By Jim Thomas
http://www.stltoday.com/sports/foot...cle_79933f00-19d4-551a-8e28-50327c592ac1.html
Blunt-talking Bruce Arians couldn’t resist rubbing the Rams’ noses in it late last season when his Arizona Cardinals won a Thursday night slugfest 12-6. His one-two punch in his postgame press conference went as follows:
“Everybody that wanted to talk all that stuff about how great their defense is, I think they saw a good defense tonight. It was in red and white.”
Ouch! And he followed that with:
“I love it when nobody says you’re gonna have a chance to win. There’s an 11-3 team, and a team that’s always 8-8. You figure it out.”
Double ouch!
At the time, the Rams were coming off back-to-back shutouts of Oakland and Washington. As for the Cardinals, they were en route to an 11-5 record and a wild-card playoff berth — doing so despite the absence of star quarterback Carson Palmer for 10 games due to injury.
In a sense, not that much has changed as the NFC West foes renew their rivalry Sunday in Glendale, Ariz. Kickoff is 3:25 p.m. (St. Louis time) at University of Phoenix Stadium.
The Cardinals, with a healthy Palmer, are 3-0 and one of the NFL’s hottest teams.
As for the Rams (1-2), well, they haven’t even been 8-8 since 2006, so maybe Arians — now in his third season as Big Red coach — was being too kind.
Save for a bad first half in Washington, the Rams’ defense has played well. As for the offense? After a promising opening-day performance against Seattle, it has degenerated to milk carton status. That’s right, disappeared.
Arians’ comments were in circulation this week, and several Rams defenders were aware of them during the practice week at Rams Park. But most declined to nibble when reminded.
Any thoughts on Arians’ remarks, coach Jeff Fisher?
“No, none whatsoever,” Fisher said evenly, with his best poker face. “He’s an outstanding coach. They’ve got one of the top teams in the NFC, and that’s a great challenge for us.”
How about you, linebacker James Laurinaitis?
“He’s entitled to his opinion,” Laurinaitis replied.
Do you have an opinion?
“I do have an opinion,” Laurinaitis said. “I will keep it to myself.”
But defensive tackle Michael Brockers elaborated on what many on the probably team felt.
“When somebody takes a shot like that, at your team, you try not to look into it,” Brockers said. “But deep inside, it’s a little fire in you saying, ‘OK, I’ve got to get these guys back.’
“We haven’t taken any shots at them, any shots in the media at all. We have a lot of respect for them, to be honest with you. We’ll see Sunday who’s the better team. If it’s them, it’s them. If it’s us, it’s us.”
Almost universally, most people outside the confines of Rams Park expect Arizona to be the better team Sunday.
“We really don’t care about those people,” said Rams tight end Jared Cook. “All the naysayers and the negatives, we don’t even condone any of that. We don’t put any of that in our head.”
But who wouldn’t feel that way on the outside? The Cardinals are firing on all cylinders.
Coming off a 47-7 crush job of San Francisco, Bill Bidwill’s Big Red have scored 126 points in three games. Not only does that point total lead the NFL, it’s tied for fourth-most in league history after three games.
They have scored 40 points in back-to-back games for the first time since 1969, when Charley Winner was the coach, Charley Johnson and Jim Hart were the quarterbacks, and Busch Stadium was home.
Palmer has won his last nine starts, wide receiver Larry Fitzgerald is one of the league’s hottest pass-catchers, and the Arizona secondary — AKA the “No Fly Zone” — already has seven interceptions with three returned for touchdowns.
“I’ve said it before, they’re playing at a really high level right now,” Cook said. “So we have to get our minds right to go in there and do something to disrupt that. We know it’s not gonna be easy.”
“They have a lot of weapons,” Brockers said. “Those guys are good, so we’ve gotta bring our ‘A’ game. I think if we can win this game, it’ll bump our confidence up.”
The Rams have reason to take at least some degree of confidence into the game. They’ve played the Cardinals pretty tough in recent seasons; Fisher’s Rams are 3-3 against them.
The Cardinals swept the season series in 2014, with that 12-6 contest last Dec. 11 in St. Louis preceded by a 31-14 loss at Arizona on Nov. 9. But Arizona led by just 17-14 midway through the fourth quarter in that one before the Cardinals returned an Austin Davis interception and a Davis fumble for touchdowns to close out the game.
“We feel we’ve played these guys very hard the last few times we’ve played ’em defensively,” Laurinaitis said. “When we were down there last time, we really got after ’em.
“We feel very confident on how we match up to them. And it’s a division game. You don’t need any motivation. When you play anybody in the division, it’s time to roll, and things get more intense.”
But if the Rams needed any additional motivation, there are always those words from Arians last time they met.
“I try not to really read into press conferences and newspaper articles too much,” said defensive end William Hayes, one of the Rams’ elder statesmen at age 30. “We’ll just see Sunday. Our goal is go out there and be the best defense on the field. And I’m pretty sure they’ll say the same goal. So we’re just gonna go out there and play good, solid football.”
And see who’s talking afterwards.
Jim Thomas @jthom1 on Twitter jthomas@post-dispatch.com
