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Same Old Reasons Are To Blame For Rams’ Latest Defeat
Posted by: Bernie Miklasz
http://www.101sports.com/2015/11/09/same-old-reasons-are-to-blame-for-rams-latest-defeat/
When the Rams are at their worst, the underlying reasons are familiar and predictable. The way it all goes down is so numbingly dull, so routine, the Rams can’t even come with new and exciting ways to lose a game. Hey, at least they’re consistent at something.
The Rams formula for frustration should be trademarked by head coach Jeff Fisher.
The specifications include:
— Bad penalties, dumbo penalties, untimely penalties — and a general lack of discipline. These folks commit more errors than Dick Groat (40 for the 1964 baseball Cardinals), and spend more time in the penalty box than Bob Gassoff (306 minutes for the 1975-76 Blues.)
— An offense that would require the navigational assistance of some of history’s greatest explorers — Lewis and Clark, Edmund Hillary, Kurt Warner, Christopher Columbus, Marshall Faulk, Ponce de Leon, Az Hakim, Marco Polo, Isaac Bruce, Ferdinand Magellan, Torry Holt, Amerigo Vespucci, and Ricky Proehl — to reach the end zone on a regular basis.
— A passing game that’s so ineffective, it brings back memories of Steve Pisarkiewicz.
— A success rate in converting third-down plays that’s so poor, it would only be fair to give them five downs, just like the 1990 Colorado Buffaloes in that infamous 1990 game at Mizzou.
These flaws surfaced again Sunday at Minnesota.
In losing to 21-18 to the Vikings in overtime, the Rams mishandled a 15-10 halftime lead, went bankrupt on an opportunity to win a third consecutive game, and squandered the chance to leave the Twin Cities with a 5-3 record. Instead of improving their odds of making the playoffs, the Rams fell to 4-4 and drifted lower in the unofficial NFC wild card standings.
We can point the finger at Fisher’s odd (and failed) decision to go for a two-point conversion after the Rams cut into the Vikings’ 10-lead when Todd Gurley wrestled his way to touchdown run late in the first quarter.
We can be so frustrated by the play calling — and this team’s bizarre refusal to utilize the middle of the field in the passing game — that it makes us want to rub the TV watch-party guacamole in our faces.
We can gripe about the ultra-conservative approach that makes Ted Cruz look a liberal by comparison. (OK, I’m guilty of a mixed sports-politics metaphor there; forgive me but it’s late Sunday night as I write this and my brain is weary.)
And some will even try to blame this on the Rams defense for giving up 21 points, including two red-zone touchdowns on runs by Adrian Peterson and Teddy Bridgewater. The defense could have played better, yes. Their pass-rush pressure was way off. But to dump this on the defense is misplaced. The Rams held the Vikings to a below-average 293 total yards, stopped the home team on 10 of 13 third-down plays, limited Minnesota’s quarterbacks to a 57.5 passer rating, and forced eight punts.
Over the last five-plus NFL seasons, when a visiting team goes into the opponent’s den and gives up exactly 21 points, they’d posted a 21-12 record (.636 winning percentage) through last weekend. While imperfect — and certainly guilty of too many committing knucklehead penalties — the Rams defense wasn’t the culprit here.
Really, this winnable game became an opportunity lost for the same reasons that usually blow up the Rams’ unsteady bandwagon: excessive penalties, an unimaginative and clumsy passing offense, and an incomprehensible third-down futility that’s reached historically low levels.
The Rams were penalized 12 times for 93 yards. I had a feeling this could happen; on Friday, I wrote a warning about the potentially hazardous impact of too many penalties. But this team’s penalty epidemic has been a major detriment since Fisher became coach in 2012. The Rams have been hit with the most penalties (444) in the league since 2012, and the lapses in discipline are often costly.
This was certainly true in Sunday’s game. Of Minnesota’s 21 first downs, six came via Rams penalties. On the two early possessions that produced a 10-0 lead, the Vikings took advantage of four St. Louis penalties. And if you think a high penalty count isn’t a factor in losing football games, I don’t know what to tell you. Well, actually I do. When the Rams have been assessed with at least 10 penalties in a game with Fisher as coach, their record is 3-9-1. And when Rams have been hit with at least 12 penalties in a game under Fisher, they’re 1-6-1.
The offense continues to sputter. The Rams had 14 possessions in Sunday’s defeat, and five of the 14 were three-and-out drives. That makes 27 three-and-outs in 98 possessions this series, a rate (27.5%) that puts them bear the bottom of the NFL. These three-and-outs are killers for obvious reasons — with one being that it gives Gurley fewer opportunities to break off a big run. These aborted drives also put more of a burden on the Rams defense.
The Rams have scored 18 points or fewer in nearly half (46.4%) of Fisher’s 56 games as head coach. And when they max out at 18 points in a game during Fisher’s term, the Rams’ record is 4-22. This is something I’ve been yapping about for quite some time now; you can’t expect to string together wins with an offense that’s so limited in points production. Yeah, you can win games if Gurley is rushing for 140 yards and breaking the opponents’ backs with long runs — especially if the Rams defense is partnering with Gurley to pound the other side with sacks, pressures, negative plays and takeaways. But we have to be realistic about this; it can’t (and won’t) happen in every game. The Rams need to make more plays — first downs and touchdowns — to win more consistently.
The Rams scored one touchdown on their 15 series against Minnesota. Field goals are a nice consolation but can’t match the impact of touchdowns. Through their first eight games, the Rams’ offense has scored 14 touchdowns on 98 possessions for a TD success rate of 14.2 percent. That touchdown efficiency puts the Rams at No. 30 in the NFL rankings.
Not only that, but a Rams’ offense hasn’t scored touchdowns at a lower rate since the 2011 Rams managed a touchdown on only 8.2 percent of their possessions.
So halfway through the 2015 season — and granted, this could improve — this is Fisher’s worst offense for scoring touchdowns since he moved in at Rams Park.
Sunday in Minnesota, the Rams’ followed up on their hopeful 15-point first half by scoring only three more points and accumulating a mere 102 yards of offense over their final eight possessions. Quarterback Nick Foles had only 29 net passing yards after halftime.
After being up 15-10 at the half, and having a chance to expand on their lead, the Rams went flat — with only 48 yards (and five punts) on their first five possessions of the second half.
The Rams intercepted a pass on Minnesota’s first possession of the third quarter — and the Rams offense came onto the field after the takeaway, lost 10 yards, and punted.
In their one shot in overtime, the Rams lost six yards and punted; Minnesota promptly moved in for the winning field goal.
It was another depressing display, but we shouldn’t be surprised by it. The Rams’ offense is averaging 17 points per game this season; only San Francisco has done worse.
This is Fisher’s fourth season here, and he’s never had an offense average more than 17.4 points per game (that, in 2013.) Fisher’s first offense, back in 2012, was also his lowest-scoring offense, averaging 14.8 points per contest. Four years into his program, Fisher’s offense has increased its scoring average by a little more than two points per game. The progress is negligible.
Obviously, the terrible failure to move the chains on third down is paramount in the struggles. After converting only 2 of 16 against the Vikings, the Rams’ third-down success rate for the 2015 slipped to 23.7 percent. This is really awful.
So awful that I went back through the STATS LLC research bank and couldn’t find an NFL offense that had a poorer third-down rate in a season. I had to stop at 1972, because that was the first year STATS tracked the third-down percentages. Among the more recent seasons only San Francisco — 24 percent in 2005 was close — to the Rams’ current futility.
Foles is hardly the only problem on third down. There’s little evidence of creative strategy. The receivers don’t get open. Dropped passes are dropped opportunities. There are too many breakdowns in pass protection.
Statistically Foles is as sorry as any quarterback in the league in third-down passing, completing only 46.4 percent, averaging a dinky 5.31 yards per attempt, and bogged down in a 62.9 passer rating. Only 22.6 percent of his third-down throws have picked up a first down.
(And forget third downs for a moment; Foles had a chance to give the Rams a huge lift early in Sunday’s game, but failed to spot a streaking Kenny Britt downfield to make connections on a likely home-run pass. Foles and the Rams can’t miss on easy chances for big plays. They just can’t.)
And as we mentioned earlier, the Rams simply make themselves easy to defend by declining to utilize the middle of the field when they sling the football. (I’ll post updated numbers on that on Monday.) It makes no sense.
Even with all of the inefficiencies and screw-ups, the Rams were right there on Sunday — having a chance to claim a victory, and I suppose we can draw some hope and optimism from that. But we can’t can’t gloss over the potential repercussions of the Rams’ inability to capture a winnable game. According the site FiveThirtyEight.com, the Rams had a 26 percent chance of making the NFC playoffs before their game with the Vikings. And the loss left them with a 20 percent chance of qualifying for the NFC tournament.
Here’s a rundown of the positioning for the two NFC wild-card spots:
Green Bay and Minnesota are tied for the NFC North lead at 6-2. One will win the division; the other will be relegated to the wild-card pool.
Atlanta is second in the NFC South at 6-3.
St. Louis and Seattle are tied for second in the NFC West at 4-4.
Philadelphia is second in the NFC East at 4-4.
The Rams have to make their move, make up ground, and the upcoming schedule will give them a chance to climb back. But we waste a lot of time talking about hypothetical victories. The truth is, the Rams won’t be able to make a serious run for a playoff ticket unless they clean up their penalty problems, increase their woeful performance on third down, and begin scoring more touchdowns. The Rams are a pretty good team that has to solve some pretty bad problems.
Thanks for reading …
–Bernie
Posted by: Bernie Miklasz
http://www.101sports.com/2015/11/09/same-old-reasons-are-to-blame-for-rams-latest-defeat/
When the Rams are at their worst, the underlying reasons are familiar and predictable. The way it all goes down is so numbingly dull, so routine, the Rams can’t even come with new and exciting ways to lose a game. Hey, at least they’re consistent at something.
The Rams formula for frustration should be trademarked by head coach Jeff Fisher.
The specifications include:
— Bad penalties, dumbo penalties, untimely penalties — and a general lack of discipline. These folks commit more errors than Dick Groat (40 for the 1964 baseball Cardinals), and spend more time in the penalty box than Bob Gassoff (306 minutes for the 1975-76 Blues.)
— An offense that would require the navigational assistance of some of history’s greatest explorers — Lewis and Clark, Edmund Hillary, Kurt Warner, Christopher Columbus, Marshall Faulk, Ponce de Leon, Az Hakim, Marco Polo, Isaac Bruce, Ferdinand Magellan, Torry Holt, Amerigo Vespucci, and Ricky Proehl — to reach the end zone on a regular basis.
— A passing game that’s so ineffective, it brings back memories of Steve Pisarkiewicz.
— A success rate in converting third-down plays that’s so poor, it would only be fair to give them five downs, just like the 1990 Colorado Buffaloes in that infamous 1990 game at Mizzou.
These flaws surfaced again Sunday at Minnesota.
In losing to 21-18 to the Vikings in overtime, the Rams mishandled a 15-10 halftime lead, went bankrupt on an opportunity to win a third consecutive game, and squandered the chance to leave the Twin Cities with a 5-3 record. Instead of improving their odds of making the playoffs, the Rams fell to 4-4 and drifted lower in the unofficial NFC wild card standings.
We can point the finger at Fisher’s odd (and failed) decision to go for a two-point conversion after the Rams cut into the Vikings’ 10-lead when Todd Gurley wrestled his way to touchdown run late in the first quarter.
We can be so frustrated by the play calling — and this team’s bizarre refusal to utilize the middle of the field in the passing game — that it makes us want to rub the TV watch-party guacamole in our faces.
We can gripe about the ultra-conservative approach that makes Ted Cruz look a liberal by comparison. (OK, I’m guilty of a mixed sports-politics metaphor there; forgive me but it’s late Sunday night as I write this and my brain is weary.)
And some will even try to blame this on the Rams defense for giving up 21 points, including two red-zone touchdowns on runs by Adrian Peterson and Teddy Bridgewater. The defense could have played better, yes. Their pass-rush pressure was way off. But to dump this on the defense is misplaced. The Rams held the Vikings to a below-average 293 total yards, stopped the home team on 10 of 13 third-down plays, limited Minnesota’s quarterbacks to a 57.5 passer rating, and forced eight punts.
Over the last five-plus NFL seasons, when a visiting team goes into the opponent’s den and gives up exactly 21 points, they’d posted a 21-12 record (.636 winning percentage) through last weekend. While imperfect — and certainly guilty of too many committing knucklehead penalties — the Rams defense wasn’t the culprit here.
Really, this winnable game became an opportunity lost for the same reasons that usually blow up the Rams’ unsteady bandwagon: excessive penalties, an unimaginative and clumsy passing offense, and an incomprehensible third-down futility that’s reached historically low levels.
The Rams were penalized 12 times for 93 yards. I had a feeling this could happen; on Friday, I wrote a warning about the potentially hazardous impact of too many penalties. But this team’s penalty epidemic has been a major detriment since Fisher became coach in 2012. The Rams have been hit with the most penalties (444) in the league since 2012, and the lapses in discipline are often costly.
This was certainly true in Sunday’s game. Of Minnesota’s 21 first downs, six came via Rams penalties. On the two early possessions that produced a 10-0 lead, the Vikings took advantage of four St. Louis penalties. And if you think a high penalty count isn’t a factor in losing football games, I don’t know what to tell you. Well, actually I do. When the Rams have been assessed with at least 10 penalties in a game with Fisher as coach, their record is 3-9-1. And when Rams have been hit with at least 12 penalties in a game under Fisher, they’re 1-6-1.
The offense continues to sputter. The Rams had 14 possessions in Sunday’s defeat, and five of the 14 were three-and-out drives. That makes 27 three-and-outs in 98 possessions this series, a rate (27.5%) that puts them bear the bottom of the NFL. These three-and-outs are killers for obvious reasons — with one being that it gives Gurley fewer opportunities to break off a big run. These aborted drives also put more of a burden on the Rams defense.
The Rams have scored 18 points or fewer in nearly half (46.4%) of Fisher’s 56 games as head coach. And when they max out at 18 points in a game during Fisher’s term, the Rams’ record is 4-22. This is something I’ve been yapping about for quite some time now; you can’t expect to string together wins with an offense that’s so limited in points production. Yeah, you can win games if Gurley is rushing for 140 yards and breaking the opponents’ backs with long runs — especially if the Rams defense is partnering with Gurley to pound the other side with sacks, pressures, negative plays and takeaways. But we have to be realistic about this; it can’t (and won’t) happen in every game. The Rams need to make more plays — first downs and touchdowns — to win more consistently.
The Rams scored one touchdown on their 15 series against Minnesota. Field goals are a nice consolation but can’t match the impact of touchdowns. Through their first eight games, the Rams’ offense has scored 14 touchdowns on 98 possessions for a TD success rate of 14.2 percent. That touchdown efficiency puts the Rams at No. 30 in the NFL rankings.
Not only that, but a Rams’ offense hasn’t scored touchdowns at a lower rate since the 2011 Rams managed a touchdown on only 8.2 percent of their possessions.
So halfway through the 2015 season — and granted, this could improve — this is Fisher’s worst offense for scoring touchdowns since he moved in at Rams Park.
Sunday in Minnesota, the Rams’ followed up on their hopeful 15-point first half by scoring only three more points and accumulating a mere 102 yards of offense over their final eight possessions. Quarterback Nick Foles had only 29 net passing yards after halftime.
After being up 15-10 at the half, and having a chance to expand on their lead, the Rams went flat — with only 48 yards (and five punts) on their first five possessions of the second half.
The Rams intercepted a pass on Minnesota’s first possession of the third quarter — and the Rams offense came onto the field after the takeaway, lost 10 yards, and punted.
In their one shot in overtime, the Rams lost six yards and punted; Minnesota promptly moved in for the winning field goal.
It was another depressing display, but we shouldn’t be surprised by it. The Rams’ offense is averaging 17 points per game this season; only San Francisco has done worse.
This is Fisher’s fourth season here, and he’s never had an offense average more than 17.4 points per game (that, in 2013.) Fisher’s first offense, back in 2012, was also his lowest-scoring offense, averaging 14.8 points per contest. Four years into his program, Fisher’s offense has increased its scoring average by a little more than two points per game. The progress is negligible.
Obviously, the terrible failure to move the chains on third down is paramount in the struggles. After converting only 2 of 16 against the Vikings, the Rams’ third-down success rate for the 2015 slipped to 23.7 percent. This is really awful.
So awful that I went back through the STATS LLC research bank and couldn’t find an NFL offense that had a poorer third-down rate in a season. I had to stop at 1972, because that was the first year STATS tracked the third-down percentages. Among the more recent seasons only San Francisco — 24 percent in 2005 was close — to the Rams’ current futility.
Foles is hardly the only problem on third down. There’s little evidence of creative strategy. The receivers don’t get open. Dropped passes are dropped opportunities. There are too many breakdowns in pass protection.
Statistically Foles is as sorry as any quarterback in the league in third-down passing, completing only 46.4 percent, averaging a dinky 5.31 yards per attempt, and bogged down in a 62.9 passer rating. Only 22.6 percent of his third-down throws have picked up a first down.
(And forget third downs for a moment; Foles had a chance to give the Rams a huge lift early in Sunday’s game, but failed to spot a streaking Kenny Britt downfield to make connections on a likely home-run pass. Foles and the Rams can’t miss on easy chances for big plays. They just can’t.)
And as we mentioned earlier, the Rams simply make themselves easy to defend by declining to utilize the middle of the field when they sling the football. (I’ll post updated numbers on that on Monday.) It makes no sense.
Even with all of the inefficiencies and screw-ups, the Rams were right there on Sunday — having a chance to claim a victory, and I suppose we can draw some hope and optimism from that. But we can’t can’t gloss over the potential repercussions of the Rams’ inability to capture a winnable game. According the site FiveThirtyEight.com, the Rams had a 26 percent chance of making the NFC playoffs before their game with the Vikings. And the loss left them with a 20 percent chance of qualifying for the NFC tournament.
Here’s a rundown of the positioning for the two NFC wild-card spots:
Green Bay and Minnesota are tied for the NFC North lead at 6-2. One will win the division; the other will be relegated to the wild-card pool.
Atlanta is second in the NFC South at 6-3.
St. Louis and Seattle are tied for second in the NFC West at 4-4.
Philadelphia is second in the NFC East at 4-4.
The Rams have to make their move, make up ground, and the upcoming schedule will give them a chance to climb back. But we waste a lot of time talking about hypothetical victories. The truth is, the Rams won’t be able to make a serious run for a playoff ticket unless they clean up their penalty problems, increase their woeful performance on third down, and begin scoring more touchdowns. The Rams are a pretty good team that has to solve some pretty bad problems.
Thanks for reading …
–Bernie
