Schottey out as OC

[DR RAM]

Late to the party, geez, walk away for a couple of days and this... Took me a couple hours to read through this thread, and these are my thoughts:

I have, and have never had a problem with Shotty's play calling. I seem to be in the minority, but I also, always try to look at the whole picture, which changes, game to game, season to season, QB to QB, RB to RB, etc. We have been dealt shitty hand for several years now, and have absolutely no stability, in any phase of the game, for several years now. Fisher took on a complete rebuild, then didn't have the services of the one guy that he came over here for, neither did Shotty, who got to work with rookies, UDFA QB's, backup QB's, UDFA RB's, a horrible offensive line, which has been addressed, but didn't really pan out. Receivers that have taken a while to develop, etc.

Oh, and we seem to play the toughest schedule in football almost every year. I'm not crying, I'm not making excuses, this is fact.

I wish Brian well, he was better than a lot of OC's that I've seen in my 40+ years as a Rams fan. I hope that we find a genius to replace him, and I also hope that we don't have any more devastating injuries in the near future, because we have had more than our share. I hope that we hit on every offensive lineman that we bring in from now on, as well as get stability from our QB's, whomever they may be. Without these things, we will never be the team that we all want us to be.

I'm still with Fisher, and Snead, and I think we are still going on the right direction, as long as we can get a couple positions in place, and sorted.

One thing that I'll add, is that it will be hard to hire/land a new OC, until we have our QB situation figured out...just saying.

 

[Rmfnlt]

I specifically said i think it's possible it went down the way they said it did, and i do. But i also think it's possible it didn't. You can't really know. Most people will say the politically correct polite thing in theses situations regardless. But again, he's not here anymore and he didn't leave for a HC gig. So alternate explanations seem like real possibilities to me too...

I am so confused by this... it's possible it went down the way they say... and it's possible it went down another way.

I guess you have all the bases covered!

 

[MrMotes]

I am so confused by this... it's possible it went down the way they say... and it's possible it went down another way.

I guess you have all the bases covered!

Yep. I think there's more than one possibility.

But the more i think about it and listen to what others are saying, i think the most likely scenario is BS left to jump start his career. Nobody was talking about him as a HC anymore (and they sure used to). Things were kind of stalling out. If he wanted to try and change his trajectory, a move is a good idea, even a step down to the same job in college might do the trick.

So i kind of doubt he was forced out and hiring from within seems like a strong possibility. But we'll see..

 

[DR RAM]

Yep. I think there's more than one possibility.

But the more i think about it and listen to what others are saying, i think the most likely scenario is BS left to jump start his career. Nobody was talking about him as a HC anymore (and they sure used to). Things were kind of stalling out. If he wanted to try and change his trajectory, a move is a good idea, even a step down to the same job in college might do the trick.

So i kind of doubt he was forced out and hiring from within seems like a strong possibility. But we'll see..

Does any of it really matter anyway? He's gone now.

 

[MrMotes]

Does any of it really matter anyway? He's gone now.

Can't disagree with that. Though i will be interested to see how the Rams do without BS and how he does without us...

 

[DR RAM]

Can't disagree with that. Though i will be interested to see how the Rams do without BS and how he does without us...

Me too, but I look at it in a completely different way. Every player we have, will have one more year of experience as a pro..weight program, offseason, etc., the relevance being... that we are the youngest team in the league. We should be playing with a starting caliber QB, and a, hopefully, dramatically improved interior line. Those things will do more for us than any OC, IMO.

Shotty, will be an OC, and QB coach in a college program, with a massive amount of rotating talent every year. I don't see either comparison as an apple to apples comparison, in fact, I believe they are far from it. If Shotty does incredible things at Georgia, and I hope he does, I still don't see any relevance, at all, to the situation he was in here. Not to me anyhow. Pros to college, different games. Our (Rams) offensive personnel, will probably be different in significant ways, hopefully again, improved, and stable.

 

[Alan]

Definitely apples to oranges @DR RAM . Even if he went to another team in the NFL, meaningful comparisons are really hard to make and still almost apples to oranges. I've based my perception of Schotty completely on his time with the Rams. Thought he was OK in some respects but I think we can do better. Will we though?

 

[Ramathon]

Yep. I think there's more than one possibility.
......

I haven't read through the entire thread, but haven't seen this possibility mentioned in what I have read....

Maybe Silent Stan isn't as silent with his employees as he is with John Q Public. Maybe he's told Fish (even if via Demof) .....'Changes need to happen. I don't care what they are....you do what you think is best. But there needs to be decided improvement in the 4th year.'

I'm not saying that did happen, nor do I have any strong reason to believe it did. The only reason it even came to mind is because I remember Fisher talking about drafting Michael Sam and mentioning that he & Snead called SK prior to making the pick just to be sure SK was ok with them doing so. And though I didn't get the impression they felt they couldn't make the pick w/o SK's approval, it still struck me interesting.

 

[-X-]

Shotty, will be an OC, and QB coach in a college program, with a massive amount of rotating talent every year. I don't see either comparison as an apple to apples comparison, in fact, I believe they are far from it. If Shotty does incredible things at Georgia, and I hope he does, I still don't see any relevance, at all, to the situation he was in here. Not to me anyhow. Pros to college, different games. Our (Rams) offensive personnel, will probably be different in significant ways, hopefully again, improved, and stable.

Agreed. Following that course of reason, Nick Saban is a good NFL coach because ... Alabama.

 

[MrMotes]

Agreed. Following that course of reason, Nick Saban is a good NFL coach because ... Alabama.

Well let's face it, Saban got the Miami gig because of LSU and Chip Kelly got the Phili gig because of Oregon. Draft order is dictated by how players do in college, interviews and workouts.

Nothing guarantees anything. In fact the same team, player or coach often doesn't perform at the same level from one year to the next.

But if you're trying to say how a player or coach performs in one situation tells us nothing about how they'll perform in the next, how are draft boards made? How are coaching hires made? Everybody just flipping coins?

 

[MrMotes]

I haven't read through the entire thread, but haven't seen this possibility mentioned in what I have read....

Maybe Silent Stan isn't as silent with his employees as he is with John Q Public. Maybe he's told Fish (even if via Demof) .....'Changes need to happen. I don't care what they are....you do what you think is best. But there needs to be decided improvement in the 4th year.'

I'm not saying that did happen, nor do I have any strong reason to believe it did. The only reason it even came to mind is because I remember Fisher talking about drafting Michael Sam and mentioning that he & Snead called SK prior to making the pick just to be sure SK was ok with them doing so. And though I didn't get the impression they felt they couldn't make the pick w/o SK's approval, it still struck me interesting.

Seems pretty unlikely to me but i think we'll learn a lot when we see who replaces BS.

If it's Roman and we commit even more to the run game (kind of like what Ryan did in NY) then it probably wasn't on orders from SK...

 

[-X-]

But if you're trying to say how a player or coach performs in one situation tells us nothing about how they'll perform in the next, how are draft boards made? How are coaching hires made? Everybody just flipping coins?

I'm just agreeing with @DR RAM in that college systems and pro systems are markedly different, and comparing how a coach does in one and then the other is not a qualitative measure of how good or bad that coach is in general. I have no idea how or why you arrived to the conclusion you're coming at me with.

 

[DR RAM]

Definitely apples to oranges @DR RAM . Even if he went to another team in the NFL, meaningful comparisons are really hard to make and still almost apples to oranges. I've based my perception of Schotty completely on his time with the Rams. Thought he was OK in some respects but I think we can do better. Will we though?

Don't know if we will, Alan, but I sure hope so. I evaluate OC's even more macro than that, more like play to play, and since I can't always know, if a player did something wrong, on that play, then I tend to give a guy a little slack. Sometimes, I can see what a player did wrong, and I certainly don't ever blame an OC if a receiver drops a ball, for instance, or a Guard essential to the play, just gets blown into the backfield, destroying, said play. I take the opposition into account, as well as the players that we have healthy, and on the field. I also take into the account the down and distance, position on the field, and time left on the clock.

You may have a package that you practiced all week that takes advantage of your opponent's biggest weakness. You may be killing it in practice, then, one one play, two crucial members of that package go out injured. This package was just for this opponent, most of the reps went to the starters, or the starters were part of the advantage, which is probably the case. You may have to dump that entire package. It sucks. You can't always just plug a guy in and expect him to execute the play with the perfection, the slim margin of error it takes for a play to be successful in the NFL.

I've worked with OC's, and I'd never wanted to be one higher than the Pop Warner level. Believe me, parents are rough critics, even if you win. There is a lot of scrutinized responsibility in that job.

Have I questioned a few plays here and there? Hell yes, but sometimes when I question a play, I try to flip it, and sometimes I end up thinking, nobody would have thought of that play on defense, we just didn't execute it, or someone did a great job on defense. And sometimes, I just throw up my arms and think, now what the heck was that, that was a stupid play....

 

[Alan]

DR RAM noting the difficulties:
Have I questioned a few plays here and there?

Not an easy job that's for sure.

It's not the plays that I concentrate on. I do disagree with some and scratch my head at others but a play here or a play there just causes me to bitch about the call, not doubt his overall performance as an OC.

It's those other things I've talked about in the past that I don't like. The Tavon situation and the almost total inability to adjust to their adjustments are two of them. A poor second half here or there is just part of the game. When it happens regularly it becomes a point of concern for me.