St. Louis Rams vs. Oakland Raiders Official Game Day thread

[HometownBoy]

-The Raiders were trying much, much harder then we were. They still seemed pissed about that 52-0 drubbing.

Yeah, we seemed to be coasting. I wish we wouldn't, when you're a team that's been as bad as us you have to give your fans something to hang their hat on. Don't have to beat them by 52 again, but give us some excitement.

But yeah, the Raiders were definitely trying harder and hot under the collar about it, their players took pretty much every opportunity they could to shove any of our guys if they thought they could get away with it. Though, how much of that was them being mad or them trying to egg us on to gain penalties based on our rep is the real question.

 

[WestCoastRam]

I don't know that I'm concerned right now until I see the second game and see if the same problems rear their heard then. I will say, I think they made every third-and-one conversion they had by running the ball. That's heartening. For years, we could not pick up a third-and-one on the ground to save our life and our interior oline would just cave. Did not look that way tonight.

 

[kurtfaulk]

.

The offense was fine until saffold got hurt and was replaced by a turnstile.

Even then Cunningham had a couple of good runs. And Bailey still looks good.

.

 

[Rainram]

My take mimics many others...

Foles - Good. Limited action. Nothing fancy. Good arm and a couple nice throws.
Keenum - very meh.
Mannion - The more experience he gets the better served he will be. Not bad young man.
**QBs - Confident in Foles at the moment. Hope he stays healthy.

GRob - Meh. There will be critics b/c Mack bested him a couple times with speed. I think he'll work the kinks out and be fine.
Saffold - *sigh*
Jones - Decent. Better than I though. Don't know how much he was tested, but I'll give him a positive grade.
Brown/Havenstein - Not bad fellas. They weren't facing world beaters, but given their first real NFL action...color me "very optimistic"
Backups - Washington...rough. Rhaney...not bad. Donnal...I know he's rookie, was hoping for better. Battle...would be better on right side.
**OL - If that starting group can stay healthy for the whole season, I think we'll be good. Depth...not too confident in 'em.

Tavon - As he always has been...ball in his hands with space = DANGEROUS. Can't always catch the ball at the los though.
Kendricks - Please keep catching the ball like that! No drops!
Givens - Played like he knows a roster spot is on the line.
Bailey - Baller.
**Our WRs/TEs will be fine.

Cunningham - Continued to cement his role on this team. Solid.
Pead - Also played like he knows his roster spot is on the line (or auditioning for a roster spot elsewhere). Good day for him.
**RBs - Nothing exciting from our future 3rd and 4th stringers. Good showing though.

OFFENSE - What can you tell from Pre-season WK1? Way too early to tell, but I'll speculate nonetheless. I think we'll be able to run well. Not as worried about the passing game as others. I think Cigs just may impress some people as an OC. The key is the OLine staying healthy and getting some continuity.

 

[RAGRam]

My 1 word review: Meh.

 

[Rainram]

...the other side of the ball...

Donald - All-Pro. Plain and Simple.
Quinn - 2013 may have been a bit of an aberration. But he will at least duplicate 2014.
Hayes - Like him...better in a support/reserve role.
Brockers - Does his job.
backups - Sorry...didn't focus too much on the 2nd/3rd striners here.
**DLine - just not too worried about this bunch. Didn't even play Long or Sims.

JL55 - As much as I want to really, really like him. And he may be the best "QB of the defense" in the NFL, but I sure wish he would make more plays! He needs to do better. Shed better, react faster, meet people at the LOS (or maybe behind it for once).
Ogletree - Seemed to do okay. Also needs to shed blockers better.
**LBers - As a whole were very average (again it's WK1 of the Pre-Season)

Jenkins - 2014 carrying over? Some good play, mixed in with some head-scratching stuff. Cooper got him a couple times.
Johnson - Under-appreciated. Good football player.
TJ - Going to continue to hurt people this year.

**Defense - If we play aggressive and with a lead...look out!! If we get pushed back and teams start running on us, I'm afraid our LBers will have some difficulty. The secondary is enigmatic...there are some good playmakers in the bunch, but I hope they don't continue with the inexplicable, boneheaded stuff.

The team as a whole...
- If the ones played the whole game, we'd have won. Confident in that.
- Penalties are frustrating. I can put up with a lot, but damn, can we clean it up just a tad?
- I like our WR and RB depth. And since there is no way we'll be able to keep 'em all...I wonder if we can get something for some of 'em?
- OLine...You make me nervous.
- LBers...you also make me nervous.

 

[RaminExile]

Oakland are putting some pieces in order. You get a franchise QB and then you put weapons around him. Amari Cooper is a beast. Sam Bradford never had a talent like that in all his time with the Rams.

 

[dieterbrock]

Preseason is meaningless, nothing to get worked up over. That said, I'd like to be able to say that one of these years after the Rams hang like 34 on somebody in pre-season and Im trying to temper enthusiasm.....

 

[brokeu91]

Guys repeat after me:

"It's only preseason".

The preseason means nothing. It was clear our guys were going at half speed and trying not to get hurt while the Oakland Raiders were playing like it was the Superbowl. Fisher likes to get his team slowly up to speed during the preseason. If we're still playing like this on the last preseason game I might start to get worried.

I just don't want any slow starts on game one. I don't think this year we will.

 

[RAGRam]

If the routine was look poor in pre-season, come out and start fast, I wouldn't care less.

As the routine is look poor in pre-season, start poorly, start playing well once the season is out of reach, I have to question if Fisher has learnt anything from the last 3 years.

 

[Alan]

Merlin aghast at the depth chart:
As an addendum to that how in the F can Washington be the first guy off the bench at LG? Are you effin serious? Guys like Washington are the reason the Rams had to draft 5 OL... Because they aren't good enough. Note to Coach Boudreau: get it figured out brother, who is the guy that will play LG this season? Because you cannot trust Roger to stay healthy plain and simple.

I'm pretty sure that Reynolds would have replaced Saffold in a real game but we already know what we have with him, thus Washington who is trying to make my prediction that he'll be cut come true. Had Jones not been playing center he might have replaced Saffold too.

 

[V3]

If in previous years we didn't always start slow and didnt have penalty issues, I wouldn't really put much thought into what I saw last night. I sure hope it's different this year. I really don't like when people don't/won't learn from their mistakes.

 

[TheDYVKX]

I really liked what I saw from some of the backup DL, in particular Longacre and Forston. Longacre was just unblockable at times and he was all over the field, and Forston has a very very quick get off and made a couple plays for TFLs/no gain. I didn't really focus on them specifically, but they caught my eye.

 

[OldSchool]

My take mimics many others...

Foles - Good. Limited action. Nothing fancy. Good arm and a couple nice throws.
Keenum - very meh.
Mannion - The more experience he gets the better served he will be. Not bad young man.
**QBs - Confident in Foles at the moment. Hope he stays healthy.

GRob - Meh. There will be critics b/c Mack bested him a couple times with speed. I think he'll work the kinks out and be fine.
Saffold - *sigh*
Jones - Decent. Better than I though. Don't know how much he was tested, but I'll give him a positive grade.
Brown/Havenstein - Not bad fellas. They weren't facing world beaters, but given their first real NFL action...color me "very optimistic"
Backups - Washington...rough. Rhaney...not bad. Donnal...I know he's rookie, was hoping for better. Battle...would be better on right side.
**OL - If that starting group can stay healthy for the whole season, I think we'll be good. Depth...not too confident in 'em.

Tavon - As he always has been...ball in his hands with space = DANGEROUS. Can't always catch the ball at the los though.
Kendricks - Please keep catching the ball like that! No drops!
Givens - Played like he knows a roster spot is on the line.
Bailey - Baller.
**Our WRs/TEs will be fine.

Cunningham - Continued to cement his role on this team. Solid.
Pead - Also played like he knows his roster spot is on the line (or auditioning for a roster spot elsewhere). Good day for him.
**RBs - Nothing exciting from our future 3rd and 4th stringers. Good showing though.

OFFENSE - What can you tell from Pre-season WK1? Way too early to tell, but I'll speculate nonetheless. I think we'll be able to run well. Not as worried about the passing game as others. I think Cigs just may impress some people as an OC. The key is the OLine staying healthy and getting some continuity.

I will add to the OL I thought Darryl Williams looked really good at LT when he was in there.

 

[Big Willie]

Penalties for Fisher are like timeouts and challenges for Martz. Fans might care but they don't.

And why should he?

Baltimore won the SB in 2012 as the most penalized team in the NFL. Seattle did the same thing in 2013. Last year NE was 3rd most penalized.

Andrew Sciliano recently tweeted this (looking at total penalties):


View: https://twitter.com/AndrewSiciliano/status/631895044711034880


They're not a big deal.

Neither is the first preseason game, imo, of course...

Yes, but Tell Siciliano that those teams can score points.

 

[Ballhawk]

Still trying to figure out what they see in Joyner. If he's the best third corner that we can come up with then Gaines can have one of my feet! EJ can't get back soon enough!

 

[PA Ram]

Lol! Jeff Fisher from his press conference: “As is the case in most early pre-season games, you don’t want to play real good.You need to correct mistakes. You gotta learn from mistakes over again so we have our work cut out for us here with the travel tonight, grading the tape and presenting it to them on Sunday and then working against the Cowboys.”

This was my main concern–that the Rams would be able to make enough mistakes so that they could work on them against the Cowboys.

God forbid they should show up and play perfect or damn near perfect football. THAT would be a team I could not watch.

http://www.stlouisrams.com/videos/videos/Fisher-Postgame-Press-Conference—0814/654ca209-deb3-4566-bdb9-3943abf50d80

Anyway–Fisher looked very tired to me. Jet lag.

Just saw the first quarter. It’ll get better.

 

[TheDYVKX]

Still trying to figure out what they see in Joyner. If he's the best third corner that we can come up with then Gaines can have one of my feet! EJ can't get back soon enough!

Joyner really frustrated me this game. He didn't play well at all. Hopefully he can turn it around, I expected and still expect big things from the little guy. I know college doesn't matter, but he was one of my favorite players that draft because he just made plays. Would like to see him improve because he can be a Tyrann Mathieu type player.

 

[LetsGoRams]

Main thing that is troubling for me is that the refs already have it out for us.... we have 10 penalties and Oakland has 2?? Some things never change.

 

[Ram Pat]

Raiders won up front, both sides of ball. disapointed. Hudson makes a huge difference for them, wish we could gotten him.