Week one : the good the bad the ugly

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Ramstien said:
Ugly : That soft zone defense.
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Hate to say it, but that “ugly soft zone defense” won the game for us.

IIRC, Higbee scored his TD to make it 30-20 with 6:37 left. The Rams’ ugly soft zone forced the Panthers to get small chunks in the middle of the field and chew up clock. Panthers scored their TD to make it 30-27 with only 1:58 left and one TO.

By that point, it was game over. Panthers had no choice but to try an onside kick, which is virtually impossible nowadays.

That ugly soft zone forced the Panthers to chew up 4:39, and that iced the game.
 
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The Good:
The O Line: tons of open lanes for runs and often a good amount of time for Goff to throw the ball. Fowler Jr - Generated a lot of pressure and made Cam rush throws.
Littleton - best player on D today, and thats saying a lot with Donald out there.
Gurley & Brown - consistently got the yards that were blocked and a few more. I'll look past that fumble by Gurley, as we recovered it, but it would have been disasterous had the Panthers recovered.
Weddle: while he was in there, I thought the whole D played better and McCaff didn't run wild. Heal quickly brother.

The Bad:
Donald: I'm sure he played his gaps but he wasn't producing pressure play to play like his normal self. He's held in a higher regard so average play sticks out. He honestly looked tired on several plays.
JoJo - scares me every time he is back there. Its your job to let it go if its close to the endzone, no brainer.
Goff - Missed many open receivers and seemed locked on guys, open or not. Terrible play where he accepted a loss instead of any easy throw away. Several plain bad throws that should have been picked (and one that was). Rust or not, he was not sharp.

The Ugly:
Peters: terrible penalty and otherwise made zero plays. D-Line: little to no pressure. Little to know run defense. 2 studs on that line should be producing especially against a, at best, average O-Line.
McVays TO's before half: I'm not a coach and don't claim to be, but even I knew it was a horrendous call to be taking those TO's for the Panthers before the half. What in the actual F was he thinking? Nearly cost us in the game in the end.

That said, I'll take the win. First game of the year, on the road, on the east coast, with ZERO preseason snaps. They will need to be so much more sharp next week to stay with the 'Aints, which has me extremely nervous.

GO RAMS!!!
 
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The Good:
Littleton is just a play maker.
11 tackles, a pic, fumble recovery (of a fumble he caused).
Can see the potential with the Rams D. Can see the potential with the Rams run D.
But, Cam helped them out by missing some open receivers for big plays.

Super happy with Allen and Noteboom.
Noteboom was so good I stopped paying attention to him and watched Allen and Blythe more. Both look like they can do their jobs well. Allen got some good push at times on the run game. Very excited to see these guys develop as the season goes on.
May turn out to be two major draft day steals.
I wasn’t “worried” about them but it was a legitimate question mark.
It was only one game. But for game 1 I thought they both performed excellently.

Fowler was active. Rapp makes tackles and should be a contributor sooner instead of later.

The Bad:
Goff was off. Missed targets and slooowww through his progressions. Would get locked on receivers and not see open guys.
Gash runs may just be an unavoidable reality of this D.

The Ugly:
The Special Teams were a garbage fire.
Hekkers blocked punt and Zuerline missed kick made the game closer than needed. Of course Carolina missed a FG as well.
Another punt was partially blocked I believe.
Natson terrible play fielding a punt inside the 5.

All that said, it is a road win against a team with a lot of talent.
This was a good win.
 
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fearsomefour said:
The Good:
Littleton is just a play maker.
11 tackles, a pic, fumble recovery (of a fumble he caused).
Can see the potential with the Rams D. Can see the potential with the Rams run D.
But, Cam helped them out by missing some open receivers for big plays.

Super happy with Allen and Noteboom.
Noteboom was so good I stopped paying attention to him and watched Allen and Blythe more. Both look like they can do their jobs well. Allen got some good push at times on the run game. Very excited to see these guys develop as the season goes on.
May turn out to be two major draft day steals.
I wasn’t “worried” about them but it was a legitimate question mark.
It was only one game. But for game 1 I thought they both performed excellently.

Fowler was active. Rapp makes tackles and should be a contributor sooner instead of later.

The Bad:
Goff was off. Missed targets and slooowww through his progressions. Would get locked on receivers and not see open guys.
Gash runs may just be an unavoidable reality of this D.

The Ugly:
The Special Teams were a garbage fire.
Hekkers blocked punt and Zuerline missed kick made the game closer than needed. Of course Carolina missed a FG as well.
Another punt was partially blocked I believe.
Natson terrible play fielding a punt inside the 5.

All that said, it is a road win against a team with a lot of talent.
This was a good win.
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Was Goff sacked once? I thought the Oline was as good as ever. Aaron Kromer is on par with the Sean McVay hire.
 
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as for Peters....

I saw him pull up on a possible tackle at the 2 yard line and just let the guy score....his effort stunk.....on the good side, I don't think his guy was open much....
 
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The Good - I would say there's a 100% probability that Cory Littleton got the game ball. Gurley, had a good game once he got rolling. LOVED to see McVay opening the game with a 5 WR set. Also lots of 4/5 WR sets through the game. I understand his before half logic with the TO's. If we could have prevented the 1st down people would be singing his praises more for going for the jugular. Have we already forgotten Fisherball? 3 edge rush sacks. Keep that up and offenses will have to deal with it, leaving AD a little less double and triple teamed. Higbee had a decent game. Jared seemed more comfortable reading the defense and making adjustments/audibles. His overall command seemed better than the last couple years. Now if he can make the right WR reads!

The Bad - Run defense. No need to really elaborate. Better figure some shit out before Kamara comes to town. The whole team in general, because there is no way the Kittens should have even been in the game. We continuously kept letting them back in the game and couldn't finish them off. Jared was rusty and questionable in his reads and off on a couple throws. Gurley's 2 fumbles, we'll chalk 'em up to rust.

The Ugly - WTF Special teams??? One blocked punt, 1 partially blocked punt, and at least 2 other punts that were VERY close to being blocked. Missed FG (But a couple good long ones). Kickoff out of bounds...cmon Greg! A couple of questionable decisions by JoJo.
Commentators, talk about a lack of respect, how do the NFC Champs vs. a Playoff caliber team get these 2 asshats instead of Aikman and crew?
 
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Defense seem to lose quite a bit when Weddle went out, not a fan of Christian and I feel better with Rapp.

Punt Block was bad some of that is on Hekker for taking too long and the protection must improve going forward.

Goff had more downs then ups, but did what was needed to win the game and I thought the offensive line played well especially in the 2nd half.

Like the rotation at RB, Brown would be a starter on most teams and Gurley came back strong to close out the game. Rams scored 30 points against a sound defensive team, so that was good.
 
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Malibu said:
Good - Littleton, Fowler, Gurly, Brown, Wrs looked good overall, same with OL.
Bad - STs, loose coverage on DBs
Ugly - Rams Tackling

I disagree regarding Goff. He was fine and the rust will come off next week.

We could have lost this game, but Goff drove down on two important late 4th quarter series. One was a TD other should have netted us 3.

Can't make this many mistakes against NO. The difference is Brees will make most of those throws.
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For truth.

We can't have the same mistakes against New Orleans. Brees will put the game away.

Rust or no rust, I'm tired of hearing about how the Saints are the better team, who had they not been cheated on that one all important pass interference non-call would have clearly shown better against the Patriots.
 
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Zaphod said:
For truth.

We can't have the same mistakes against New Orleans. Brees will put the game away.

Rust or no rust, I'm tired of hearing about how the Saints are the better team, who had they not been cheated on that one all important pass interference non-call would have clearly shown better against the Patriots.
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The Patriots would have blown them out. The Saints probably do score more points. But who cares if it’s 34-20?
 
The good: The win, the running game, Littleton, Ebukam, Littleton, Fowler, and Littleton.

The bad: Tackling by everyone in the backfield, and I hate to say it but AD.

The ugly: Goff's passes beyond 5-10 yards, the blocking for Hekker, and JoJo.
 
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RamFan503 said:
The good: The win, the running game, Littleton, Ebukam, Littleton, Fowler, and Littleton.

The bad: Tackling by everyone in the backfield, and I hate to say it but AD.

The ugly: Goff's passes beyond 5-10 yards, the blocking for Hekker, and JoJo.
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Goff is my biggest disappointment in this game. Uncharacteristically inaccurate, made some dumb decisions, etc. I know he'll settle in and play better but it sucks to expect to see him making big strides after that camp where they pressured and worked him only to see him come out flat like that.

Of course he made enough plays to win so there's that. Good thing is we're going back to the Coliseum where homey tends to play very well.
 
den-the-coach said:
Punt Block was bad some of that is on Hekker for taking too long and the protection must improve going forward.
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Pretty sure the problem was Ebukam, who whiffed on his block on the play that hurt us. He also let pressure through on more than just that snap from that right side, so they need to look at that and ensure it's not a problem going forward.
 
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fearsomefour said:
I remember early on he rolled out of the pocket to the right and took a stupid sack.
He could of thrown the ball away.
There was some pressure at times.
More early when guys got beat a few times.
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Yep it was our first possession we were in borderline FG range but Goff didn't throw the ball away and lost 3 yards which pushed the FG out to a 59 yard attempt instead of 56 which I think McVay would have given The Leg a shot at.
 
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I didn’t like where we gave Henderson his first carry.

Wasn’t it inside their 10yd line?

Number one, I don’t trust a rookie’s hands just yet relative to NFL contact... and two, it would have been nice for him to have a little more space (out at mid field) and a less obvious run down for the first one.

But that’s me second guessing because it didn’t work.
 
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