What Rams HC Were You Wrong About?

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Spags.

I loved the hire because his defense took out the 18-1 Patriots. But man, for having such a talented roster in NY he sure couldn't build one in STL. It starts with scouting talent and ends with getting the most out of it. He did neither.
 
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Man what a great thread @Loyal .....i need some time. I'm too drunk watching my Terps figure this game out. First thought is that.... I dunno yet.
 
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Spags and Fisher. I thought both would give us elite defenses. I never realized they would be so afraid to let their offenses move the ball with more than a run or check down pass.
 
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I was wrong on Spags, and to a lesser extent Fisher.

I thought Spags would be a pretty decent hire, but yikes was I wrong there.

I never really thought Fisher would be the guy who'd take us over the hump, but I thought he would would at least give us an 8-8 or maybe even a wildcard appearance. I saw him as the guy who would lay a foundation for the team to become better and then the next guy could come in and take us there.

I was most correct about McVay though, I keyed in on him early September of Fishers final year saying he would be a long shot due to his youth, but if we took a chance on him we wouldn't be disappointed.
 
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Loyal said:
I forgot about Allen in 1978.... I lived in a black hole back then coverage wise. Didn't get much Rams pre-season news in Conroe, Texas in 1978. Just armadillo beauty contests, Lonestar beer commercials and Houston Oilers.
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For some reason I had a heart for the Houston Oilers, maybe because they might of had the worst Head Coach in NFL History Bill Peterson and his contract was somewhere between 10 and 15 years and paid him more than $1 million, that was back in 1972.

Peterson lasted one and half years with a record of 1-18, Sid Gillman rescued the Oilers taking over and guiding them to a 7-7 record in 1974 then hired his DC Bum Phillips to be their Head Coach in 1975.

Here is what sticks in my crawl about the hiring of George Allen in 1978, the guy Carroll Rosenbloom liked was Bill Walsh and was close to hiring Walsh, but Walsh wanted the duo power of HC & GM and the Rams had Don Klosterman. They were working it out with Walsh and were close to hiring him, but at the last minute Washington owner Edward Bennett Williams allowed George Allen out of his contract because Allen wanted to return to Southern California. Too bad.

And BTW @Loyal you know who could not stand Allen it was Pat Haden, Allen asked Haden to pick up a hot dog wrapper that was blowing on the practice field and Haden thought he was nuts. Haden had an excellent rapport with Ray Malavasi who was the only Knox assistant who was kept, however, Ray was now the Offensive Coordinator (odd) and after an 0-2 start to preseason losing 14-0 to the Chargers & 14-7 to the Patriots Rosenbloom had seen enough, admitted his mistake and replaced Allen with Malavasi. So instead of Bill Walsh Los Angeles Rams had windbreaker Ray, to what could have been.
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Just about everyone was wrong about Fisher. Pretty much everyone from fans and media thought he was a good hire at the time. And at first he did raise us from horrible to respectable. I think the game just passed him by. He never valued the receiver position. Blocking on run plays was what he considered a good attribute. In the old days defenses won. Not these days.

I'll admit I was wrong about McVay. When the announcement came out they hired McVay I said "Who?" I never heard of him. I heard of Shanahan because of his offense in Atlanta and their Superbowl run. I wasn't against the hire. I just had no idea if he was head coach material. Boy, did they hit the lottery with this one.
 
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Enjoying this thread very much…I was born in 60, and became aware of the Rams when Gabriel was QB. I am only going to take the time to talk about 2 HC…one I feel “right” about, and one I was very wrong about.
1. Fisher
I wanted Fisher very badly. We had become a sub basement team with a depleted roster and were rightfully mocked around the league. Fish gave us instant credibility…I looked forward to watching games, because Fish could actually compete with Niners and Hawks. I appreciate that when Les was hired, the “Snisher” chose to draft AD even though many fans “hated” the pick because we took Brockers a year or two before. I loved them taking a chance on Gurley and Goff, even though they gave up too much to draft Goff. I will be grateful for Fish helping to transition the team from Stl to LA…a hapless job. I think Jeff’s best role was DC as his tenacious personality was a good defensive mindset. So, ya, he fell out of favor, with me too, but I am glad he got people to stop laughing at our team.

I was wrong about McVay….I was worried that we would have another unproven coordinator from the no name ranks…I didn’t want to go back to the sub basement. Boy was I wrong. I will praise Kroenke on this, as he has shown a willingness to spend money and taking some reasoned chances…McVay being one of them. Les and Sean are a great team, along with an owner that supports their decisions, and even costly mistakes. The willingness to go after Stafford is astounding…and not popular with many posters on this board. I had Staff on a few of my FF leagues over the years and watched him quite a bit because of it. I loved the move. Astounded they were willing to eat so much contract to make it work. Anyway, I am so glad to now be one of the “feared” teams in the NFL.
 
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LARAMSinFeb. said:
Georgia was definitely the darkest period in Rams history. What a damn shame.
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Yea, I was ecstatic when we won the SB and then that bitch got up and announced that it proved she was right to move them. I wanted to see her head explode. She wasn't right, she made it all happen. The Movie Major League could have been based off her bullshit. the way she blew the team up after the 89 season. That was also the year she signed the deal with Anaheim that allowed her to leave after 5 years. Okay, I am done ranting. It is all good now.
 
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den-the-coach said:
For some reason I had a heart for the Houston Oilers, maybe because they might of had the worst Head Coach in NFL History Bill Peterson and his contract was somewhere between 10 and 15 years and paid him more than $1 million, that was back in 1972.

Peterson lasted one and half years with a record of 1-18, Sid Gillman rescued the Oilers taking over and guiding them to a 7-7 record in 1974 then hired his DC Bum Phillips to be their Head Coach in 1975.

Here is what sticks in my crawl about the hiring of George Allen in 1978, the guy Carroll Rosenbloom liked was Bill Walsh and was close to hiring Walsh, but Walsh wanted the duo power of HC & GM and the Rams had Don Klosterman. They were working it out with Walsh and were close to hiring him, but at the last minute Washington owner Edward Bennett Williams allowed George Allen out of his contract because Allen wanted to return to Southern California. Too bad.

And BTW @Loyal you know who could not stand Allen it was Pat Haden, Allen asked Haden to pick up a hot dog wrapper that was blowing on the practice field and Haden thought he was nuts. Haden had an excellent rapport with Ray Malavasi who was the only Knox assistant who was kept, however, Ray was now the Offensive Coordinator (odd) and after an 0-2 start to preseason losing 14-0 to the Chargers & 14-7 to the Patriots Rosenbloom had seen enough, admitted his mistake and replaced Allen with Malavasi. So instead of Bill Walsh Los Angeles Rams had windbreaker Ray, to what could have been.
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I watched more Oiler games at the Astrodome than I ever got to see the Rams in the Coliseum in person. I absolutely loved Earl Campbell for his power running style and he seriously ruined Eric Dickerson for me because I incorrectly got the impression that Dickerson wasn't running hard like Earl always did. Billy "White Shoes" Johnson, Dan Pastorini and Bum....If I ever had a second favorite team, it would have been the Earlers!

Imagine if we had gotten Bill Walsh? We probably get that skinny weak armed HOFer from Notre Dame, Joe Montana. I don't think Montana was highly sought after? Yeah, the Rams development in the 80's would have been radically different, I think.
 
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Fisher was a so so head coach but he actually had talented players on the team. He just couldn't put together an offense. But yeah, the 7-9 seasons were making me sick.

I liked Vermeil because he had success in the past but it did help when Trent Green got injured and a future HOFer became the starter.

I thought McVay would be a good coach because of his football pedigree. I honestly believe the Rams are going to win super bowls (plural) under McVay. I just hope there's one coming soon though. Our last SB win was more than 20 years ago.
 
Was totally wrong about Spagnuolo. I joined this forum in 2010 thinking that Spagnuolo would give me a reason to be positive when I had been super negative in the past (thanks for nothing, Linehan, Zygmunt, and Shaw!). But yeah, the honeymoon didn't last. I was better than I was, but...well, hey, I got to this forum, right?
 
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I thought Liniment might be head coach material.
BC
 
Memento said:
Was totally wrong about Spagnuolo. I joined this forum in 2010 thinking that Spagnuolo would give me a reason to be positive when I had been super negative in the past (thanks for nothing, Linehan, Zygmunt, and Shaw!). But yeah, the honeymoon didn't last. I was better than I was, but...well, hey, I got to this forum, right?
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I agree I was in favor of the Spagnuolo hire, had been an elite DC, something Linehan was not Offensively and seem to be able to command a room. The team had no talent and add in first time coordinators with Pat Shurmur & Ken Flajole and that is usually not a recipe for success.

Besides the Napoleon complex, Spags was paranoid plus it's not always about the X's & the O's, it's about the Jimmy's & the Joe's Spagnuolo four pillar concept was nice, but I'll take a two pillar guy that can catch the football and run a sub 4.4 40 every time.

Rams GM Billy Devaney didn't do Spagnuolo any favors with draft choices like Jason Smith, huge mistake and had no business being even considered IMHO. Sad part, Jeff Fisher was truly not that good, but Linehan & Spagnuolo was so bad a few seasons of winning 7 games seemed like the motherload at the time.
 
den-the-coach said:
For some reason I had a heart for the Houston Oilers, maybe because they might of had the worst Head Coach in NFL History Bill Peterson and his contract was somewhere between 10 and 15 years and paid him more than $1 million, that was back in 1972.

Peterson lasted one and half years with a record of 1-18, Sid Gillman rescued the Oilers taking over and guiding them to a 7-7 record in 1974 then hired his DC Bum Phillips to be their Head Coach in 1975.

Here is what sticks in my crawl about the hiring of George Allen in 1978, the guy Carroll Rosenbloom liked was Bill Walsh and was close to hiring Walsh, but Walsh wanted the duo power of HC & GM and the Rams had Don Klosterman. They were working it out with Walsh and were close to hiring him, but at the last minute Washington owner Edward Bennett Williams allowed George Allen out of his contract because Allen wanted to return to Southern California. Too bad.

And BTW @Loyal you know who could not stand Allen it was Pat Haden, Allen asked Haden to pick up a hot dog wrapper that was blowing on the practice field and Haden thought he was nuts. Haden had an excellent rapport with Ray Malavasi who was the only Knox assistant who was kept, however, Ray was now the Offensive Coordinator (odd) and after an 0-2 start to preseason losing 14-0 to the Chargers & 14-7 to the Patriots Rosenbloom had seen enough, admitted his mistake and replaced Allen with Malavasi. So instead of Bill Walsh Los Angeles Rams had windbreaker Ray, to what could have been.
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Here's den's favorite QB's connection to Harold Jackson....His Haden love is justified...


View: https://twitter.com/RamsOnFilm/status/1441434098371792898?s=20
 
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Jeff Fisher! Was totally excited when the Rams hired him and really expected a lot more from him than the Rams received!!
 
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