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I'm over our roster "strategy" and trading all these picks to acquire these players


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7 hours ago, jrry32 said:

Let's be patient. It's not how you start. It's how you finish. The wheels came off over the second half of last year.

I'm not throwing in the towel, but I am saying it's fair to question the method when you refuse to actually address the coaching issues that have be consistent through the years. The GM can go all in by trading capital/spending money all they want but unless the coach goes all in and fixes the problems we have there, it won't matter and will only put us in a hole down the road with no SB to show for it.

Edited by JonStark
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Here’s a nice little breakdown of what the Rams can do offensively to succeed.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.theringer.com/platform/amp/nfl/2021/11/17/22786005/sam-darnold-carolina-panthers-qb-purgatory
 

Quote

The solution is clear: McVay needs to dust off the ol’ Goff playbook. They don’t have to major in it—that was the whole point of the Stafford trade—but they do need to protect that interior front with run-action that forces defensive linemen to first work horizontally before getting upfield vertically, with the added benefit of moving Stafford out of the pocket. Plays like this should make up a larger chunk of the Rams offense.


 

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If Stafford so improves the Rams offense, then L.A. should have fewer qualms when faced with a fourth down that other teams would balk at. Instead, the Rams are taking their offense off the field on those fourth downs. Before either of these two losses, when the Rams were still 7-1, they were second in the league in lost win probability with cautious fourth-down decision-making—and that caution has finally caught up to them.

 

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On 11/24/2021 at 8:06 PM, Xenos said:

If Stafford so improves the Rams offense, then L.A. should have fewer qualms when faced with a fourth down that other teams would balk at. Instead, the Rams are taking their offense off the field on those fourth downs. Before either of these two losses, when the Rams were still 7-1, they were second in the league in lost win probability with cautious fourth-down decision-making—and that caution has finally caught up to them.

This part of the article is just a lazy analytics take. The Titans game and 49ers game had little to do with 4th down aggressiveness. You can make the case that we should have done an actual play instead of a fake field goal at the end of the 1st half but that isn't why we lost the game. Stafford's inability to start games quickly coupled with his desire to gift early turnovers are what is dooming us. 

I agree with the PA idea but I think part of the switch in philosophy was to play to what Stafford wants. 

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1 hour ago, LeotheLion said:

This part of the article is just a lazy analytics take. The Titans game and 49ers game had little to do with 4th down aggressiveness. You can make the case that we should have done an actual play instead of a fake field goal at the end of the 1st half but that isn't why we lost the game. Stafford's inability to start games quickly coupled with his desire to gift early turnovers are what is dooming us. 

I agree with the PA idea but I think part of the switch in philosophy was to play to what Stafford wants. 

The part I quoted is just the conclusion. There were more specific examples in the article. But yes, Stafford needs to stop turning the ball over. I also think McVay should stop being so conservative at times. And there’s a balance between what Stafford wants to do and what would also help the team offensively.

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On 11/23/2021 at 10:09 PM, MDY10 said:

I wouldn’t say that. Tutu is definitely not looking like it’ll work out, especially after Mcvay got a little frustrated with him but I will never call a rookie a bust until the end of year 2. 

Earnest Jones has come in and shown some flashes but I wouldn’t say that was a home run.. but again I’ll wait till the end of next season to actually judge him. 

Jacob Harris is definitely one that I’m excited about.. it’s a shame he got hurt.

Robert Rochelle came in mainly because of his athletic abilities.. we all knew it could take some time for him to get comfortable. He’s been beat but has made some plays. 

Bobby Brown was hurt early in the year but I’d say it’s the rookie most fans were most excited about. Could be a great pick if they choose to let SJD walk (who was a 6th round pick and took time to make an impact) 

Earnest brown.. well since he was cut I guess we can say that’s a miss. He’s on the PS I believe.. sometimes with later picks it’s exactly what happens. 

Jake Funk was in line to get some decent reps this season and was hurt and put on IR

Ben Skowronek was hurt early in the year and managed to stay on the 53 and had his first meaningful snaps in the last two games. He wasn’t great but I’d bet there aren’t many 7th rounders that would have done better. He has time. 
 

That leaves Chris Garret who again, most were excited about. He had a good camp and was placed on the COVID list for week 1. He hasn’t played much at all but he’s from a small school.. he needs time. It sounds cliche but most 3-7 rounders could need time before developing into starters.

Aside from obvious injuries I wouldn’t say this class sucks at all outside of Tutu and E. Brown. 

Saying they could have drafted someone like creed Humphrey over Tutu - Or other players over other players LA drafted is a different topic.. but I wouldn’t give up on these guys yet. People need to stop expecting 7th rounders to be instant impact players. 

 

 

I agree with what you say but there's a lot of "Could be". Reality is that these players won't help us this year and it's hurting us right now. 

I get the fact that we don't expect 7th round to contribute but 2nd, 3rd, 4th should contribute to this team. 

It's too early to tell if Jones is good or not but so far, i'm not convinced by him. He's too slow side to side and he's not good at coverage neither...it's a failure at this position and we paid the price having at best average LB in the roster. I'm tired of not having good player at ILB, it's killing us in the running game. 

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I think the problem with the Rams is definitely McVay going away from what he is great at. His gameplan for Goff was to focus heavy on the run, then playaction and bootleg off of it. The idea is that every play McVay runs looks the same. As a result defenses will never know if the Rams are going to run or pass. Well when you run the ball 9 times like the Rams did against the Niners then you can throw away any guessing the Niners defense will be doing. They legit know the Rams are going to be throwing bc thats what they pretty much did nearly the entire game. McVay is enamored with Stafford so much that he is legit just forgetting what got McVay to be known as an offensive genius. On top of that, the Rams lost Woods late in the week right before the Niners game and had to throw in OBJ and the rookie Skowronek. You would think the approach would definitely be to run run run and run some more as a result. Nope. It was throw throw throw and throw some more putting those two receivers in a bad spot bc you know Kupp was going to get doubled and both Higbee and Jefferson struggled with drops the entire game. 

In the end I do think just like in 2018 the Rams are going through adversity and I trust they will figure it out. In 2018 they were going through adversity literally with 4 games left in the regular season. We have 7 games left in the regular season. I trust that by the time the playoffs come OBJ will be comfortable in the offense and Von will be comfortable on defense. I think the Rams will be hitting their stride and it doesnt matter if they have home games or road games in the playoffs. This team has the coaching and talent on the roster to make a deep run just like the Bucs did last season and they were more of a mess at this point than the Rams are now. The only game Id be nervous about is round one bc of all the pressure Stafford will have on him to win. If the Rams win even if its by one point, then Stafford will have that playoff monkey off his back and he can take a deep breath and play with less pressure knowing that what ever happens from there on out nobody can say he cant win a playoff game and again with this coaching and this talent the Rams can beat any team in the playoffs no matter where the game is played.  

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11 hours ago, stl4life07 said:

I think the problem with the Rams is definitely McVay going away from what he is great at. His gameplan for Goff was to focus heavy on the run, then playaction and bootleg off of it. The idea is that every play McVay runs looks the same. As a result defenses will never know if the Rams are going to run or pass. Well when you run the ball 9 times like the Rams did against the Niners then you can throw away any guessing the Niners defense will be doing. They legit know the Rams are going to be throwing bc thats what they pretty much did nearly the entire game. McVay is enamored with Stafford so much that he is legit just forgetting what got McVay to be known as an offensive genius. On top of that, the Rams lost Woods late in the week right before the Niners game and had to throw in OBJ and the rookie Skowronek. You would think the approach would definitely be to run run run and run some more as a result. Nope. It was throw throw throw and throw some more putting those two receivers in a bad spot bc you know Kupp was going to get doubled and both Higbee and Jefferson struggled with drops the entire game. 

In the end I do think just like in 2018 the Rams are going through adversity and I trust they will figure it out. In 2018 they were going through adversity literally with 4 games left in the regular season. We have 7 games left in the regular season. I trust that by the time the playoffs come OBJ will be comfortable in the offense and Von will be comfortable on defense. I think the Rams will be hitting their stride and it doesnt matter if they have home games or road games in the playoffs. This team has the coaching and talent on the roster to make a deep run just like the Bucs did last season and they were more of a mess at this point than the Rams are now. The only game Id be nervous about is round one bc of all the pressure Stafford will have on him to win. If the Rams win even if its by one point, then Stafford will have that playoff monkey off his back and he can take a deep breath and play with less pressure knowing that what ever happens from there on out nobody can say he cant win a playoff game and again with this coaching and this talent the Rams can beat any team in the playoffs no matter where the game is played.  

Goff isn't our QB anymore. I agree that we should make more use of play action, but Stafford doesn't run the offense like Goff. Stafford likes the deep ball more, whereas Goff loved attacking the intermediate range. I'm not sure what the solution is, but I don't think it's as simple as revert the offense back. I also think that Stafford has been playing injured, which is one reason why he has not looked good. I hope the time off has allowed him to heal.

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5 hours ago, jrry32 said:

Goff isn't our QB anymore. I agree that we should make more use of play action, but Stafford doesn't run the offense like Goff. Stafford likes the deep ball more, whereas Goff loved attacking the intermediate range. I'm not sure what the solution is, but I don't think it's as simple as revert the offense back. I also think that Stafford has been playing injured, which is one reason why he has not looked good. I hope the time off has allowed him to heal.

Stafford can still take deep shots while running the offense that has made McVay successful. With Goff the frustration was that he stopped taking deep shots. His first half of 2018 was peak Goff bc he was taking shots down the field alot. Goff was the best playaction QB in the NFL at that time. So Im not saying the Rams should completely go back to what they was doing but dont completely abandoned it either. 

As for Stafford being hurt, I do agree he has been hurt but the reason why I dont mention it is bc he has had good games against the Seahawks in the 2nd half AFTER he hurt his finger, the Giants game especially in the 2nd quarter when the Rams scored 28pts Stafford played well, and then the Texans when the Rams were up 38-0 entering the 4th Stafford was playing more than solid. He was dealing with a back injury too that he missed the entire week of practice leading up to the Titans game. He toughed it out but it showed. I look at QBs around the league who when missed an entire week of practice they didnt play well in the game. Dak didnt practice the entire week leading up to the Broncos game and he looked really bad and the Cowboys got dominated. ARod couldnt practice all week leading up to the Seahawks game and he didnt look all that good and the Packers had 3pts entering the 4th. They scored 14pts in the 4th to obviously finish with 17pts and they won but it was mainly on the ground with Dillon and the defense played great against a Seahawks team that you can clearly see Wilson is still hurt. He shouldnt have came back as quickly as he did.

So my point is with Stafford yes the injury can explain alot of the reason for his struggles but we will find out today if the BYE did him and this team in general any good. I think it did and I expect the Rams to get back on track moving forward after the BYE but again we will actually see. Regardless of the system McVay is running he need to get the ball in Henderson and Michel hands more on the ground. You can still be a pass first team and still run the ball at least 20+ times a game. Running the ball 9 times with those backs against the Niners is inexcusable. 

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On 11/27/2021 at 9:29 AM, Xenos said:

The part I quoted is just the conclusion. There were more specific examples in the article. But yes, Stafford needs to stop turning the ball over. I also think McVay should stop being so conservative at times. And there’s a balance between what Stafford wants to do and what would also help the team offensively.

But the conclusion was wrong lol. Saying 4th down inefficiency has caught up to the Rams implies we've dropped the last 2 because of it. Has nothing to do with it. 

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5 hours ago, Xenos said:

Yeah, Detroit messed him up. This sounds more than the usual wear and tear suffered during a season.

 

That was one of my biggest concerns with the trade. Hope he can do a lot of winning before his body gives out. He doesn't seem like the type of QB who is going to play into his 40s.

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On 11/16/2021 at 4:59 PM, stl4life07 said:

OVERREACTION!!!

I get the frustration after back to back bad losses and losing to the Niners for the 5th straight time. Rams shouldve at least split these last two games if not won both. The thing is I love what the Rams are doing. It takes time though. The Rams arent thinking necessarily about right now. They are thinking about the playoffs. Von and OBJ will be comfortable and hitting their stride imo when the playoffs come. 

I keep going back to 2018 when the Rams made all those acquisitions. It didnt show up in the regular season. The Rams defense had their troubles throughout. It showed up in the playoffs though. The Rams shutdown Zeke and the Cowboys. They shutdown Kamara, Thomas, and the Saints in New Orleans. They even shut down Brady in the Superbowl its just the offense couldnt do anything which made a great defensive performance mute. So I think these next 7 games is going to be about these new acquisitions in Von and OBJ to learn and get comfortable in the system. Stafford will get things going again. I think its less on him and more on McVay. McVay has to get back to what he does best and thats run the ball, bootlegs, and playaction passing. Henderson when he is given the opportunity to run he has ran well. He just needs more opportunities. I would be stunned if the Rams dont come out of the BYE against the Packers literally running. Stafford is definitely a significant upgrade over Goff bc he is a top 5 arm talent. He can do things with the ball that only really Mahomes, ARod, and MAYBE Herbert can do. Sometimes it gets him into trouble and even Colin said this on "The Herd", that McVay fell in love with Stafford so much that he has completely went away from all the things that has made him and the Rams offense a success.

I love that the Rams are going for it right now. Tomorrow isnt promised. I mean that in terms of anything can happen. Look at the Greatest Show on Turf days. It was short lived when Im sure plenty thought the Rams possibly couldve had a dynasty. So the Rams feel like they can win championships now then why not go for it? I think had the Packers done this ARod wouldve had more than just one Superbowl. Had the Saints done this I think Brees wouldve had more than just one Superbowl. Im glad the Rams arent wasting Donald and Whitworth careers by not trying to get them to another Superbowl and hopefully get a ring. 

Last season the Bucs were in this exact same spot if not worse. Brady was having an up and down season. They got dominated by the Saints twice, they lost to the Bears, Rams, and Chiefs before the BYE. People was questioning, whats wrong with the Bucs? They had to get it together bringing in Gronk, AB, and Fournette. They did have a young secondary that was trying to grow and get better. Things was just off but they put everything together when the playoffs came they played exactly like many thought they wouldve based on the talent that they had. Gronk showed up, AB showed up, Fournette showed up, the defense played great, and Brady when he had to make the plays he did. So again I think its an overreaction but I understand your frustration over these past two games but we have to be patient bc what the Rams are doing is for the long term which is the playoffs. We know they are going to make the playoffs and it doesnt matter what seed with this team. Just like the Bucs went on the road and won 3 playoff games with their team last season and the Rams in 2018 went to the toughest place to play in the playoffs in New Orleans and won with their team I think this Rams team can do the same. They just need to get things figured out and they have 7 games to do so and I think they will.  

The other thing that gets ignored (and with little respect I have for Cowherd - who loves him some low-hanging fruit - even I don't expect him to pick up on this because his target core audience doesn't really have interest in deep contextual dives so why would he bother having a staffer do base level research?): The strategy was sound, but we are missing (and were missing this past draft) a key cog - Brad Holmes, who basically chaired Day 3 of our drafts all the years since McVay has come in (and several before, I believe).  The model we have can, does, and has worked more times than not when we're hitting on our late-round and undrafted guys not to come in and be stars but to come in and be able to contribute meaningfully as at least rotation guys from jump.  It's not all that new of a model either, New Orleans had done it for years and lost/fired Rick Reiprish and is reaping similar rewards to what we are currently on the formula.

There's also, though this should be something we should have proactively planned to adapt in account for (I'm bitter we didn't) that as our coaching staff gets continually picked over for hires by other teams and McVay's concepts (and now Staley's concepts) get proliferated out further around the league, there's going to be greater competition for the non-premium players who are strong scheme/concept-fits - it should be no surprise that after we invested a good amount of time scouting and interviewing Dwayne Eskeridge last offseason (just as an example) and Waldron was hired away to Seattle, that the Hags then slipped in front of us to take Eskeridge in the draft (which in turn led us to panic-buy Tutu).  Hopefully, this is something Lester has caught onto now and will be more aware of, both in terms of not quite so obviously telegraphing prospects he's really into for scheme-fit and also to being better prepared with a Break-Glass plan in the event another team heads him off at the pass for one of his coveted guys in the future.

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On 11/28/2021 at 2:13 AM, jrry32 said:

Goff isn't our QB anymore. I agree that we should make more use of play action, but Stafford doesn't run the offense like Goff. Stafford likes the deep ball more, whereas Goff loved attacking the intermediate range. I'm not sure what the solution is, but I don't think it's as simple as revert the offense back. I also think that Stafford has been playing injured, which is one reason why he has not looked good. I hope the time off has allowed him to heal.

Part, and I don't necessarily think we're past it because A) Jags (and well, they're perennially terrible) and B) I don't think it's necessarily going to go away this season just yet, of the issue was not running the offense through Kupp in the 3-game skid.  Now how much of that was because of the speed bump to overcome in not having Bobby Trees also in the corps also setting picks and sealing running lanes and allowing Kupp to be bracketed more often ( @Xenos can attest, defenses did the same thing to a similar-to-Kupp player in Keenan Allen when he was the lone stud in a Chargers passing game to shut down not too long ago) versus how much of that was trying a bit too much to integrate/satiate OBJ's want for touches earlier than probably necessary, I can't say.

We should make more use of play action, but it also helps to have a running game that really gives opposition reason for pause to sell that play action game and either because of game script (due to early turnovers/ST mistakes/etc) issues or McVay having some play-calling mindfarts, we really hadn't had the recent rushing attack to reasonably convince opposing defenders to commit against a play-fake.

 

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10 minutes ago, Dr LBC said:

Part, and I don't necessarily think we're past it because A) Jags (and well, they're perennially terrible) and B) I don't think it's necessarily going to go away this season just yet, of the issue was not running the offense through Kupp in the 3-game skid.  Now how much of that was because of the speed bump to overcome in not having Bobby Trees also in the corps also setting picks and sealing running lanes and allowing Kupp to be bracketed more often ( @Xenos can attest, defenses did the same thing to a similar-to-Kupp player in Keenan Allen when he was the lone stud in a Chargers passing game to shut down not too long ago) versus how much of that was trying a bit too much to integrate/satiate OBJ's want for touches earlier than probably necessary, I can't say.

We should make more use of play action, but it also helps to have a running game that really gives opposition reason for pause to sell that play action game and either because of game script (due to early turnovers/ST mistakes/etc) issues or McVay having some play-calling mindfarts, we really hadn't had the recent rushing attack to reasonably convince opposing defenders to commit against a play-fake.

 

If analytics are to be believed, then you don’t necessarily need a successful running game to sell play action. I think McVay could find a way to do it especially early in the game.

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