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******************** PART I ********************* POMPEI QUESTION AND ANSWER. Posted by Bama RamFan on 11/5 Subject: "Faulk isn't worth it for Rams" article [an e-mail exhcange] Bama---I have been biting my tongue for months over your article "Faulk isn't worth it for Rams" (May 11, 1999). Although you make some valid points about the type of running back he is, he is the perfect fit for this team right now and will keep a defense honest with his dual role capability. Have you re-thought your opinion on the Rams taking Marshall Faulk for only two draft picks? Pompei's response---I had no problem with the compensation the Rams gave the Colts for Faulk. What I wrote was that he wouldn't be worth the contract and cap space Faulk would require. Have I re-thought my opinion? I am always re-thinking my opinions, because things are always changing. I've seen Faulk play in person three times this year, and he has been outstanding. I give him a lot of credit for running hard and not letting his paycheck affect his intensity. He has been an ideal fit for the Rams, and Dick Vermeil and Mike Martz have used him very effectively. But I still wonder whether Faulk will be worth it in the long haul, David. Only time will tell. I'll say this. I don't agree with some analysts who say that Faulk is the key to the Rams offense. He has been a big part of it, but I believe the key is Kurt Warner to Isaac Bruce. That's what got the Rams going. The Rams were scoring all kinds of points early in the season before Faulk ever did much. And I'll make one more point: The Colts sure don't seem to be missing Faulk very much. In fact, their offense is a lot better since he left. RESPONSE: BUT, MR. POMPEI....Posted by zn on 11/5 Their offense is better since Faulk left because...Manning now throws TDs instead of INTs? (?) This is the difference between IND & St.Louis. IND wanted a player who did certain things in their scheme. So they go get James. Okay, no problem... good choice. The Rams get Faulk. And they ask---what can we do to set up Faulk's game? They ask---how do we best take advantage of his strengths? So they invent the 90 flip (among other things) and then they also run a draw play with him on 3rd and 26. Those are just two examples. As a result...Faulk will have the best year of any running back in the NFC and certainly the best of his career. Difference. Martz schemes for Faulk. Polian fits players into a system. Both things work. But that means Martz takes advantage of what is special about Faulk---and that Polian/Mora couldn't, or at least didn't. RESPONSE #2: OOPS. Posted by Give em the Horn on 11/5 Here all along I thought that the reason the passing game was so successful was because all the DCs were concentrating on Faulk and makeing the arena QB beat them. But I guess Pompei knows best. Doggone. Wrong again. ******************** PART II ********************* SUMMERALL & MADDEN. Posted by stl shams on 11/5 They .are doing the Bears/Packers game. Is that a bigger game than the Rams/Lions ? I don't think so. FOX is getting to be a joke for not recognizing the Rams. Summerall & Madden must have it in their contracts that they can only announce @ Green Bay, New York, San Francisco, Dallas, Minnesota, and sometimes Philadelphia. This is almost as bad as listening to Collingsworth every week. Dick Stocton & Matt Millen will do just fine. RESPONSE: WHO CARES. Posted by Battering Ram on 11/5 Madden & Summerall chose to stay on the Bears/Packers game (I believe because of the Payton angle). If they wanted to move they could have. Stockton and Millen are probably better anyhow. In any case it just doesn't matter. What matters is that the Rams will come out of the gate in Detroit and put the Lions in their place. The Rams are better than the Lions at almost every position. What I want to see is the Rams at 7-1 at the midpoint. If they play the way they are capable of we will see Madden and Summerall a couple of times in the second half of the season and certainly in the playoffs. ******************** PART III ********************* CRITICAL LOOK AT JIM THOMAS. Posted by Rammed For Life on 11/5 My biggest beef about JT--- Just before the season began, JT did his pre-season summary for TSN. Note: this was AFTER Warner had clearly demonstrated in the Detroit pre-season game that he would be AT LEAST OK. Well, JT predicted real disaster. I mean it wasn't just being pessimistic. He ripped the team and made a specific prediction. I think he predicted a 2-14 finish. He sounded like WE FANS did in early January. [Note: perhaps he got it backwards and meant 14-2. zn] Now I can imagine someone feeling that the team had been deeply hurt by losing Green. We fans all felt that way. I was hopeful about KW, but I thought he would grow along and maybe get us to 9-7. No one expected this season! Okay. But here is what really bothers me. During the offseason, as soon as we started signing FAs, the mood of the team changed. Something really different was happening. From Lyght hearing of Marshall's acquisition to Bruce talking about how it wasn't just talent, it was playing as winners---all the way through, something was happening. Training camp was a bona fide MIRACLE of rising morale. The team was fresh, it believed in its abilities, it knew its O was very good, and it trusted its COACHES. This was visible, observable. Boil it down to this: the promise the team showed in the pre-season was MORE, MUCH MORE than the mere presence of Trent Green. Now how on earth could JT be around that team in an intimate way and not see that ?How could he fail to see what was remarkable about the way the team responded tolosing Trent, the way it bonded together around KW? I just find this to be poor reporting. How could he predict 2 wins for the team that came out of training camp the way it did? Some national media guy who doesn't know us? Fine. But OUR OWN BEAT REPORTER? Furthermore. Let's say he made a mistake. We all do. Has he ever once acknowledged that his read was wrong? Not to my knowledge. To me, a guy who makes a prediction and gets paid for it owes his readers some responsibility for that. Thomas's read was as wrong as it could have been. And I don't see him 'fessing up to his St. Louis readers (the ones who pay his salary) or to the team. I think he owes us a public recantation: his pre-season take was WRONG. And unlike national media guys, he is the beat Ram reporter and he ought to have known better! Since then, he has some written complimentary articles, but often with leads that have ironic twists that seem to insist on reservations before grudgingly acknowledging achievement. I get a very unhealthy whiff in some of these articles. That could be me reading into things, but I have frequently sensed an unpleasant attitude there. Look, again, I don't demand that JT promise us the Super Bowl. None of us could do that. But this team has ALREADY earned tremendous heartfelt praise. Even if we stumbled the rest of the way to 9-7 (ain't gonna happen) they would STILL deserve kudos for a remarkable turn-around. So why all the restraint in giving theses guys props? I don't get it. Bernie and Randy K have no problem sharing in the excitement. Why does JT have to sound so dour? Now I do not ask Thomas to be a biased "homer." I want tough, honest reporting. But I feel that a guy who is the Rams' own beat reporter has been very, very slow to recognize that something special is going on here. He completely missed it in training camp and has been very grudging with his praise for an incredible 6-0 start. If there are negatives to report--fine. Do so. But don't REFUSE to praise the team in some reverse bias. Well, maybe he is listening to the suits. If that is true, that seems like poor repoorting. Why would someone turn primarily to the suits to figure out how a football team is doing? Some have speculated that he wants a job in a big market and the way to do that is to play the heavy. That seems abstractly plausible, too. I don't know what's behind it. I do know that I have lost respect for him. Last year, I thought he did a good job keeping a level head during the debacle. This year, for some reason he doesn't seem to get along well with prosperity. But now...to be fair...maybe, just maybe, JT's on board--finally! Here is Jim Thomas' "Fearless Forecast" from his weeekly TSN article: "Last week in Tennessee, the Rams looked like a team that had never played a road game in front of a packed house before. Talk about stage fright. Once they got over their first quarter yips, they returned to form, but couldn't quite erase a 21-0 deficit. They won't make the same mistake twice. In a credibility check game, they will take care of business in Detroit, in a game that has playoff implications, and will move the Rams that first step towards home-field advantage in the playoffs." This is the first I have heard of him actually saying he expects a good deal from the team. Here, he speaks of home field for the playoffs, which is, after all, a lofty goal for a perennial loser. Parting note on the press: I have noted a NUMBER of national reporters who have explicitly said that they were more impressed with the Titan LOSS and the way we came back than they were by the blowout wins. That's a good sign, in terms of what it says about our team. |
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SOME (FIESTY!) MEDIA NOTES, BY VARIOUS POSTERS
(Nov 5)