The Saga Of The Rams Undersized But Scrappy
Front Seven Of Death-posted by niner hater
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Many of Shurmers defenses, including those with the Rams, spent a lot of time on the field. It was the bend don't break phylosophy that was credited with their success. The funny thing is that the Packers don't play nearly as much bend don't break defenses as the Rams did. Why? Because the personel is much different. When you don't have the players who can play an attacking style successfully, you play a lot of zone. You play conservative and you wait for the opposition to make a mistake. You count more on the other teams inability to march the ball down the field with out screwing up. It's kind of the antithisis of the West Coast Offense.
When you have the athletes to go after them, that's what you do. You go after the big plays and use the defense offensively.
The Rams don't do a good job of either of those.
They try to play a combination of the two. Last season I watched too many times as they did the reverse of what they should do. Most of the time they tried to play conservative or a sort of bend don't break when the field position favored them. When the ball was in the red zone or close to it, they panicked and got agressive. This usually resulted in big plays and TD's. Far too many TD's of around 15-25 yards were given up last year. A perfect example of this was the Vikings game last year. The winning TD that won the game for the Vikes came from about the Rams 20. The game was tied and the Rams brought a corner blitz with Lyght on about 3rd and 10. The ball was easily thrown over McNeil in the corner of the endzone for the winning TD as Lyght was unable to get to Cunningham in time. The Rams did similar things all season and a few times in that very game. Here's the problem. If you are going to bring the corner on a blitz you shouldn't do it when the offense has a short field to play with. The play takes less time to develope and it's far less likely you can get there in time to make the big play and get the sack. It's much wiser to use the back of the endzone as the 12th defender and make them beat you. Yes you will probably give up the field goal but you probably won't give up the TD that kills you. If the Rams had only allowed a FG they would have taken that game to OT with a FG on their last drive instead of Banks comming up a yard short on the last play.
My point is that the Rams defensive play calling last year wasn't much better than their offensive play calling. They constantly zigged when the should have zagged and visa versa. Most defensive co-ordinators will tell you that you are better off playing aggressive on the opponents side of the field where a big play is less likely to kill you and more conservatively on your own end of the field where giving up a FG allows you to live on your next series and won't generally significantly alter your offensive game plan. Most of the time they played it @ss backwards
As for the Jets game and the NE game I will agree that the D played good games. I would also agree that they faced both Foley and Zolak instead of Testaverde and Bledsoe for the majority of those two games. That helped. As for the Niners games...the first game in St. Louis was respectable and they did a good job on Young but were killed by Hearst. The last game they got trounced defensively. The Niners hardly had to thow the ball in the last game because they were gaining 5-10 yards a pop on the ground.
Also, check out the year end time of possession stats. I don't remember them exactly but I was surprised at how close to 50/50 they were at the years end. They may have even had the ball for a few more seconds than they played defense on average. While the offense didn't stay on the field all that long, neither did the defense.
The difference between the Rams defense and a good defense was exposed constantly after turnovers. Good defenses find a way to hold a team without a first down and limit the opponent to a FG when the ball is turned over deep in their territory. A bad defense comes out and promptly gives up a TD. It was so predictable last year. Anytime the ball was turned over in Rams territory you could bet that it would result in a TD for the other team within 3 plays. What's worse is the amount of times it happened on the very first play after a turnover.
Make all the excuses you want for the defense but the bottom line is that they simply could not keep teams out of the endzone no matter what the circumstance. Please keep in mind that there is no excuse for how bad the offense played last year, I'm just trying to make a point.
Just to recap, I don't like all the excuses given to the defenses last year. I still believe that a good defense overcomes bad field postition and turnovers etc.
However, I do believe that the offense could have contributed to the defenses problems in another way. I believe that the coaching staff lacked confidence in the offense to such a degree that they gambled on defense far too much in an effort to turn the game. They guessed, they sold out and just played a fundementally unsound brand of defense on a regular basis because they were desperate. Desperate to prevent the giving up any points, even field goals. Desperate to get the big play and score on their own. Desperate to get some kind of play on defense that could turn the game around or create a 10 - 14 point swing. Desperate to improve offensive field position in any way.
That backfired in their faces, and predictabely so. They don't have the personel to play that way nor do they have a coaching staff capable of outthinking the other teams. I don't know if this would have been a conscious or subconscious approach to the D on the behalf of the coaching staff but I would argue that it is a better excuse than to blame turnovers and fatigue for giving up TD's by the buckets. While all those things played a roll I would say that it was the pyche of the coaches that was primarily responsible, not that of the players.
Maybe the defense will improve with our new offense. Maybe the coaching staff will play it a more sound fundementally because they won't panic the moment they get down by a 3-10 points. Maybe they'll change their approach towards making the opposing offense truely earn each and every point they score because they're going to have a hard time scoring more than we are. It could happen, we'll see.
The other major contribution to the improvement of the defense could be had by the punter. We don't mention this enough but a good punter helps tremendousely. How about a guy who can kick it out of bounds inside the 15 or 20 once in a while? How about a guy who can give our special teams enough time to get down the field and make the tackle before he's gained 10 yards?
I'm telling you right here that if the Rams can find a good punter, they will have gone a long way towards improving their defense. It was my opinion that they should have made a punter a priority in FA and gone after Gardocki. No such luck.
So, there you have it. No excuses, just a plausible explanation of what might have gone wrong.
Niner Hater