I begin this article by asking you to
pause for just one moment, and consider the conundrum that is the 2015 St Louis
Rams. For a few seasons now, people have
been waiting on the Rams to break out of their recent humdrum, without it ever
coming to pass.
I urge you therefore to look at this
team, with fresh eyes as it were, really look at them and break down the
roster. The defensive front 7 on paper
as good as any team in the league, with all due apologies to fans of the Texans,
Bills and Jets, you might argue that the Rams front 7 as a collective unit is
the best in the league. Add in the
defensive co-ordinator Gregg Williams who nobody can deny is one of the more
aggressive play callers in the league (Brett Favre, may argue too much so) and
you have a unit that will scare a lot of opponents. Defensive End, Robert Quinn could well be an
early season candidate for the Deacon Jones award this season, which would be
kind of poetic to see that particular award in the hands of a Ram.
On offence however, it is no longer the
Sam Bradford factor, how healthy would be?
Would he ever live up to the huge rookie contract? Questions now for Eagles head coach Chip Kelly
to ponder, as the Rams for the first time in several years are looking to play
an entire season with their starting QB.
That QB is of course the new boy in St Louis, Nick Foles.
Foles, is all honesty probably not as
good as the figures from two years ago suggested, but when you put up all time
figures in terms of touchdown to interception ratio, nobody is going to just
get better and better. He is also, it is
fair to say, better than the stats would show last year in Philadelphia. Yes more interceptions were thrown, but with
Foles starting the Eagles were on course for the playoffs. Foles, is also a QB that unless you are a
staunch Rams or Eagles fan, that you are unlikely to recognise should he ever
walk past you. Not something many
starting QB’s in the NFL can claim.
Despite this, the fact that he is worthy
of a being a NFL starter is not disputable, he has clearly shown the potential,
and on that basis when you have been playing for pretty much two whole seasons
with second and third string on the depth chart guys, Foles is clearly a step
up. Having a starting QB should also
make or break some of the Receivers on the Rams.
There has been many comments mostly
unkind, about the Rams WR unit, and lack of star power, but just how good would
we have though Jerry Rice was if it wasn’t Joe Montana or Steve Young, but instead
Steve Bono throwing him passes. Now
obviously, I am not putting the Rams Receivers in the class of Jerry Rice,
nobody is in that class yet, maybe one day Megatron will get close, but Stedman
Bailey is a receiver who has shown signs of something promising, and Tavon
Austin the former no.8 overall pick has all the potential in the world. Working under the mentorship of Kenny Britt
and playing games with a no.1 QB can only help the unit develop, but the Rams
bread and butter pass will be off play action as this team will run.
Tre Mason started to come into his own
in the second half of last season, and was closing in on a near 1,000 yard
rookie season, and many observes around the league, Rams fans or not, were
expecting big things from Mason in 2015, right up to draft day. When Roger Goodell spoke the words with the
10th pick in the 2015 draft the St Louis Rams select Todd Gurley,
all bets were off as to what sort of team this Rams team would be. Gurley whose selection made the previous year
Rams RB Zac Stacey request a trade, has been described as the best RB to come
out of college since Adrian Peterson, and he has turned out ok (on the field,
at least).
So think about all that and you see a
team that really could be on the verge of something big in St Louis. Maybe not Greatest Show on Turf big, but a
team that could well be in the playoff hunt and should be capable of competing
with Seattle and Arizona. The problem
though is that this time may not be the St Louis Rams much longer. With nearly every passing day, its seems more
and more likely that this team will be the 2016 Los Angeles Rams, the scheduled
owners meeting in August could well provide more information to this end.
So a team that may well be on the verge
of something and should be exciting its fanbase may just be on the verge of
alienating it in one swift movement. When
teams move, change it seems is almost inevitable elsewhere in the
organistion. Any team in LA will need to
excite the local marketplace who have the Lakers, Clippers, Dodgers, Kings etc…
yes Los Angeles has not had football since the Rams and Raiders left town, but
it is not like LA has suffered greatly as a result. Does LA need the NFL or does the NFL need LA
more?
If the latter is true, is the future of
coach Jeff Fisher under pressure. Likely
that 8-8 seasons will not cut it in the LA environment, will there be an
expectation to offer a more expansive style of play rather than the more
conservative Fisher approach? All
questions that can be solved by winning of course! Win to much now and does it
become more difficult to move from St Louis as the city seems to be doing a lot
in order to keeps it’s NFL franchise.
The 2015 Rams, on paper, on screen even,
should be a playoff team, but probably not till they know if they are coming or
going, if they are going, history suggests that this may not be the year the
Rams faithful would have hoped for, and for some involved in the Rams that may
be their final chance.
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