Primary Sidebar
BlogsLinks
SJ39 (Steven Jackson's official website)
Rams Gab
St. Louis Sports Magazine
Golden Horns
RAMblinFan
Ram-blings
Fair Catch
Rams Rant
Fanhouse: Rams
Belleville News Democrat: Rams
Post Dispatch: Rams
Steve Korte's Ramblings - BND
SE Missourian Sports Blog
Official Rams site
RealRamsFans.com Forum
Yankee Doodle Brit
Football & More
ESPN's NFL Nation NFC West
The Fifth Down (NYTimes)
Pro Football Talk
Deadspin
Kissing Suzy Kolber
Hurricanes Are for Drinking
Rams Schedule
@
Seattle
|
Sun 09/13 | 3:15 PM CDT |
|
@
Washington
|
Sun 09/20 | 12:00 PM CDT |
|
Green Bay
|
Sun 09/27 | 12:00 PM CDT |
|
@
San Francisco
|
Sun 10/04 | 3:15 PM CDT |
|
Minnesota
|
Sun 10/11 | 12:00 PM CDT |
|
@
Jacksonville
|
Sun 10/18 | 12:00 PM CDT |
|
Indianapolis
|
Sun 10/25 | 12:00 PM CDT |
|
@
Detroit
|
Sun 11/01 | 12:00 PM CST |
|
New Orleans
|
Sun 11/15 | 12:00 PM CST |
|
Arizona
|
Sun 11/22 | 3:05 PM CST |
|
Seattle
|
Sun 11/29 | 12:00 PM CST |
|
@
Chicago
|
Sun 12/06 | 12:00 PM CST |
|
@
Tennessee
|
Sun 12/13 | 12:00 PM CST |
|
Houston
|
Sun 12/20 | 12:00 PM CST |
|
@
Arizona
|
Sun 12/27 | 3:05 PM CST |
|
San Francisco
|
Sun 01/03 | 12:00 PM CST |
Spagnuolo will have a 'Ram tough' camp to mold the team
by VanRam
on Jul 2, 2009 7:52 AM CDT
in Preseason
1 comment
Rams head coach Steve Spagnuolo sat down for an interview with the Sporting News. Mostly, he covered the points that have already been covered, but there were a few things that grabbed my attention.
Obviously, he reiterated the Steven Jackson-as-center-of-the-offense theme...people are really going to be surprised when the Rams end up passing on 50% of their plays.
Which of the four pillars has really been seen on the field? Team first, of course.
"The 'team first' is always going to be important to us, and we've talked a lot about that as a group -- both players and coaches. ...I think, from the words being said, that they are putting the team first. I have no reason to believe they're not thinking that way."
To me, that's the most important pillar, and it's good to see that the players and the coaches are buying into the changes at Rams Park. Of course, the real test, as Spags suggests elsewhere in the interview, comes when they face some adversity. Let's see where things stand in week 3 or 4.
Does anyone else get the sense that Tony La Russa (quoted in the interview) is going to be a motivational speaker when he's done giving washed up veteran baseball players a chance to play?
Lastly, Spags gave us a preview of training camp this year. If spring practices were about learning and installing the playbook, camp is all about molding the team. To wit:
We need to establish the physicality of this team, and you can only do that with pads. We need to lay a foundation for the latter part of the season, when you need to win games in late November and December. And we need to come out as a unified team.
That's exactly what I want to hear. Camp is going to be tough this year, like the coach told his players to close out spring practices. And it needs to be. If this team doesn't play more physical than it has in recent seasons - player age and other factors had something to do with that - they won't even be able to make things interesting on a weekly basis.
1 comment
| 0 recs
|
Sex education expert Sandra "Ms. Mac" McDonald stirred the pot during her opening session by telling stories, stating facts and showing pictures about some of the unfortunate things that can happen if players aren’t careful or don’t use protection.
about 12 hours ago
VanRam
0 comments
0 recs
Fantasy owners like Jackson, who turns 26 July 22, around the No. 5 overall spot, but it is a risky proposition. We like Jackson and feel he is interchangeable with the Carolina Panthers' DeAngelo Williams...
1 day ago
VanRam
0 comments
0 recs
The Rams 10 most important players for 2009
by VanRam
on Jul 1, 2009 7:45 AM CDT
in Preseason
20 comments
It's the first of July, and that means we are officially less than one month from the start of training camp. You can kind of start to see a little light at the end of the tunnel. For the Rams, this year's training camp is more important than ever, as the team starts to answer big questions as the players suit up and physical play starts. We'll get into those questions and the position battles lots more as camp plays out.
That said, it's been awhile since we considered the 2009 Rams from a wider perspective. With the draft, individual performances at OTAs and minicamp, and a look at various units here and there, it's been easy to overlook the bigger picture. And what better way to pull back the lens than with a top ten list?!
Note, I got this idea from Fooch over at Niners Nation, another team with lots of questions surrounding a transitional season. Anyway, on with our list, starting at #10, Letterman style:
10. Chris Long - Last year's first round pick, second overall, had a solid debut, collecting four sacks before hitting that dreaded rookie wall late in the season. The Spagnuolo/Flajole attack defense asks much of Long, making him one of the primary pass rushers in the system. If he can excel in his sophomore season, it will give the Rams a defense that opponents finally have to take seriously.
9. James Laurinaitis - It hardly seems fair to put a rookie all by himself on this list, but Laurinaitis was one of the top MLBs in the draft this year and fills a HUGE need for a Rams team that was constantly gashed by opposing rushers.
8. Alex Barron/Jason Smith - Both starting OTs have a lot to prove this year. Barron, in a walk year of his contract with the Rams (though he'd still be a restricted FA after this season), has to become the solid all-around OT the Rams expected him to be when they drafted him. He's never missed a game and has ability; he just hasn't always seemed to have his head in the game to the point where he can be considered something more than just a starter. This new bunch of coaches is known for lighting fires under players' asses, and that should help Barron. Smith has the talent, but he has to translate that to the NFL...making fans forget that Aaron Curry was available with that second pick. How much he can do as rookie will have much to say about how the Rams fare in 2009.
7. Keenan Burton - The Rams need the physical Burton to be their chain-moving possession receiver, a role more important than ever in new offensive coordinator Pat Shurmur's West Coast offense. A fourth round pick from last year, Burton missed OTAs and minicamp this spring with a hamstring issue, making training camp a crash course in the playbook as well as the time to prove himself.
6. Donnie Avery - All spring and summer questions have been hurled at the Rams wide receivers: can they make it happen with so little experience? Is Avery good enough to be a #1? Who'll catch passes on the other side to take the heat off? Avery had a nice rookie season on a team whose passing game, um, left a little to be desired. He has to ascend to the next level this year.
20 comments
| 0 recs
|
The spring practices (minicamps and OTAs) were decidedly more uptempo than what we'd seen in the recent past.
2 days ago
VanRam
0 comments
0 recs
Rams giving WFL WR Prentiss Elliott a tryout?
by VanRam
on Jun 30, 2009 9:48 AM CDT
in News
5 comments
A while back I passed along some info that the Rams were scouting WR Prentiss Elliott, a member of the Oklahoma Thunder WFL team. Elliott had a promising freshman season at Oklahoma State, only to be kicked off the team the next year, in 2005, for unnamed violations. Anyway, like most redemption stories go, he hit bottom a couple years later, and is now trying to turn things around via football. The Oklahoma Thunder of the WFL (not ot be confused with the OKC NBA team) gave him that chance, and now he might get a shot with another league, the NFL.
Is it going to be the Rams that give him a chance in the big leagues? An assistant coach with the Thunder, Thom Roundtree, told the Examiner-Enterprise of Bartlesville, OK, in story filed yesterday afternoon, that Elliott would attend the Rams training camp next month. A profile of Elliott appearing in today's Tulsa World says nothing about the WR attending camp with the Rams, but it does note that the Rams have been one of several teams to have scouted him, viewing every Thunder but one and asking for tapes of each. Given that level of interest, it wouldn't be surprising if Elliott has been invited to camp.
You can read about his impressive stats with Thunder - WFL caveat - at the Tulsa World link above. That's about the closest thing to a scouting report I can find. A look at the 2004 OSU team listed Elliott at 6'0" 175 lbs as a freshman. He may well have added some weight since then, but the 24-year-old profiles much like the other Rams wide receivers.The Thunder's official site lists him at 6'1" 205 lbs.
He stood out as a return man at OSU, so you'd have to think if he still has the kind of speed they say he does and he really has been invited to camp, that Elliott will get some looks as a returner, an area where the Rams are still looking for more definitive answers.
5 comments
| 0 recs
|
Successful offensive drives rare for the Rams in '08; will '09 be any better?
by VanRam
on Jun 30, 2009 7:12 AM CDT
in Preseason
0 comments
Here's a number for you: .595
That's the Rams offense's drive success rate, which measures the percentage of the team's offensive drives that result in another first down or a touch down. Clearly in the "F" territory were a teacher assigning grades based on that percentage, and deservedly so. That's the second worst drive success rate (DSR) in the league, behind only the lowly Oakland Raiders. For the sake of comparison, the top DSR belongs to, no surprise, Indy at .757. Division-mates Seattle (.643), San Francisco (.661) and Arizona (.718) all fared better.
The reason, one of them, for the Rams poor performance on offense has to do with their relative weaknesses on first and second downs, something discussed earlier this month, that reflect consistency and offense's ability to move the ball productively. Go back and look at the numbers on first and second downs, and you'll see the passing and rushing were equally troubled, a fact that has much to with the offensive line, among other things.
Expecting a record above .500 may be too much to ask, but with improvements on the offensive line and if Bulger's progress is real, we should expect to see better results on first and second downs, translating to better numbers on overall drive success rates. That will make for a more competitive team and give them something to build on for future seasons.
0 comments
| 0 recs
|
$18.59 million
That's what the Rams spent for each team win between 2004-2008, according to this post from NFL.com's Jason La Canfora. The Rams won just 27 out of 80 regular season games during that five-year span. Hopefully, we're coming out of the wilderness now.
3 days ago
VanRam
1 comment
0 recs
Secondary Sidebar
FanPosts
Community blog posts and discussion.
Recent FanPosts
New FanPost
Next Game
FanShots
Quick hits of video, photos, quotes, chats, links and lists that you find around the web.
Certain photos copyright © 2009 by Associated Press or Getty Images. Any commercial use or distribution without the express written consent of Associated Press and Getty Images is strictly prohibited.
