Dead Last

by Ryan Van Bibber on Oct 11, 2007 11:47 AM CDT in News

Perusing the power rankings is pretty futile, almost as futile as the power rankings themselves.

I stopped after the first one, the rankings over at Sports Illustrated. They've got the Rams dead last, and deservedly so given their 0-5 record. The only other 0-5 team is Miami, and they've got us beat in the points scored category, 97 to our meager 70. New Orleans remains winless as well, but they're only 0-4 thanks to an early season bye week. Here's the take on the Rams at #32 from SI:

Our man in St. Louis reports the following, from the Cardinals game: "Now it's the safety position that's being leveled. SS Corey Chavous missed the game because of a pectoral injury. Jerome Carter started and Todd Johnson played in the nickel. But Carter suffered a broken bone in his foot in the second quarter and Johnson suffered a sprained neck on a special teams play in the third. That left Oshiomogho Atogwe as the only true safety on the roster."

It sounds like Tye Hill might be back in uniform this week after all, but not in a starting role. Bill Coats reports that his limited duty might feature him as nickel back.

That could be a real advantage as the Ravens offense has been as putrid as the Rams. They've scored just 88 points. Word is that Ravens head coach Brian Billick may give up play calling duties if things don't go well against the Rams this week.

On the other side of the ball, Baltimore's defense is again winning games for them, but their pass defense isn't as good as many give them credit for. Their pass defense has a DVOA of 5.9%, 14th in the league, and remember they got some help from an increasingly hapless San Francisco offense that mustered just 7 points last week, on a Trent Dilfer pass to Arnaz Battle. In the two weeks prior, Baltimore gave up 2 passing touch downs in each game, a loss to the Browns and a narrow victory over the Cardinals. In week two, they allowed the Jets' no name QB to connect with Cotchery for 165 yards on 7 receptions, and the Jets racked up 304 yards through the air on the day. It's a pass defense ripe for exploitation, especially given their penchant for allowing the big play to happen in the air. Frerotte proved he can run a passing game with good enough results and the Jets Kellen Clemens proved that a back up QB can have a good day against the Ravens.

Call me a glue sniffing fool, but this might just be a winnable game for the Rams.

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Comments

two things

the leading rusher is all the Ravens games has been McGahee, so I don't think we will be too successful with the run. But, let's not abandon it.
Secondly, both Kellen Clemens and Derek Anderson were able to have score points and have success against their defense throwing the football. So, lets see what our backup can do.
I'm a fool too, and think we can win this game.

by jroman on Oct 11, 2007 1:25 PM CDT reply actions

I agree

this is a game the Rams can win. And what has left me scratching my head the past week is all this talk about the Rams now entering the "tough part" of the schedule. What?

Maybe in the offseason this looked to be a difficult stretch, but I don't tremble when I see Seattle, Cleveland, New Orleans, San Francisco, Seattle, Atlanta, and Cincinnati all lined up with a bye week mixed in.

The entire schedule is rather weak once we see how teams are actually going to perform in 2007. There's 3 "good" teams on their schedule: Dallas, Green Bay and Pittsburgh.

by Big Red on Oct 11, 2007 5:20 PM CDT reply actions