Turns out it's more than just idle chatter about Rams new head coach Jim Haslett wanting to bring back CB Fakhir Brown. The Rams are now involved in negotiations to bring back the CB released as something of a scapegoat by Scott Linehan ahead of the week four game with the Bills. This is good. Brown's a much better player than we saw this season. Only about a tenth of what was going on behind the scenes has been revealed, and the circumstances surrounding Brown's release have a lot more to do with Linehan than anything else. Think he said something? (I'm also more and more inclined to believe there was a great deal of tension between Linehan and Haslett). 

Take a look at the Rams pass defense this season. According to Football Outsiders' stats, it's the second worst in the league, a surprise in and of itself. Look at the drop off though from 29th ranked to the 30,31, and 32nd ranked:

That's quite a drop off. But regardless of the dropoff - really just a disturbing comparison - when opponents are successful on almost 66% of their passing plays, the team has a serious problem.

What really pisses you off about it though is that we know the Rams, while still no great shakes on pass D, are at least better than this. Last season, they finished ranked 25th in DVOA for pass defense, with a DVOA of 18.6%. Quite a difference, no?

(I'll be out till the weekend, with my family.)