St. Louis Rams coaches' approval rating
by Ryan Van Bibber on Nov 1, 2010 10:40 AM CDT
in 2010 St. Louis Rams season
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The St. Louis Rams are sitting at .500, for the first time since the close of the 2006 season.
An era of good feelings seems to have infected fans. However, wins aren't coming easy for the Rams, who are doing it with a stout defense that is just plain tougher than most of their opponents and an offense that can at least move the ball.
Change just doesn't happen. Turning around a franchise requires guidance and most of all a vision. At various points since the regime change at Rams Park, fans have derided the head coach's "four pillars" approach, an overly cautious take on free agency, draft picks and trades that could of have been and a sometimes befuddling offensive game plan.
So, fans weigh on the Rams leadership, not the overall direction of the franchise, just the job that the coaches are doing.
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theres usually one douche who votes "F" just to be funny
I think Spags and Devaney have done a hell of a job. We may all find the four pillars thing annoying and restrictive, but I’m coming around on it.
Look at all the teams that have great talent but never win anything (Cowboys, Chargers [Rivers is a colossal d***], Redskins, etc…)
On the other hand, look at the teams that do win (Pats, Colts, Steelers, even our ’99 Rams had character guys like Ike, Big Game, Warner and Faulk).
It’s all about building a team, and not jumping at the first talented guy who walks in the door. We’ve got a group of guys who are great guys and hard workers. (Amendola is already my favorite NFL player). The tone is set from the top, and the players are buying in.
But those are different character guys we had.
Like JL character guys with class acts off the field.
Take the leash off of the offense pleeeeeeease.
Signed, Rams fan.
I voted C
Spags is an A defensive coordinator, but a B head coach. I assume Flajole is just as good as Spags at being a defensive coordinator so he’s at least a B+. The downfall of this rating is Pat Shurmur. He is a D or C- but I have to dock Spags on keeping him last offseason. Everyone argues that they can’t change coordinators on Bradford, but I wanted him gone after last season, before Bradford. So not getting rid of him at the end of last season brings the total of the whole coaching staff to a high C. Don’t ask me how I calculated that.
Onobun > Gates
B
I’d give them an A for what they are building. They had to build almost from scratch, so I give them a free pass on last season. There drafting has been stellar and they are smart and thrifty in the trade market.
I’d also give an A on prepping players and weekly gameplan, because we dominate the 1st quarter and usually the second too
I’d give a D or D- to playcalling. It isn’t as bad in the first half, but we are so flat in the second half. We make ZERO halftime adjustment, and get out coached in the second, imo. Second half gameplan gets a D, as well.
by WastedPotential on Nov 1, 2010 11:31 AM CDT reply actions
B
They could be much tougher and a run away favorite if they would have made some riskier free agent moves.
Rome wasn’t built in a day, but at the same time, a team in a good position to win needs to make moves to help them become better.
Most especially, going into the trade deadline this year. When Randy Moss is on the table, everyone is fair game. You won’t find your long term solution, but it’s hard for me to believe there wasn’t a decent reciever available for a later round draft pick.
Pat Shurmur is just a scapegoat for poor execution by the players.
Take the tampa bay game for instance, we were gouging them with the run on the first half, and couldn’t get a 1st with it in the second half. You can say that we should have moved away from the running game at that point, but the Bucks were already selling out against the run as much as possible and it wasn’t doing any good. I honestly don’t see how you can argue that we shouldn’t have put the ball in SJax’s hands that second half. Bradford also had a terrible half (but followed it up with an incredible day next week). How in the hell is this mostly Shurmur’s fault?!? I think the offense last year has really hurt his reputation, but he’s done a pretty good job this year.
He’s working with a rookie QB, a group of mediocre at best WRs, and a running game that disappears in the second half.
I’m surprised he’s been able to milk as much out of this offense, what some people see as conservative play calling is really just a good understanding of this team’s capabilities. I would like to see a lot more focus on the TEs now that Uh-Oh and Bajema are healthy. Lets just see what happens in a game where we target Uh-Oh more than anyone else in the passing game, I think short passes to TEs make a lot more sense than short passes to WRs, hell he may even be our best deep threat.
As far as Spags goes, he does make some strategical errors, mainly with timeouts and clock management, but the guy has done an outstanding job overall. The #1 job as a head coach is to get everyone playing hard and as a team, and that’s exactly what is happening.
Overall I’d say
HC- B
OC- B-
DC- A
This!
Based on what I’m seeing this year I think the playcalling on offense has to do with the personell than what pat wants to do. You can already tell that he is going deeper than he did last year due to more confidence in the qb.
Football players, like prostitutes, are in the business of ruining their bodies for the pleasure of strangers. ~Merle Kessler
by mlkgandhiv2k on Nov 1, 2010 1:01 PM CDT via mobile up reply actions
Shurmur absolutely deserves derision for his 2nd half in Tampa.
How can you maintain that an offensive strategy that netted zero points in the second half was wise? It was obvious what happened: Jackson was running wild over the Bucs in the first half, so they tightened up around the line of scrimmage and stuffed the run game. With the Bucs over-committing to the stopping the run, it was an opportunity for play-action, deep passes, and misdirection plays. Instead, we continued to run Jackson up the middle over and over, gaining little on each play. Clearly, the strategy did not work, as evidenced by our zero points.
Was there some bad execution as well? Sure. But its difficult to look past the very lackluster playcalling, which was a mirror image of what happened against the Chargers. It almost cost us the game against San Diego; it did cost us the game against the Bucs.
Grade B
Getting more potential than your players’ skill sets = grade A.
Spags has had some questionable calls this years = A-
Flajole = Inconsistent defenses, not calling enough blitzes and isolating Butler in coverage in red zone plays = B
Shurmur = Inconsistent on offense, too timid. Where has the kill factor been in the 2nd half? This Rams team should be 7-1 heading into the bye! B-
B+
The only reason I’m not giving them an A is because the team generally has fallen apart in the second half of most games, and there have several questionable calls throughout the year. But getting basically the same 1-15 team to 0.500 halfway through this season is phenomenal. Bravo, coaches.
I'm not trolling, just being sarcastic.
Yea, like you said
"The greatest accomplishment is not in never falling, but in rising again after you fall." - Vince Lombardi
Mixed results so a C+
For Sprags I give him a solid B, he needs to get the team more motivated after half time. But he has brought this team together after a miserable season last year.
For our OC I give a D, he does not always utilize SJ like he should. He is also to conservative with our passing game, yes we are kinda weak in our receiving corps but we can not live off of the short pass all the time.
For our DC I give a B+, our pass rushing and run stopping has been great but our pass defense is lacking. Our DBs drop to many INTs and we give up a lot of long 3rd down catches.
For our ST coach I give him a B, our coverage has been good for kick offs and punts. But our kicking and punting game have has some bad times.
Ram's CoachesRating
It is very much a mixed bag but good overall.
A .. For Motivation: Players look ready to play and are playing hard almost every down.
B+ For Discipline: Very few stupid errors or penalites.
B+ For GamePlan: Always seem to have a good gameplan that gives Rams a chance to win.
C+ For Adaptability in 2nd half. Seems like we do not do a good job offensively in adapting out offense to deal with the changes the opponent makes to our offense starting in the 3rd period.
C+ For 2nd half Defensive schemes. IT seems we become very cautious Defensively in the 2nd half of the game, and end up playing a type of “Prevent” defense instead of attacking the opposing teams offense. In otherwords in the 2nd half we play “not to lose” rather than “play to win”
“B” overall for the reasons given above. Plus we are 4 & 3 with only 1 genuine star in Stephen Jackson. With all our injuries in the receiver corps we are still adapting and scoring some points.
I have to give them an A
The only reason I do it is because of our lack of talent. Granted without Bradford we wouldn’t have won 4 games. Spags made a defense pretty good in a short time. Our OC has WR corp that wouldn’t scare most college teams so he calls the best plays he can, the WR just ned to produce.
We wouldn't have won 4 games without Bradford? Not true at all.
Bradford is a rookie and has been playing pretty well, but there is no doubt in my mind that we’d be 4-4 with Bulger right now. Getting Bradford was the right move because we need him for the future, but he’s not the reason for this turnaround. The offense is slightly improved from this year to last, but that’s mainly due to the improved o-line play from last year. The defense is why we’re winning.
i have to laugh at this
there is no doubt in my mind that we’d be 4-4 with Bulger right now.
you think? no you are absolutely positive…. that is ridiculous to me…
do i think they’d be 4-4… no… probably more like 2-6 or something…. but im not positive and neither are you since bulger never had as good a defense and CLEARLY, Bradford has more respect and command than bulger ever had..)
by stlcardsfan4 on Nov 1, 2010 11:27 PM CDT up reply actions
The defense is why we're winning,
but the improved offense is why the defense gets to play at a high level consistently. Really man? If you’re just looking at their qb stats, stop and look at the deeper offensive stats. More points, more yards, MUCH better on third down (101 passer rating from Bradford on third down, 5th in the league) and they just respond much better to Bradford. I’m PRETTY sure that the defense had nothing to do with that. Wow that was the dumbest comment on Earth. Bulger sucked at moving the offense (as did Boller and Null, for that matter) and it ultimately led to a tired ass defense late in EVERY GAME. We saw the same thing in the Tampa game, the offense was stagnant in the second half and the defense ended up giving big plays in the end. I’m tired of the people saying Bradford is doing no better than Bulger. I’m sorry, but you’re idiots.
Take the leash off of the offense pleeeeeeease.
Signed, Rams fan.
The playcalling can be
infuriating to watch. Otoh, the Rams have been pretty good at not giving the ball away. I hate the ultra-conservative playcalling, but I wonder how much of it is a function of the lack of playmakers the Rams have.
B+
I love what this FO is doing with this team. We are heading in the same direction as the Pats and Steelers as far as getting no name players and coaching them to become big name players. Most of our team this year and last are other teams pratice sqaud players or walk ons. The main support guys have been drafted in the last 3 drafts. Schurmur gets alot of hell but with what he has to work with and the limited options to fill holes due to injury, he has made progress.
Just like a drafted player, give them till the end of next year, then ask this question.
It depends on what you mean coaching...
I think the players are generally exceeding their talent level. So that sort of coaching is good.
But the tactical, gameday coaching needs work. You could make a good case that bad coaching cost them at least two games.
Case in point, the last game where Spags called time outs in the first half. The only possible outcome of those time outs would be to give TB a chance for a field goal (which they hit). Even if somehow the Rams had TB, the Rams would have had like a minute left and probably 80 yards to go and no time outs.
The timeouts were not on the coaching staff,
people need to get over that. It was 3rd and 24 on THEIR half of the field with 1:38. If you really don’t think any other coach or haven’t even seen any other coach do that for that matter, then you’re just insane. Any coach in the league would have called those timeouts because you would assume that we are most likely going to get the ball back with just under a minute and a half left, not that Freeman would scramble for 25 yards. That was on the players executing poorly, not Spags.
Take the leash off of the offense pleeeeeeease.
Signed, Rams fan.
B
because my expectations are high again. We could easily be 6-2 and possibly 7-1 right now and they deserve the blame for most of that. But I’m also keeping in mind that we were 1-15 last year with a team that they got with no talent but this year we have 0 resemblance of that team, this staff is taking us somewhere and it looks good. Sure, we got rolled by the Lions but we came back and beat the Chargers, that would not have happened last year. All of that balances out to a B, if were 6-2 then that’s an easy A.
Take the leash off of the offense pleeeeeeease.
Signed, Rams fan.
B+ from me.
The coaching staff has installed a great defensive system, and Spags has also imparted a mental and competitive toughness to the team. While the offense has certainly improved from the state of absolute futility of recent years, the play-calling and game plans sometimes leave much to be desired.
Despite any gripes I have, the team is 4-4 at the bye; that is much better than most people thought possible, and the coaching staff must get credit for a portion of the turnaround.
C+ from me. Our hungry, gritty players deserve the lion's share of the credit for our success.
I’m not entirely sure that without some silly ass coaching decisions, we wouldn’t be 6-2 right now. I still don’t have any faith in Shurmur’s play-calling or Spag’s clock management. I do give the Coach and FO credit for drafting Sammy and Saffold. C+
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