Should The Rams Fire Steve Spagnuolo Now?

How about erecting a scarecrow on the sidelines for the last 4 games holding a clipboard? When the Rams are outside the dome, if the wind kicks up, the flapping scarecrow might illicit some emotion out of the offense. No question that the scarecrow will prove to be more emotional and creative than the current coaching staff.

I voted no. Let the season take its course. I cannot see what bringing in an interim coach would do. Let him finish the season and start anew.

You got to have a coach before you can fire one; the rams don’t have any coaches.

still expect him back who going to take over Mc Daniels ,GOD FORBID

I think we keep him, Devaney and McD for another year. I think Spags, and to a lesser extent, McDaniels, have been a victim of circumstance. First, Spags inherited an utterly, utterly terrible team. We didn’t deserve to be on the same field as any team we played in the last year under Linehan, and I don’t know how we managed to avoid 0-16. I can’t name all of the players who were on the team pre-Spags and Devaney, but off the top of my head I have Steven Jackson, Ron Bartell, Chris Long, Justin King and then possibly Jacob Bell, Donnie Jones, Josh Brown and Chris Chamberlain. Which is a RB with no OL, a CB, a rookie DE and CB, and special teamers. I don’t think you can argue that, as bad as we have been this season, we are anything like as bad as we have were when Spags and Devaney took over.

Second, I think last year was a bit of a case of overachievement raising expectations. We rode a soft schedule in a historically bad division to a mediocre record, and were only in contention for a playoff spot due to the aforemention historically bad division. How that gets us to the expectation of even being a 9 win team, I’m not sure. Looking at the schedule that’s left, I can see us winning potentially 2 more games (Bengals and Seahawks), but I admit that feels unlikely, and even with 4 wins, that would be below any expectations anyone had for us, so yes, its a disappointment, but I don’t think anyone rational would have had us as actual contenders to get anywhere in the playoffs this season. If we were going to get in, it was on the back of the NFC West being full of awful teams again. Unfortunately, its only 3 awful teams and 1 good one.

Third, the lockout. I know the lockout effected everyone, but it didn’t effect everyone equally. By my reckoning, these are the teams that made coaching changes last year, and the impact of them:

Bengals: changed OC, new QB and WR (this has gone pretty well)

Browns: changed HC, DC. Offensive scheme is, as I understand, broadly similar (this has gone about averagely). Defense has gone from 4-3 to 3-4, but they never really properly converted to a 3-4 anyway (at least they didn’t have to make a huge change to their roster to make the conversion. They just added a DT and a DE in the draft.

Titans: changed HC, QB. Head coach was an internal hire, and they are basically the same team. The QB is a veteran.

Oakland: changed HC (and eventually QB). I’m not sure if they changed DC, but their HC was their former OC, and their offensive system is the same.

Broncos: changed HC. Went horribly until they started playing Jesus at QB, which, frankly, is cheating.

Eagles: changed DC and defensive system. Woops. This would have gone better with a defensive coach at DC.

Vikings: changed HC and QB. Was an internal hire, but this has gone horribly.

Panthers: changed HC and QB. Massive improvement, but in terms of record is still pretty poor.

Rams: changed OC.

On the face of it, the Rams change is smaller than any of those, but in terms of system its as big as any of those (apart from Denver, but y’know, Jesus). From a west coast offense, short passing offense, its become a hybrid of McD’s vertical passing offense, but incorporating elements of last year’s offense. Which the team had to learn in a shortened offseason. With the OC also adapting his offense significantly to what the team already knew. Which he could only do without speaking to the players because of the lockout. And then adding having the QB, who isn’t fully familiar with most of the system, making the line calls as well (which I think is the biggest mistake we’ve made this season). Players learning a new system in a shortened timespan was always going to be tricky, and we aren’t the only ones having to do it, but we should also factor in that McD has had to adapt his system to ours, without actually knowing ours. I just think to throw the system out, which has proven to be successful (and not just in New England – it wasn’t Denver’s offense that got McD fired), based on one season that had a severely shortened preseason is shortsighted. It wastes this season, but it will waste next year too as we get used to another system.

If you compare the offense, with a new system, to the defense, with the same system, you can see the difference. The D, as far as it can do, has been playing lights out. The problems have come from lack of quality players (at OLB and DT against the run) and injuries in the secondary. Yesterday was a case in point of this. The 49ers didn’t really manage much, apart from long TDs based on a busted coverage and poor tackling/angles in the secondary. I don’t want to say “those wouldn’t have happened if we had any of our top 5 CBs out there”, but to also throw out a successful defensive system, as would surely happen, is massively shortsighted IMO.

That also brings me nicely to point 4, of injuries. Injuries have destroyed our pass protection (ask Aldon Smith about this – I swear we were throwing him towards Feeley yesterday) and pass coverage. The only times our offense looks good at the moment is on the rare occasion that Brandon Lloyd is single covered, and the QB can throw it to him quickly, or someone else (usually Brandon Gibson) manages to beat single coverage and not drop the ball (something Brandon Gibson struggles with).

In particular, losing Amendola was, IMO, unbelievably huge. I think most of the 40% of carryover from last yeasr offensive scheme would have been to keep Amendola thoroughly in the gameplan. Losing him derailed a lot, and we had to rely on a rookie (Salas) to take over for him, which he struggled with. Once he got up to speed, you saw our offense improve, and his ankle fall apart, because apparently its that kind of season.

In terms of the defense, the only good defense we can now play is predicated on the DL (read: Chris Long) getting to the QB in the 2 seconds our CBs can be relied on to cover receivers.

Basically, because this has turned into a rant and I want to go to bed (its 1am in the UK and I have to be up for work in 6 hours), I think we should give Spags, Devaney and McDaniels another year. I think getting rid of them now would set us back another couple of years away from competing.