FanPost

One Inspiring Play Could've Gotten Us 5 More Wins

It’s early in the 1st quarter, and the opposing offense seems to be moving at will towards their end zone. You take a larger than expected gulp of your beer, and think to yourself ‘how many of these am I going to be forced to drink this season?’ Like a well-oiled machine, a mix of run and pass plays are effectively picking apart our defense. You KNOW that 2012 has to be different than 2011. [Right?] By now, you’ve let an expletive or two fly as our opponents have us backed up to the end zone, and in prime position to strike at our 7 yard line....and then it happens. One of our players reached down, deep down, to that fiery place in his gut and makes an utterly courageous move. He had had enough, and knew that he single-handedly needed to put this drive to an end, and get his defense off the field. It is a highly effective, potentially season changing move...

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via theboysareback.files.wordpress.com

Well, it won’t look exactly like this...but you get the point! As you could imagine, it could be any of our linebackers or defensive backs. Too often we look to costly free agent acquisitions or young, unproven rookies to solve our run-stopping woes, when 9-year NFL Veteran Deon Grant gave us the solution in the 2nd game of the 2011 season. I can think of another run-stuffer that might be able to assist our Rams in ending drives while catching some much need ZZzzz’s. His approach, however, proves that this tactic is only effective before the ball has been snapped.

Let’s face the facts, folks. Our run defense was abysmal in 2011. We were next to last in rush defense, giving up over 152 yards per game. Contrarily, the Giants (who work smarter not harder) only gave up 121 yards per. You seeing the correlation? Additionally, the Rams allowed 17 rushing TD’s last season. As Deon has proven, a quick cat nap not only revitalizes himself and his team, but it tends to take 4 points off the board, as the end result (to the tune of 100% effectivity) is a field goal.

I went back to see how this would have impacted last season. In the very same game that this wisdom was imparted upon us, a more reactive, inspired approach would’ve gotten us our first win of the season, as holding the Giants to four field goals means a 15-12 win for the Rams, and putting us at 1-1 to start the season. A 10-9 win over the Redskins, a 20-15 victory over the Cardinals (week 12), a 13-12 nail-biter over the Bengals, and a 27-16 shellacking of the 49ers to finish out our season puts us at 7-9, and right where we expected to ultimately finish.

This, to me, just proves that even when battling with injuries, our team cannot simply utilize this as an excuse. There are alternatives. Great teams find a way to win, even when faced with adversity. Sure, I still think we need a DT (or two) and an OLB (or 3), but we cannot rely on talent alone to win games. Just ask the Super Bowl Champions...

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