FanPost

The Positives

Okay, yesterday's performance was one of the most frustrating things I've ever seen out of the Rams... And that's saying something.

Yes, the Rams have played worse football in the past, but never when the expectations were THIS high. The letdown for myself and many other fans was excruciating.

However, this is a 16 game season... Despite the terrible end result, there WERE quite a few positives to take from this game. Use this post to prepare yourself for the next three months, because football isn't going away (and you really don't want it to... ESPN is boring to watch when football isn't around).

The Defense:

The Rams surrendered only 3 plays of 20+ yards... The 67 yard TD run by Patterson, another sweep to Patterson for 23 yards, and a 22 yard pass to Rhett Ellison.

The Vikings longest pass to a receiver was an 18 yard pass to Greg Jennings. No Viking finished with more than 58 receiving yards (Jennings). The secondary that many people were worried about stood up to the test in that regard.

The Vikings had a total of one non-penalty sustained drive. Their opening drive went 11 plays for 73 yards and resulted in only 3 points.

In fact, let's track each of the Vikings touchdowns: A drive that started at the STL 35 thanks to an interception, the 67 yard run by Patterson, a drive which was stopped by the defense, but then given new life thanks to a roughing the kicker penalty that gave the Vikings the ball at the Rams 28, a pick 6 by the Vikings defense....

I can't pin any of those touchdowns on the defense other than the Patterson run. Our defense did it's job yesterday.

Furthermore, we held the Vikings to just 3 of 12 on third down. I'll take that number against any opposing offense, ESPECIALLY with as bad as we appeared to be on third down last year.

In the mistakes we made, we didn't seem to be over-matched from a talent standpoint. Last year, good receivers exploited the Rams secondary, and it appeared there was nothing we could do about it. In this game, Cordarrelle Patterson exploited us on three plays that we had no previous film from this offense to know it was coming. New coaches have that advantage - people haven't seen them yet and aren't sure what to expect on a given play call.

Individually, Aaron Donald looks like he's going to make a big impact in this league, and is already living up to his draft status. He caused some havoc on multiple plays in the Minnesota backfield. E.J. Gaines looked at the very least to be a solid contributor on defense. Whether or not he's starting-caliber, I can't say.

The Offense:

There are far fewer positives for this offense than for the defense, but some still remain.

For starters, the obvious one is Brian Quick. It remains to be seen if he's a "true #1 receiver", but yesterday he played like it. With a second and third string quarterback, he racked up 7 catches for 99 yards on 9 targets.

The offensive line run-blocked well. Combine Zac Stacy and Benny Cunningham's stats and you have 16 carries for 64 yards. That's 4 YPC. Tavon Austin's 3 carries for 5 yards brought down the average, but that's to be expected when you run a 180 lb. man between the tackles. And if you rewatch the game, the Vikings tackled very well. The Rams rushing success didn't include a run longer than 7 yards. While you can view this as a bad thing, it means that the stats aren't skewed by any large outlier runs. They got consistent push.

Sticking with the offensive line, pass blocking seemed poor... And it was, to an extent, but the line isn't all to blame on this. Early in Davis' time in the game, he was taking far too deep of drops. This was allowing Minnesota's ends to get pressure even when the tackles did their job. That being said, the line still played pretty poorly in pass pro. The positive is that it didn't appear to be a personnel problem. No man looked individually overmatched. However, the unit seemed to be playing as five individuals rather than in tandem. The positive is that this is an easily fixable problem.

Individually, Jared Cook played pretty well. He's definitely a mismatch, and if he were playing for the Broncos, he'd put up as good of numbers as Julius Thomas. He had 4 catches for 56 yards on 8 targets. That was 9th best in terms of yards, t-8th best in catches, and t-7th in targets.

Finally, in garbage time, the Rams actually decided to throw the ball downfield. Garbage time stats are generally meaningless, but the fact that multiple receivers were making plays on the ball (we had 4 different receivers with plays of 20 yards or more) is a positive sign.

The Ultimatum:

The Rams HAVE to play with more discipline if they expect to win any games. Penalties killed us in every facet of the game.

The Rams NEED to figure out what they're doing on offense. The lack of appeared preparation for this game is unacceptable. If that means bringing in a new OC, I gladly welcome it.

The Rams WILL play good football this year. Making the playoffs is a longshot, especially given our QB situation. However, good play and growth will make it all the easier for us to turn into a dominant playoff team next year with the right QB in charge - be it Sam Bradford or a rookie. It happened with the 49ers, it happened with the Seahawks, and it can happen with us. The QB was seemingly the last piece of the puzzle.