Pathetic.
If you're not mad, you're not a fan.
Bulger's little speech did seem to have fired up the rest of the team. They looked intense, and the o-line played probably as well as it could against a fierce Bears pass rush. In the end though, the whole team just wasn't good enough.
And that, in fact, has been the Rams' biggest failing all season, a season where they're lucky to have amassed even 5 wins. In today's Post-Dispatch Brian Burwell points the finger directly on the Rams' front office and coaching staff, tearing them a new one. I have to agree.
Besides upgrading on talent for the next season one thing that in my mind they must do is fire Jim Haslett. We know part of the problem with the defense is a lack of talent and experience. However, there is enough of a core of players there to expect something less than bleeding yards profusely to the other team's running backs each and every game. Haslett has been unwilling to change the way he calls plays, and lives under the illusion that his defense is playing well save for a bad stretch of plays during each game. Bullshit. The defense plays bad throughout the game, and it's his unwaivering approach to managing the unit that's behind it.
Special Needs Teams
The special teams have been terrible all season, and Linehan gets blame for that. His unbending insistence on players that can multitask through ST and other unit roles jips the Rams of having enough real talent to keep the special team from being a liability. With Kacyvenski out, it really hurt the special teams, but that's not enough to explain a unit that has been consistently bad all season. Linehan, with his NCAA approach to multitasking players, costs the Rams true specialists to anchor the return defense units.
Linehan appears clueless following these games, these losses that we've become accustomed to this season. Beyond that, his head coaching ability, his duty to oversee and coordinate the many facets of his team, seems elementary at best, with the reality being that he's in far over his head in the role. It might be best to look elsewhere for a coach in the offseason. But it's not just Linehan and his staff, it's the entire franchise, from the clueless old bag in the owner's box to the lowliest pro scout. We'll let Burwell sum it up: