Two wins, two games left, surprisingly enough there's not much news about the Rams this morning...give it a month and we'll have no shortage of things to talk about.
If you have some time between getting the bloody marys ready and setting your fantasy lineup, here's a great piece over at Niners Nation that takes a statistical look at the difference between Linehan and Haslett at the helm (among many other things).
With Linny in charge this season, the Rams had a overall team DVOA of -69.2%, a number that would have easily made the 2008 Rams the worst team since those stat have been kept. They're close enough as it is. Under Linehan, their DVOA "jumps" to -41.4%. The offense has been pretty much the same under both, but the defense improved since Haslett took the reigns, 42.5% to 17.5%, what a leap!
Now that's still pretty bad, but what one factor do you think might have significantly influenced Haslett's time as head coach? That's right, Steven Jackson's injury. Night. and. Day. W/out the Rams running back, the team's DVOA was, get ready for this, -77.9%! Epic level shittiness. With their feature back, the Rams DVOA was -17.1%. That's not exactly lighting the world on fire, but if they had that as their overall DVOA they'd only be the 26th worst team in the league, not the worst. The author of that article also throws out the "overrated" charge against Jackson, but I think he's not giving the rest of our offense enough credit, esp the o-line, for their impact on bringing everyone else down.
There's lots more to the post and I don't want to give it all away, the author obvious put some work into it. So go give it a read.
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Here's a cool playoff picture tool at NFL.com.
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Finally, who among us does not enjoy an occasional, ice cold, hoppy and delicious - I'll be right back... ah, much better. Who doesn't like a beer? As a Rams fan it even helps as a coping device. If you do like a tall frosty adult beverage, check out this site, STL Hops. Not only does it have all the St. Louis Metro area info for tastings, new products, etc., the guys over there put together suggestions too, so it's got something for our SoCal brethren.
Back at ya, with a game thread later.