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Each week St. Louis Rams offensive coordinator Brian Schottenheimer says words. These words are usually strung together in the form of banal answers to banal questions. Everybody's always doing well, working hard and finding ways to win. Every week. All season long.
You can read the quotes punched up into news hits on TST and the other dusty corners of the internet that cover the Rams. Expectations for the Rams are bigger this year. We need more than hot takes and regurgitated talking points wrapped up in sterile stories about receiver X and running back Y.
These Rams demand some BOLD META-ANALYSIS.
And what better way to provide that than with a red hot internet gimmick like a word cloud?
The words below are Schottenheimer's, with the conjunctions and articles pulled out to get to the meaty nouns and verbs. Let's get all Derrida and parse this language.
The Rams offense is going to try. They're going to try to throw the ball, they're going to try to be simple and they're going to try and feature some plays that "hopefully" helps. Passive language. Yoda would not approve. Remember, it's do or do not, there is not try.
The word "think" appeared as a verb over and over again, second only to "try." It came up three times in one answer about the offensive being more productive this week. For example:
It just comes down to execution. I think we've kind of tightened things down a little bit this week in the plan, and we know what we're good at.
You've "tightened things down" or your haven't. We'll be able to vouch for the certainty of that statement in 48 hours.
MOVE - Everybody's moving, Dallas' pass rushers, Jared Cook, Tavon Austin ... the football. It's all in motion.
DOWN - You'd expect this one to show up early and often; after all, there are four downs to talk about. But Schottey's downs were a reliance on an ubiquitous IT that it all "comes down to." So what does it all come down to:
- "... the fourth quarter"
- "... young backs"
- "... execution"
All important things that could be the difference in this game ... or not.