Report Card In St. Louis Rams' Third Straight Loss Shows Failures Abound

QB - ?

How do you actually grade a quarterback of Case Keenum's skill set in a Jeff Fisher offense? At halftime, Keenum was 3/10 for 31 yards...and the Rams were winning.

Needlepoint that nugget of Fisherball into your life today.

But just like Kellen Clemens and Shaun Hill and Austin Davis, it's hard to find an accurate gauge for the Rams' "break in case of emergency" QBs, especially in the austere conditions of Fisherball. I'd probably give him a D-, but is that a D- in general or a D- for Case Keenum? I can't even find the curve to grade on.

RB - 

There goes Todd Gurley crashing himself into an onslaught of defenders. Yay.

Hopefully, the fumble issue is an aberration, but let's not kid ourselves. Gurley is a running back. Running backs can only do so much. After four straight 100+-yard games, Gurley has run the ball 61 times for 200 yards. That's a 3.29 yard per rush average. And with the injury list on the offensive line getting longer and the castrating effect of the passing game, it's just not going to be easy for Gurley down the stretch.

WR -

If we're using two weeks ago and last week as the standards, this was easy.

That's five catches for 42 yards by the entire team's WR corps.

#outstanding

TE - 

Surprisingly, Jared Cook and Lance Kendricks combined for a pretty solid performance. Somehow, that makes me even more sad.

OL - ?

Again, this is the Keenum ungradeable factor. Is it fair to give them an F? Andrew Donnal got his first and last start of 2015. Cody Wichmann, Garrett Reynolds and Demetrius Rhaney tried to play fill-in as capably as they could. But the dragging anchor of depression here is that the line's worst player yesterday was also its most valuable: 2014 NFL Draft #2 overall pick Greg Robinson.

GRob was as much a spectator as we all were on the final hit on Case Keenum that forced the fumble setting up the Ravens' game-winning field goal. With six games left, he's got a lot of development he needs to soak up to avoid some serious discussion about his career this offseason.

DL - 

Aaron Donald is an absolute freakshow of a football player.

LB - 

I don't know that I could feel worse for James Laurinaitis. He's literally the kind of player PFT Commenter uses as the archetypal lunchpail NFL player. Since being drafted, he has started 106 straight games. He's the gluiest of glue guys. And he hasn't even seen one damn winning season.

Life's unfair.

DB - 

This is in the mix for the top story of the offseason for in-house personnel moves ahead of the draft. Janoris Jenkins, Trumaine Johnson and Rodney McLeod are all finishing the final years of their individual contracts.

Decision time's coming.

Special Teams - 

It's probably a good thing the Rams are out of it this year for Greg Zuerlein's sake. As another Ram in a contract year, if the Rams were competing for a playoff spot and had gotten these performances out of him, I don't know how you could justify bringing him back missing more than 1/3rd of his FG attempts this season.

As it stands, there are bigger fish to fry. That alone might get him a new contract.

Coaching - 

You try and justify another grade here. I'll wait.

BONUS!!! Referees - 

I'm starting to think this is just a psyops campaign by the NFL to see just how much fans will tolerate.