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Having soured in their 12-42 loss to the Atlanta Falcons, the Los Angeles Rams are now 4-9 crafting their worst record after 13 games under Head Coach Jeff Fisher. Sporting the worst offense in the NFL and preparing to deal with significant roster holes on both sides of the ball, the Rams are set to play through another December that has nothing to do with the current season.
Sadly, it’s a familiar denouement.
Injuries
The Rams will likely be without S Maurice Alexander for some time after he suffered a pretty frightening injury in the third quarter.
Performance Issues
Yeah, I’d say so. It’s not necessarily worth diving in too deep on this one game specifically, because the season’s over and the team quite clearly isn’t playing it out the way they were in earlier seasons under Fisher.
The biggest problem is that the performance issues are burgeoning and the Rams aren’t in a great situation to resolve them. They’re without a first-round pick. The third-round compensatory pick they’re likely to receive from losing CB Janoris Jenkins (he playing of Pro Bowl-caliber football) is headed with it. That compensatory pick itself is evidence of the attrition the Rams are facing now as the early acquisitions of the Fisher era begin dispersing throughout the NFL.
Lots of decision points between now and Week 1 2017, but the Rams need to reverse nearly everything that was a part of Week 14 2016 to get right.
Standings
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Gross.
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Also gross.
Schedule
Well, it’s not going to be fun. The Rams head out to take on the Seattle Seahawks on the road on Thursday Night Football in front of a national audience. Then they return to the Coliseum to close out the season with the San Francisco 49ers and Arizona Cardinals.
The environment of those final two games is going to be important. The crowd shots in the second half yesterday? I’d guess that’s not what the front office was hoping for in Year 1 in returning to LA. And assuming a growing anger and/or apathy among the attendees for Week 16 and 17, the upper echelon of the franchise might well be upset at having two games to close out the season in front of a dispirited fan base.