L.A. Rams: Really... REALLY?

The L.A. Rams - and head coach Jeff Fisher - have a monkey on their backs that just never seems to go away. I’m talking about how this team can’t seem to start a NFL season, by actually acting like the NFL season has started...

Last night, in front of a national Monday Night Football audience, only one team seemed to realize the game wasn’t a preseason dance. The Rams looked so unprepared to face the San Francisco 49ers, that it boggles the mind? At no time during the game last night, did the Rams look like they came to play. In fact, there were moments when the entire Rams team - somehow? - prepared to face a different opponent, as the 49ers completely dominated the Rams in every phase of the contest...

Let no one kid themselves here: The slow start mentality the StL/L.A. Rams have displayed year after year will keep them wistfully wishing and dreaming of what could be. Where the problem’s source is anyone’s guess. Right now, I have to lean toward the entire Rams’ coaching staff taking an “ease into it” approach that’s been a dismal failure over the years, but still remains the norm. Players not being able to prepare themselves for the first game of the year isn’t all on the coaching staff. If you’re being paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to be a professional football player, you need to know your job, and show up ready to go to work. Outside of the Rams’ punter Johnny Hekker, the entire Rams team looked lost, ill-prepared, and overwhelmed.

Sadly for L.A. Rams fans, the team has to resist the urge to throw gasoline on this dumpster fire of a game. Quarterback Case Keenum brought the journeyman-esk deficiencies of his skill set out for all to see against the 49ers. Yet, one of the all-time great NFL Draft busts - the 49ers’ Blaine Gabbert - seemed to find his way out, and back to relevance as a viable quarterback? Can we chalk this one up as a slip in Keenum’s “giddy-up”, and look beyond just how badly he played Monday Night? Rams fans need to realize the stage is set for Keenum to lead this team at least until the Rams bye-week. Thoughts of Jared Goff suddenly being rushed out of his developmental pace are the worst kind of alarmist overreactions. Unless you want to take a chance on destroying a top draft pick the way Gabbert was abused in Jacksonville when he was selected high in the NFL draft, and rushed onto the field before he was ready...

I get it! Fans of the Rams want to see wins NOW, but after the Monday night fiasco against the San Francisco 49ers, it may be time - once again - for them to cinch on their “Oh, not again..” helmets, and get ready for a rough ride.

The most disturbing thing about the Rams-49ers game to me wasn’t just the loss, it was the final score: 28-0. That “0” looms larger than most think. It took a categorical failure across the board to be shut out like that against a really mediocre San Francisco team. The slow start standard - now set by Jeff Fisher’s Rams teams - offered future opponents key glimpses in to how to bully the Rams, so Fisher will be game planning from behind for a good part of the season to come...

I’m not sure anyone in the NFL media ever thought the L.A. Rams would sweep into San Francisco and overwhelm the 49ers, but I can almost guarantee none of them saw this outcome as being possible? I actually thought it would be a low scoring, rather ugly contest between two teams trying to find themselves. In truth, one team found out who they are, and the other still hasn’t awakened from a long, long, loooong mediocrity coma that makes Rip Van Winkles snooze look like a afternoon nap...