Rams fire up, flame out

By Steve Reynolds  |   Tuesday, December 12, 2006  |  Comments( 1 )

St. Louis Rams
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The Rams battled the Bears to a standstill during the first half of "Monday Night Football," flashing signs of the confident team seen early this season. Rams nation was able to hearken back to the 4-1 team that gave playoff-hopeful fans reasons to be guardedly optimistic.

Then they gave up.

The players gave up. The fans gave up. In fact, the Rams have rolled over and surrendered so many times this year, they are threatening the single-season record currently held by France.

As it turns out, the Rams are not that confident team from early in the season after all. With the quality play of the offense and defense in the first half, one could have believed the Rams had finally cracked the facade of a team that had played so poorly over the course of the last seven games and the real Rams, the one with the potent offense and cagey defense, had reemerged.

Quite the contrary, my friends.

The Rams are, in fact, the team that has played so poorly the last eight contests, with the aforementioned 4-1 incarnation the mere illusion.

Forget for a moment that the special teams couldn't wash the stink off themselves with a fire hose. This team has major problems. Despite scoring four touchdowns, the offense was less than stellar. The receivers had balls caroming off their gloved fingers all night. The defense, however, managed to out-bad the offense once again by getting shredded by the previously ineffectual Rex Grossman, not to mention the Bears' running backs.

The Rams should be grateful, as the Bears' tandem running attack split the rushing yards between Thomas Jones and Cedric Benson, disallowing what would have been a record-breaking seventh consecutive game allowing a 100-yard rusher (I can't recall, but I think the Rams allowed only 90 or so during the bye week).

The gravity of the situation has been largely, if not outright, ignored by players and coaches alike during the downward spiral, with coach Scott Linehan still spouting phrases like "playoff contention," and "8-8 can get it done" as recently as last week.

The head coach needing a rather generous injection of reality aside, Marc Bulger is the only player that has had the nerve to go beyond the simple "we just need to play better" platitude and call out his teammates for the sheer incompetence that seems to be occurring on a weekly basis.

It is evident that no amount of fine tuning or practice is going to fix what ails the Rams. They need to make wholesale changes on defense and realize that the special teams unit has regressed to the disaster it has been in years past. Linehan needs to start planning for next season right now. He should let his players know that evaluations will be made in the final three games and those players who don't display sufficient ability and desire will be replaced next season. Linehan needs to adopt just such an aggressive tack, or he risks losing the players that are already giving it their all each week.

Unless, of course, he believes the Rams can still make the playoffs.
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