[Nick]

Originally Posted by AvengerRam

While those aggregate numbers do look good, if you look at the games individually, you'll see very uneven performances from the Rams offense. They had some very big games (particularly at the end of the year) and some games in which the offensive production was very poor.

Fair points. It's true in that it took our offense a few weeks to get off the ground and there was some mid-season inefficiency. Obviously you can't precisely measure this, but I'd be curious to know how much actually learning and getting used to the new offensive system played in that slow start.

Additionally, I suspect a lot of teams simply have some games where they for whatever reason don't perform at a level they're capable of or always as efficiently as they'd like. One needs to look back no further than two weeks ago when Indianapolis needed a last second field goal to beat Kansas City 13-10 at home.

And to be fair, one can't be objective about this without pointing out that the offense seemed to get even more potent when Olson was promoted to game-day playcaller. What that means for the future of the team, I'm not sure. Olson didn't really wow me this year, nor did he seem to wow anyone at Rams Park since those responsibilities were revoked.

I think even though he's made mistakes as well, Linehan has done a better job as playcaller since he took over, but I wonder if this team wouldn't be better off having someone else that role. Obviously Linehan would remain closely involved in the weekly preparation and shaping the gameplan itself, but not having those duties on game day may allow him to focus more on being an actual head coach. I recall many had a similar criticism of Mike Martz when he was here.

Originally Posted by AvengerRam

In particular, I note that the Rams' scoring average was fairly low given the yardage output and, more importantly, the turnover ratio.

I'm not sure I agree with "fairly low." Pittsburgh averaged three fewer yards per game than we did last year and had a similar points per game average. New Orleans averaged more than thirty yards per game more than we did, and only averaged three more points per game. Indianapolis averaged nearly twenty more yards per game with less than four more points per game on average.

Compared to other teams, I would say our points per game output when compared to the yards we achieved was about on par.

Originally Posted by AvengerRam

So maybe that's the "system"... Move the ball and don't score.

I don't think that's a fair conclusion to draw. Offensive scoring may not have improved upon the previous year, but the Rams still scored more points than 22 other teams in the league. To describe that offense as one that moves the ball but doesn't score seems rather inaccurate to me, especially when you consider the team's efficiency in the red zone as referenced by Fat Pang.