Rams Coach Steve Spagnuolo Takes Blame For Loss

[Rambos]

Coach Steve Spagnuolo blamed himself for the St. Louis Rams' ugly first quarter Friday night, saying he was guilty of not having his team ready to play. The Rams (1-1) fell behind 14-0 and could never make up the lost ground as they fell 20-13 to the Atlanta Falcons at the Edward Jones Dome. "I think it's all on the head coach with the first quarter," Spagnuolo said. "I don't think I had the team ready to play in the first quarter. I'm going to take the onus on that. We need to start the game better, especially against a good football team." sked how he was going to make sure the Rams were ready when they travel to Cincinnati to play the Bengals on Thursday, Spagnuolo said he didn't know. "I'm going to be evaluating myself all the time," Spagnuolo said, "I'll sit back this week, and if I think there's something we can do differently in practice, we'll do it. "If I think there's something we can say or approach differently the day before the game, we'll do that. But, right now if the team is not ready early like that, it's on the head coach. So we'll figure out a way."

Source: Belleville News Democrat

[Keenum]

Now I'm sure SOME of the blame is on Spags, but we all know the whole team is to blame for that 1st quarter. I have faith that Spags is the type of guy who learned a lot from that experience and as he said, will do his part to have the guys ready Thursday.

[TekeRam]

Still, it's a refreshing change to see a coach who is so accountable to not only the fans and the press, but to himself as well. Spags is a competitive guy and I'm sure that the ugly first quarter burned him up inside. I wouldn't be surprised to see us do much the same kind of thing to Cinci that Atlanta did to us come Thursday. I fully hope and expect Spags to have his guys fired up and ready to play first thing.

[RealRam]

I fully hope and expect Spags to have his guys fired up and ready to play first thing.

Ditto that. One of the good things about preseason is for new and rookie head coaches to put in real-time practice before the real / regular season begins. It's a good fault-finder for them.

I too believe in Coach Spags and all the players seem to support him. So let's check and tweak those faults!

[Keenum]

I'm already looking forward to Thursday to see if what he has planned different for practice works. Those guys last year went from horrible, to looking very good against Dallas and Washington, and I believe a HUGE reason for that was motivation. They were pumped Linehan was gone. Of course after those two, injuries struck again, but the team played very hard in many of those last games (Miami and Atlanta are two I remember going down to the wire).
Get the guys playing hard, and good things will happen.