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I don't see anything about the Hall of Fame game. So exactly what is everyone looking for in this and the other forums on the games? Who's supposed to do the reporting? How can I talk about it if I don't know what to say? Someone get this ball rolling.
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I'm at work now so i can't post much, but i will be posting my thoughts on the game later in the afternoon so you can check back soon.
Hopefully in here can be an area to talk about the next game or the last game. There's a forum for armchair quarterbacks where we can question calls and such. But don't worry :cool: we'll get more posts in here :p
I don't know about reporting, but probably general thoughts on the game from members is sufficient - especially those that watched the game. -
well i must say trung looked good before he got hurt and well..... the rookies well they played like rookies lewis seems like he will be a good one but all in all it was the first preseason so there really isn't much to judge right now lets see how they look around game three how did whynn(?) do? just watched the first half reallyComment
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my thoughts
ok here are my thoughts on the game yesterday....
the first quarter sucked on both sides of the ball. warner got 3 snaps in then had to punt, and he was done. no passes, nothing. I'm getting a little nervous (whether i should or not who knows) about the Warner-Germaine thing. joe's getting a large portion of the attention and snaps because when (not if) kurt goes down this year he's gotta step in. I say when because in the state of the NFL, its a rarity that QBs play all games. Joe will undoubtedly play and maybe even start so for that i'm glad...BUT with all this attention on him i worry about the status of warner. he needs his reps and attention too. He's got the offense, but he needs to get the timing back. Its just the 1st game, but i want to see KW get more series so he gets his stuff together as well.
The new defense...eh...there were good spots and bad spots. As a whole, they started out like crap making fiedler look like marino. But thankfully they started to play better, but the first series was horrible, missed tackles, etc. Lewis...damione was a BEAST! two sacks and just flat out DOMINATED his adversary. Archuleta (who has a shot at being my fave on D) also played bad...he was slow to react and often was beat. But he started to play better. He's got the skills, but needs more time to "read the ball" (Archuleta said that i think). He's not used to being so far away from the scrimmage. He did better, but needs some work. Polley showed promise, but made a STUPID penalty by making a late hit sending a Dolphin into a table.
Key injuries...canidate could easily have pulled a groin, tore an ACL, and twisted his ankle, but apparently there's a possible "bruise" of the knee. I've been combing the internet looking for reports, but found nothing. He should have an MRI done today (Tuesday). From the looks of it, he could be out the season, but stranger things have happened. It could be a couple of weeks or a whole bunch of months without him. I'm personally a pessimist (that way i get surprised more;) ) so who knows......Justin. Torn ACL. I saw cut him. Bulger looked tight. Justin knows the system so keep him on the coaching staff, but empty his locker. he'll be holding a clipboard anyway.
As far as WRs, nobody stood out.
Grades...
Germaine - B+ - started out like a deer in headlights, but calmed down and was totally in control...well done.
Defense - C - average, score was kept low, but many missed tackles and assignments, needs work.
Warner - Incomplete - give him the ball a little bit - he shoulda had one more small series
Lewis - A-
Polley - B-
Archuletta - C+Comment
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some rookie thoughts
Ok, as my first post here, let me try to sound some (hopefully coherent) thoughts:
First, it was preseason , and the first preseason game at that, so I don't want to get too emotional or over-analyze things. No conclusions about the season can be drawn yet. However, there were some key questions I had going into the 2001 debut, and the Rams did not fare very well on them.
1. Is the defense big enough to stop a power running game? Not Monday night. Miami was a tough first test, but they ran over and through them with ease, churning up 10 yards a carry and steamrolling thru uncontested on an up-the-gut 1st and goal. Note that Miami's defense, one we should want to emulate, stuffed the Rams on several goal-to-go runs, and even got a fumble out of Canidate on the 1-yard line.
2. Can we stop a late down / long distance situation? I swear we have been cursed since the Detroit (4th and 28 or whatever) fiasco. I would much rather our opponent be 3rd and 5 than 3rd and 13, because we always seem to give up at least 14 yards on the latter. On Monday, it seemed like our secondary was way too soft in these long yardage situations again.
3. Is the defense more fundamentally solid? Meaning: can we actually tackle somebody this year? This was probably the most distressing thing about Monday night. It's a nice change watching guys fly to the ball and keep coming, but it is frustrating only to see that effort wasted on missed tackles that give up an extra 10 yards.
4. Will the new guys and new coach shake up a new attitude and new results on special teams? Sure, there was a good kick return, but I don't really care about our return game. It is a nice weapon to have, but I'm confident that our offense can move and score starting anywhere. What is concerning is our punt/kick coverage, and on Monday we continued the exact same atrocious coverage. Our defense cannot survive in constant short-field situations.
It is disappointing that the Rams graded poorly on my top concerns, but again, it's barely August. A lot will change in 4 more weeks. The way I'm going to look at it is that they have 4 more preseason games to right the ship. I'd rather they be aware of what's wrong than cruise thru preseason with these problems untested and still hidden.
As far as individual performances, I agree with Warnerfan re: the Germaine and Lewis highlights, and the woes of Archuletta. And about the point that Kurt needs work, that's agreed, too, but I expect he will get the ball more --usually the practice is to use the second-to-last preseason game as the dress rehearsal (so starters can rest and avoid injury in the last game). So if we're still talking about this stuff August 26th after San Diego, then we have cause for worry.Last edited by Guest; -08-07-2001, 05:36 PM.Comment
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That was a darn good first post.Some good points made.I think we ought to look at the big picture though.Last nights game,even though it was the 1st pre- season game spoke volumes.Our defense is going to be better .I think that is the bottom line.A lot of mistakes were made and we did have the 3rd down curse,but I would take this present group over last years anyday.Lovie Smith has them hustling and playing hungry.That alone will be a difference maker later in the season.Our offense wasnt really there so thats a hard one to judge.We know our offense is great,so I'm not concerned there.I've read alot of gloom and doom on last nights game(From other newsletters and boards)and I think we,as Rams fans, are spoiled(isnt it great)and now our expectations are sky high.Overall,I think last nights game was a plus,not a minus.
GO RAMS!ST.LOUIS RAMS:THE MOST FRUSTRATING TEAM IN THE NFL!!!Comment
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Ok, we have 4 more preseason games to get through before it all starts to count toward something. Martz is all for preserving his best players and I think that's what Warner's less-than-impressive performance was all about. He is great in camp, but he knows that noone will hit him, either. I think they avoided the long pass to keep from exposing him to a big hit.
Trung's knee is just sprained, tweeked if you will. They say a couple of weeks, tops. He has some Faulk-like skills, but Hakim's tendency to lose the ball. Hopefully he will get that ironed out. Keep an eye on that #34 RB Aveion Cason, that guy has great hands!
Paul Justin is out, that's all there is to it. Torn ACL. Marc Bulger was surprisingly good for what little he played. But, knowing Martz, that won't be enough to get him the #3 spot. He might bring in someone with more experience. If Marc is lucky, he impressed enough to get it. We'll see.
Lewis is a breath of fresh air. Glad he's on our side. He will make an immediate impact.
Germaine, at one point, scrabbled back so far, if he had been taken down, it would have been a loss of at least 15 yards. And that was when we were at the goal line! At least he had the head to get rid of it, but that one worried me. He needs to have more confidence in him self. Let's ban this man from the media so everyone else's opinion won't affect him so much.
Not a high scoring game, says something about the defense but probably more about Miami's offense. Again, 4 more to go and I don't expect to see any good games till the last two when Faulk and Warner are in it more along with the big guns on D.Comment
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I won't start worrying about the defense as a unit until the last preseason game. This is a weird game to try to play in anyway, it is staged in a high school field for Rams sakes.
AA needs help with the passing game, no big relevation there. He knows it, and welcomes the chances to hone his skills in all these gripping preseason fiascos that cost regular season ticket prices and that season ticket holders and mini package buyers were at least forced to purchase one. However, glad to see it may not be serious for Candidate. Looked impressive on the screen, but Martz liked his three yard gain, instead of the four yard loss that it could have been.
Enjoyed the passion of Polley and Lewis. That enthusiasm was lacking quite a bit last year.
Germaine, did what he needed to do. Settled down and threw the ball exactly like someone who is comfortable with the offense. Made a bunch of good reads.
Now, I won't dissect a preseason game all the way through the 4th Qtr, but glad to see that Bulger played well. However guys, it was the 4th qtr of preseason. Pitch and catch.Comment
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That winning feeling was nice, but I don't want to read into it too much a long way to go before the season. I do worry about Candidate, will he spend his whole nfl life on the injured list? I hope he doesn't, from what people say he looked quite sharp on monday.The Breakfast Club. You want cheese with that?Comment
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First of all, :p to Dez and Dod for getting to go. Just kidding guys! I envy all who do. Even if given the opportunity, don't know if my social anxieties would let me enjoy it.
Second, thanks to the few who attended the chatroom during the game. It really enhances the experience when I have to catch the game on radio. The input and feedback is great. It's like having buddies over to watch the game. (I need to find me some football buddies.) Can't remember all the name, should get in the habit of writing them down, but thank you Blankman71, Shale, Daddo?, etc. etc. etc. (you know who you are).:confused:
I am so glad we have Archuleta. He was making alot of stops out there yesterday. Seems, though, that we are relying on him a little too much. I'd like to see the defense stop the ball at or behind the line of scrimmage more instead of waiting till it gets out into our safeties' territory.
I'm glad to see Wilken's is as solid as he was last year. Again, though, would rather see more touchdowns made and have him contribute more on the extra point (ok, I'm totally blocking out that mishandled snap, that wasn't his fault).
Knowing how Faulk's knees are makes mine hurt. And yet, he plays as solid as he ever did. The whiners stopping him at the goal line though, did indicate that he can't be our go to guy all the time. That was smart going to Robinson for the touchdown. Throws them off the trail.
Hakim can be a solid receiver when he doesn't try to over compensate. It's nice that he wants to redeem himself when he makes a mistake, but then he tries too hard and that makes me wonder where the confidence is. Saw highlights of his touchdown, he was glowing. Now that's the Hakim I like to see!
That thumb was obviously still bothering Warner. Couldn't see them, but sounded like he had some wobbly passes and he wasn't going deep as much. Still shows patience and cool under pressure though.
We so need to clean up some of those penalties. That one on the punt that gave the whiners another 4th down and the opportunity to convert and then take it in for a touchdown rather than turning it over can show how costly those mistakes can be. Of course there's no accounting for the bad calls by the biased officials. That just being pissy!
Overall, could have been a better game, no doubt. But they did pull that rabbit out of the hat for the win. Here's hoping the next one gives our fingernails a chance to grow!
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My latest $.02: I only listened to the audio feed over the web, but I was pretty pleased with the Rams second action. Hopefully people that saw the televised broadcast can give better insights, especially as to individual progress, but it sounded (and the stats suggest) that the Ram D made some good improvement.
Getting back to those four issues I posted after the Hall of Fame game:
1. The jury is still out as to how we can hold up against a strong running game, but aside from a couple big runs, we seemed to improve a lot here.
2. We completely reversed our dismal opponent third down conversion rate. Buffalo was 4-13 on third downs, and had only 81 net passing yards?? I had become accustomed to giving up 4 third down conversions and 81 yards in just one drive! In addition, Buffalo is trying out a new "West Coast" style offense, and I've been worried about how Lovie's scheme matches up (since most of our present and all of our future division competition is "west coast" offenses). I despise the "west coast" offense style, so I was happy to see us shut it down.
3. Fundamentally, it sounded as if the defense was tackling a lot better. It also sounded like another ticky-tack penalty, this week a facemask, opened the door for the 2nd quarter Buffalo score, but since I didn't see it I can't comment on if it was a stupid mistake or a bad call. Certainly we broke down on the 25 yard TD run, but this is a work in progress still & won't be perfect.
4. The special teams continue to be a big problem. At this point, I'd rather fair catch every punt and kickoff as long as we never fumbled.
Now, this was just the "first week" of preseason, so I'm not going to count on only allowing 10 points a game. But the goal should be to improve every week, and that's what we did, so it's hard not to get excited.
I think what these two games have shown is that the Rams, despite being a top team in the salary cap era, still have real good depth and better benches than other teams, a tribute to management. We'll need the depth with the loss of Wistrom (please, please only be for a couple weeks).-08-13-2001, 10:30 AM -
Overall it was a bit disappointing. Not because they weren't opening up the offense or because the coverage units on special teams were shaky though. For me, the disappointment primarily lies in two places so far. Drive killing turnovers on offense and a continued display of what I see as a flawed scheme defensively.
On offense the first team continues to, in the words of Hank Stram, matriculate the ball down the field. The problem is that they keep committing crucial turnovers that prevent them from converting what are otherwise nice drives into points. I don't know if Hedgecock's knee was down or not, but that's the point. It was too close to call and just holding on to the ball eliminates the problem to begin with. And Bulger has got to make better decisions.
Still, overall the O-line played well, the WR's played well, Leonard played well and the QB's played well. McMichael did a good job on Merriman, Klopfenstein did not do a good job on Phillips.
On defense they continue to do the same kinds of things that hurt them last year against the run. They overload to the strong side too much and guess with their gap coverage from the back 7 too much. Rather than reading and reacting and filling the hole where the play is going, they shoot and fill gaps on a guess, and too often they are guessing wrong. This leaves them very vulnerable to weak side runs and cutbacks and it's killing them. And when you combine that with tackling poorly, as they did last night, you get the results we saw last night. I've been trying to remain open minded about this for a long time now, but I do not like this defensive scheme and I'm getting impatient because I'm getting tired of seeing them do the same thing and getting the same results. In contrast, I was watching SD's defensive back 7 last night, and they were all about reading and reacting and they were quick to recognize and get to the ball carrier rather than simply getting to a gap, though the Rams didn't give them a lot to defend last night when it came to the running game, which I'll talk a little more about later.
With that said, who looked good and who didn't look so good?
Who looked good:
Frerotte - I have to start with him because I have to admit I do love to watch his arm and how he zings the ball around. He was on top of his game last night I thought, zipping the ball in there on the money and looking very calm and in control. That 34 yard laser to Bennett between defenders was something to behold. He looked like a high caliber starter out there Saturday night, and I think he could start for a lot of teams in the NFL. The Rams are very lucky to have a backup of his quality at QB.
Leonard - He didn't have a high average per carry, but he was running hard and making the most of what he had. I know there have been a lot of complaints about how vanilla the Rams offense...-08-19-2007, 08:42 PM -
Warner will dance into booth for Rams telecast
BY DAN CAESAR
Friday, December 3, 2010
Kurt Warner's dancing days, at least on national television, are over. And he's back to his true passion for the fall, football, as the former Rams and Cardinals quarterback will be the analyst on Fox's regional telecast Sunday of the game involving those teams.
It's the latest chapter in a whirlwind year for the man adjusting to life after football following his decision in the offseason to retire from his storybook career, which featured rising from obscurity to leading both those downtrodden teams to the Super Bowl.
But he hasn't fallen from the spotlight, lasting eight weeks on ABC's "Dancing with the Stars" - television's top-rated program this season - after simply hoping to not be the first one cut. However, his long run was more taxing than he expected.
"I really enjoyed it, I enjoyed performing, I enjoyed learning something new," he said in an interview this week. "I enjoyed the people a lot, the friendships. But I didn't enjoy all the work. It took over my life and I really didn't want it to. That wasn't my idea going in, I didn't realize it was going to be that much time. That was the hard part."
So when the end came Nov. 8 for him and partner Anna Trebunskaya, he took it in stride.
"I wasn't really crushed," he said. "There's part of you that says, ‘Aw, you'd like to keep going.' And there's the other side that says, ‘Aw, I'm good' (with leaving). It ran its course and I accomplished what I wanted to. It was a good experience. It was one of those things I'd definitely do it again, but there definitely were some parts of it that weren't a whole lot of fun - they were more frustrating than they were fun."
It provided a good platform for his transition out of the NFL.
"In football, you have that locker-room atmosphere and people always talk about the hardest thing when you retire is to replace that, being around the guys and having that environment where you can truly impact people and build relationships," Warner said. "I was fortunate going into ‘Dancing with the Stars' that I was able to build relationships with the people on the show. ... That part was great, it kind of filled that void for me. That's the part I miss the most, being around people every day where I think I'm at my best and where I can have the biggest impact on people.''
But his lengthy stay on the show that overlaps the football season ("Dancing" began Sept. 20 and he wasn't ousted until Nov. 8) cut into his preparation time for his other post-playing jobs. He serves as a studio analyst for NFL Network as well as providing commentary on a handful of Fox regional NFL game telecasts.
"One of the hardest parts for me is that I was...-12-03-2010, 02:23 PM -
No one wanted to view this in the offensive section of this board so I thought I would post it here...cause I want to know if this is just me.
Warner to me looks like he has put on a few pounds over the summer. Does anyone else see this??
I also think his delievery is different, it seems almost side arm, or shot putt.-09-26-2001, 01:22 PM
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