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I Believe

I believe — and have always believed — that the offensive line is where you stick in the thermometer to see how your team is doing. The so-called “skill” position roster can be dripping with talent and you might never win a game if the line fails to stay healthy and play strong.

Sad but true for the 2007 Rams. Even the national media is calling them “The Battered Rams” and bemoaning their rotten luck through the first three weeks of the 2007 season.

Now, Mark Setterstrom has gone down, and the patchwork line is at its thinnest point in many years. When there is talk about retreading guys like Adam Timmerman and Tom Nutten and pushing them back out there, you KNOW things are thin.

I find it ironic that everybody is all of a sudden flapping their hands and getting all nervous because Marc Bulger has an icepack strapped to his ribcage and Steven Jackson has a groin snip. Hey, if there was a good time for “skill” guys to get hurt, it’s RIGHT NOW while the lack of a line means IT BASICALLY DOESN’T MATTER.

It wrenches my guts to say this: Don’t expect the Rams to win any games this year. If they do win a couple, consider it a gift.

Unless there are three or four Kurt Warner-style miracles waiting just off-stage, the Show is over for 2007. And those miracles? This time, they’d better weigh in at around 300 pounds. Each.

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This Could Get Serious — In A Big Hurry

It’s true, as said by our illustrious host, Kevin Morris, that one bad game does not a disastrous season make, and that Ramdom should not run panicking into the streets screaming for the heads of Scott Linehan, Marc Bulger, Steven Jackson and Jim Haslett.

We should also refrain from hijacking offensive linemen from other team buses, and rely on the carefully-selected backups in the Ram arsenal to step up and fill the flatfooted size 16s vacated on Sunday by one Orlando Pace.

And I am willing to allow the possibility that a new ProBowl left tackle is out there in the weeds somewhere. To deny that possibility would be to deny that the Kurt Warner outta-nowhere-to-MVP kind of thing can actually happen.
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Keepers of the Futures

Lately, I’ve spent a lot of time in draft forums and team sites reading about all the 300 or so of the players that will be selected this weekend and thereby granted the opportunity to have a Future in the National Football League.

Much of what I am reading is the same stuff you read every year — this guy has a hamstring, that guy is a Phi Beta Kappa, this guy runs a 4.38 40 and has a 40 inch vertical jump, that guy smoked pot out behind the dorm, this guy got drunk and slapped his girlfriend silly. Teams make stuff up about guys they don’t want anybody else to pick, fan a little smoke around the picks they intend to make, and otherwise play the yearly game of bargaining over horseflesh and trying to bite, scratch and claw their way to the best draft they can manage.

Every year so far, I have pretty much just floated downstream with the whole deal, trying to keep my nose above the water line and be aware of what was going on, but this year I have bonked headfirst into a log in the stream, and my enjoyment is troubled with a headache. For the lack of a better tag to pin on it, I guess I’ll just call it conscience.
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What I wanted to say to LT — The REAL LT

A few days before this last Christmas, I was slogging my way though the American Airlines gate area at LAX at the beginning of my almost-annual holiday trek to New Jersey to visit my only beloved daughter, her Jerzoid husband, my karate-kid grandson and my ballerina-princess granddaughter. This trip is a bit of a chore, though always a pleasure. The chore part stems from the airlines’ refusal to acknowledge the height, width and circumference of 70% of Americans. I do not fit in airplane seats and even though I had a first class ticket, I wasn’t looking forward to the 5 1/2 hours ahead of me.

Brooding over this as I reached my gate area, I spotted a giant African American gentleman, dressed chin-to-toe in what appeared to be custom-fitted black silk, no socks, expensive-looking black shoes and tasteful jewelry, including a diamond stud in his right ear, 1 carat at least.

There was an empty seat next to him, so I sat down in it, thinking I might get some commiseration on my airline-seat woes. The guy didn’t notice me and seemed preoccupied with his portable dvd player and his collection of Star Trek disks. For the first time, I took a close look at his face. All of a sudden, the size of this man, his clothes, his jewelry and why he was watching dvds with sunglasses on, all made sense.

He was Lawrence Taylor. (more…)

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Is the paint dry in here?

Gee. A fancy new site, a fresh new look AND a coat of wet paint!

Pretty snazzy!

Also, it appears that I don’t have to do all my noodling over in MacroShaft Word and then put in a bunch of paragraph tags and copy it to the editor and chase it around in circles until it’s right and it’s posted and it looks OK. Cool.

As soon as I get my stuff together and my Humanscale Freedom ergonomic task chair and all my Rams trash in here, it ought to be downright homey. Not that I am a homey, you understand.

Speaking of getting my stuff together, I finally snagged a framed-up 1999 Kurt Warner # 13 Rams road jersey (white with yellow sleeves) and a SuperBowl 34 shoulder patch. Autographed of course. Either this jersey is extremely rare or somebody is hoarding them. It now resides in the workout room next to my autographed 1999 Marshall Faulk Jersey, my 1999 fullsize Rydell Rams helmet with forty-four SuperBowl 34 Rams autographs on it and my Kurt Warner autographed SuperBowl 34 Wilson Football. And all my other 1999 and SB34 magazines, books, posters, photos and other stuff. If I don’t find a cure for my bad case of G.A.S. (Goodies Acquisition Syndrome) pretty soon, I may have to sell the Bowflex and the Treadclimber to make room and raise cash to feed my disease.

Back soon after I get moved in and settled.

Good work, Kevin.

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It’s Over

“It’s over for the Rams, now that the New York Limping Giants have succeeded in besting the richest bunch of lousy football players in the National Football League, the Washington R-words, by a Ram-season-ending score of 34-28.

Looking back, it’s pretty easy to accept the Rams’ result this year, even if they don’t score a so-what victory over the Vikings tomorrow. 7-9 will get them a better draft position than 8-8, so, as a matter of fact at this point, I’m sort of rooting for the Rams to lose in Minnesota.

And speaking of ways that I am rooting for the Rams, here’s a list:

1. I am rooting for the Rams to take Marshall Faulk back onto a football field in 2007 ONLY if Faulk is absolutely 100% rehabilitated from his half-dozen or so knee surgeries over the last few years. Wasting time, effort and money on any other washed-up semi-Faulk will only keep another deserving player off the team. This must be a football decision. Sentiment can wait five years and express itself in Canton.

2. I am rooting for Scott Linehan to continue his hands-off policy for offensive play-calling. Let the Offensive Coordinator and the quarterbacks work it out. That was what Dick Vermeil did in 1999, and look what was allowed to happen. Even the OC that made 1999 so memorable could never get it right as the Head Coach. Linehan did the right thing. Whether Greg Olson is the right OC for the future, I don’t know.

3. I am rooting for the Rams’ think-tank personnel for the off-season free agent meat-market and the 2007 draft to concentrate on putting together the absolute best O- and D-Lines possible. It is amazing how great a group of otherwise mediocre backs, receivers and linebackers can look when they are playing behind a pair of great lines. It is equally amazing how bad a great group of backs, receivers and linebackers can look when they play behind bad lines. The line isn’t everything, but it HAS TO BE THE FIRST THING. In my opinion, the Rams have sufficient ability at the so-called “skills” positions. If every pick or free agent acquisition was a lineman this off-season, it wouldn’t bother me a bit. Emphasis on the D-line seems appropriate within the framework of that endeavor.

4. I am rooting for the fans in St Louis to get with the program. Unquestioned, unconditional and very VOCAL support are their obligation and crucial contribution to the creation of a home-field advantage that used to be ubiquitous but, in 2006, has all but disintegrated at the Edward Jones Dome. Gripe, second-guess, criticize and quarterback at the water-cooler all day Monday if you want to, but dognabbit, when you go to Rams games, do your duty. Nobody should have to beg you to do this. You should know it’s your job and nobody can do it for you. But if you are waiting around for somebody to beg, then fine. I’m not proud. Pretty please with sugar on top. There. Consider yourself begged.

Here’s hoping everybody who reads my stuff will have a happy, healthy, safe and prosperous 2007. And that the miracle of 1999 is about to repeat itself.

©2006 LA Bob

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I’m Serious

“Losing to the Bears was not a problem for me. Except for the abominable play of the kick coverage units and the continued dropsy epidemic among what used to be the best receiver corps in the game of American Football, the Rams didn’t do half bad. 11 or 12 penalties, the usual leaky run D, but it seemed like the Rams pretty much showed up to play.

And after all, Da Bears are now 11-2 and ready to lock up HFATTP. No, that ain’t a rap group with 43-pound tennis shoes and stank bref’. It’s Home Field Advantage Throughout The Playoffs. And next to getting injury-free through a first week playoff bye, it’s the most important advantage a team can take toward getting into the Super Bowl. (Note: Last year was the prototypical exception to this philosophy. The Bus was goin’ home to Detroit no matter WHERE the Steelers had to play to get him there. There was no HFATTP last season.)

So I can’t get steamed at the Rams anymore this week. I’m all out of steam. I’m so un-steamed I couldn’t lick a stamp and an envelope on the same day.

But let me tell you one thing right here:

If the Rams think they can come back to California, show up in that misbegotten slime-pit in Oakland where Al Davis puts on his Sunday freak-shows, and expect any sympathy from me and about a million Ramfans in Los Angeles if they lose to the dog-butt, stinking RAIDERS this week, then brother, do they have another think coming.

No matter what.

I don’t care if Steven’s cramps are back. I don’t care if Marc Bulger’s brain is farting like a pack mule. I don’t care if Linehan’s pop-eyes bug ALL the way out and bounce down the sideline. The Rams ARE NOT, repeat: NOT allowed to lose to Al Davis. NEVER.

I will personally house-invasion Rams Park and put a chicken suit and a foul, rancid hunk of Limburger cheese in every single coach and player’s locker if they don’t find a way to beat the worst team in the world.

I’m serious as a heart attack on this one.

©2006 LA Bob

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Astounded

“It seems that no matter how much NFL football I see, how much media coverage I absorb, how much sideshow humor I witness by the likes of Terrell Owens, Chad Johnson, Bill Parcells, Souf’-Eas’ Jerome or Steve Smith – these people never fail to, as a group, astound me.

Growing up, the immortal giants and titans of the game were 25 feet tall, glowed in the dark, and seemed indestructible to a small boy. TV newsreels would literally stop a kid’s heart while the touchdown pass was in the air, even before the days when Ed Sabol’s NFL Films cameramen figured out how to follow the flight of the ball and Ed set the whole thing to music.

The music to a kid’s ear was the words of a Bob Kelley or Dick Enberg, filling the radio airwaves with the heroics of Bob Waterfield, Norm VanBrocklin, Bill Wade – hitting on huge scoring passes to Elroy Hirsch and Tom Fears. Handing off to Jon Arnett and Dick Bass. The Fearsome Foursome dominating the line of scrimmage and keeping the opposition at bay.

Astounding.

To this day, there are sights and sounds that blow the wispy smoke of childhood memories back to life, and for fleeting moments all too few, I remember how it felt to be a kid and be in love with a game and be astounded by its heroes.

Then, sadly, the memories and feelings are gone as fast as they came. I find myself grown up, back in front of the 50” HD bigscreen, staring at a fool named “Ocho Cinco”, jumping around with a grinning face full of fake gold teeth and looking like a 1959 Cad-O-Lac Pimpmobile. Followed by another clown named “Souf-eas’ Jerome” (real name: Clinton Portis) dressed in drag with giant sunglasses, a pink feather boa and a wig-hat to match.

Can these be football players? These morons ain’t no 25 feet tall. These bozos might glow in the dark some, but only from the makeup. Unlike my childhood heroes, these modern-day examples of the NFL’s “finest” are a whole lot more like a whole different class of “athletes” from the past. One Freddie Blassie used to stomp around the ring throwing autographed photo cards of himself at the fans. Gorgeous George had long blond hair filled with gold bobby-pins that he would pull out and throw at the audience.

Even as a kid, it was pretty easy to tell who were the heroes and who were the phonies.

Nowadays, it’s not so easy. NFL now stands for the Numbskull Football League, where anybody with a pocket full of picture cards or a hair-do loaded with golden bobby-pins can make a name for himself, get media coverage and free face-time on television, act like an idiot and essentially cheapen the game of American Football into what seems likely to become a sideshow to the new Main Event: a bad imitation of 1950s professional wrestling.

Choke-holds, flying double bodyslams – the works.

What astounds me now are two things: (1)That there is any respect left for the game or the media that covers it, and: (2)That the American football fan just sucks it up like free beer and says NOTHING.

Astounding.

©2006 La Bob

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Surprise, Surprise !

“I have to confess that I surprised myself when Marc Bulger was sacked and got crunched yesterday.

I mean, usually I only jump out of my chair and holler, “”YES!!!!”" like that when something good happens to the Rams.

But yesterday, I think I was affected by the pent-up frustration of watching Bulger do his thumbsucking brain-fart act for 12 weeks — and I was tired of his forty yard flutter-balls in the Rams’ formerly-effective vertical passing game.

It’s not that I think he’s bad, he’s just been in a foggy cloudbank for several months.

And I, frankly, was dying to see what kind of difference Gus Frerotte could make, and I knew Bulger getting injured was my best (only?) chance that Scott “”Old Tightpockets”" Linehan would give Gus a shot. I mean, if five losses in a row, capped off by a shutout doesn’t get Bulger benched, what will?

Anyhow, Gus came in cold, threw a couple of rockets with no time left and got the Rams in position for a last-second half-time field goal that ultimately was the margin of victory, while Bulger was pouting on the sideline because Coach kept him out for a couple of plays. Boo hoo.

After doing nothing but kill drives with bad passes through the entire second half, Linehan had Bulger on a short leash during the do-or-die drive, throwing nothing but check-downs to Steven Jackson and Stephen Davis, a come-back route to Isaac Bruce on the sideline, one medium range shot to Torry Holt up the middle and a goal line grass-cutter that Kevin Curtis managed to scoop up for the best reception of the entire game. We got that final touchdown because Jackson is as tough as a combat boot and the receivers have good hands and Bulger seems OK on the short stuff, true, but mostly, because the Whiners are as bad at playing The Prevent as the Rams are at stopping The Run.

Winning is better than losing, for sure, but I have no illusions. The Ram players still aren’t buying the system and the coach isn’t about to change it. They could go 0-5 to close out this pitiful season, and as much as I’ll hate watching it, the prospects for April can only improve. I just hope nobody else gets injured. The Rams have taken more than their fair share of hits this season, and their lineup is thinner than Linehan’s Christmas bonus.

©2006 LA Bob

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Guesswork

“What will become of the 2006 Rams is now anybody’s guess.

Head Coach Scott Linehan is obviously just guessing. His guess that the Rams could shoot holes in the Carolina Panthers’ pass defense using a decision-challenged quarterback, a patchwork offensive line and several receivers with wooden fingers was, um, wrong. Some of us guessed that Linehan would remember an earlier guess where he thought the Rams would balance the attack and run Steven Jackson. We guessed wrong. Linehan didn’t remember.

I, personally, guessed that Isaac Bruce’s first dropped pass against the Panthers would be his last. Bamp. Wrong. I also guessed that Linehan would remember his own words:

“People need to remember that Todd Steussie went to the Pro Bowl as a left tackle in this League”

and put Steussie in there at LT, sliding Adam Goldberg in someplace else. Another bad guess on my part. Goldberg went in for the missing-in-action Orlando Pace who inconveniently tore a tricep while pushing on some air the week before, while the Rams were losing to Seattle (who lost to the Whiners on Sunday — I don’t know anybody who guessed right on that one). As a result of Goldberg getting thoroughly creamed on a regular basis, the indecisive thumbsucker with the going-nowhere football in his right hand (and the number 10 on his bumbling, stumbling, fumbling back) did what he usually does under pressure: brain-lock and crumble.

A short list of my other wrong guesses:

Jim Haslett would find a way to cover Steve Smith.

The Rams’ defensive front 8 would stop the run.

The Rams’ defensive front 8 would rush Jake Delhomme effectively and get some killer sacks and takeaways.

The Rams would get to .500 and still be alive for a wildcard.

Bamp. Wrong on all of the above.

Right now, I think I am through guessing about 2006. My expectations for the Rams are probably pretty low right now but I don’t know for sure because I have hunted high and low, attic and basement, under the bed and behind the garage, and for the life of me I can’t find those consarned expectations anywhere. It’s like they vanished, but I can’t exactly say that because that would be guessing, and like I said before, I’m through guessing.

I ‘ll probably just grab the newspaper, a ham sandwich and a seat cushion and take a number in the lobby of the Miracle Department. If the Rams have a snowball’s chance of getting in the playoffs, that’s probably where I’ll find it.

I know one thing that nobody has to guess about. They’re not going to find much on the football field.

And another thing: lose those silly white pants for crying out loud. Our football team is circling the bowl and they are schlocking around with fashion choices.

Good grief.

©2006 LA Bob

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NFC Worst

“Well, let’s see.

This week would ordinarily mark the “Big Game” in the Western Division of the National Football Conference, between the Greatest Show on Turf and the Seasquawks of Seattle.

Not this time, folks.

For one thing, the Greatest Show has fired its Ringmaster and hired a former circus train mechanic to do the job. The new guy seems reliable enough, and conscientious, and dots and crosses all the appropriate letters, i, j, t, etc. This train will no longer get derailed with brilliant planning followed by stupid steersmanship, but it does seem to take a bit too long getting out of the station every week, as it were.

A case in point: last week the Rams lost to the mediocre-at-best Kansas City Chiefs, chugging their way to a 14 point deficit before getting up to speed, after which they barely managed to keep abreast of the Chiefs, losing by the same 14 points. The week before that, the Rams proved they could do it on the road, too, giving the San Diego Chargers a 14 point lead and losing by, you guessed it, 14.

Seattle comes into this week’s game way up in first place and will hang on to it even if they lose to the Rams. They are short their starting quarterback, Matt Hasselbeck, and their whizbang MVP running back Shaun Alexander, but that’s not likely to matter much. Last week KC’s Trent Green was still on the bench, looking out his earhole and wondering what day it was, and his team still managed to squash the Rams like a bug.

Even with their mouthy tight end Jeremy Stevens prancing around and kneeing people in the crotch and thinking he’s the cutest thing since Freddie Mercury, the Squawks should have no trouble beating the Rams under their custom-made giant twin-tin-can pain-amplifiers (only thinly disguised as customer shelters). Due to those infernal and insulting contraptions — and the fact that Microsoft employees are forbidden to yell at the office — the Seattle ballpark is the loudest in the NFL, indoors or out. The Dome at America’s center used to be pretty loud, too, back when the fans believed and weren’t offing their tickets to brokers to sell to Chiefs fans. Last week, Marc Bulger went to a silent snap count in his own stadium after a fresh batch of false start penalties, mostly by the 2005 Penalty King of the NFL, Alex Barron, due to the noise in the Dome. The KC QB was calling audibles over center.

Pathetic. Reminds me of why the Rams got outta Dodge, er, Los Angeles.

I can’t get excited about this one. No matter who wins, they will only be the best team in the 8th best division in the league.

The NFC Worst.

©2006 LA Bob

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