The St. Louis Rams Are Very Bad

The St. Louis Rams are a very bad football team. Don't fool yourself with talk of they play hard, we liked the effort, they played the full 60 minutes, this team is awful. With the Rams embarrassing 27-17 loss to the Seattle Seahawks on Sunday I have now seen 11 straight home losses. The Rams are 1-10 on the season and tied with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and Cleveland Browns for the worst record in the NFL. In a very bad NFC West the St. Louis Rams have lost 12 straight division games. The Rams have lost 37 of their last 43 games. In the salary cap and parity era the Rams are not even mediocre, they are just flat out bad. In 2009 the St. Louis Rams have been outscored 55-17 by the Seattle Seahawks! Today the Rams statistically had a better day than Seattle but the Rams were never really even in the game. In 120 minutes of football against the Seahawks this year the Rams never held a lead. Once again the Rams were outscored in the second half of play (13-7) and without a late pity TD the Rams would have been held scoreless in the second half.

The Edward Jones Dome was a like a tomb today. The announced crowd of 47,475 seem to know what they are in store for before even getting to the game. This team is completely boring, devoid of almost any talent or playmakers. If the Rams did not have Steven Jackson they could possibly be one of the worse rosters I have ever seen. I have yet to see the St. Louis Rams under Steve Spagnuolo come into ANY game with a noticeable game plan. On first down the Rams run up the middle, they follow that up with dump off passes and continue the cycle. Today the Rams held the Seahawks to 265 total yards which is usually considered great but they still were not even in the game. With the St. Louis Rams apparently up for sale, a 1-10 record, obvious salary dumps early in the year and two more upcoming blackouts what are Rams fans to hang their hat on?

Steve Spagnuolo gets Shit on 28-0

Steve Spagnuolo now knows what he was getting into or on him by taking the St. Louis Rams coaching job. The Rams were once again shit on by a divisional foe, this time 28-0 by the Seattle Seahawks who were 4-12 last year. It only took one play for the Rams to make a mistake on Sunday. On the opening kickoff Donnie Avery ran up the middle and immediately fumbled once contact was made and Seattle's Herring recovered. My first question of many today would be why was Avery back there? Avery returned one kick all of 2008 and that was due to an injury. Stanley and Gado were back there through the preseason so why Avery today, why your starting wideout on a team with no depth at wideout? Well that turned out to be the least of our problems today. The Rams shot themselves in the foot all day long. The Rams had a penalty on every offensive possession during the 1st quarter.

In the first 11 minutes and 49 seconds of the game the Rams defense was flying to the ball like in the preseason and managed to force two interceptions and a fumble recovery. The early interception by James Butler kept the Seahawks off the board early and gave the Rams hope. James Laurinaitis recovered a fumble on the Seattle 38 to set the Rams up in scoring position midway through the 1st quarter. After a bad penalty and a bad snap the Rams were only able to move the ball 3 total yards to the Seahawks 35 yard line. I thought the Rams would go for the long FG and try to take the lead but instead they pinned the Seahawks deep. The next drive O.J. Atogwe intercepted Hasselbeck and that was about it for the defense. They gave the offense 3 opportunities but were unable to cash in with any points.

After that the comedy or errors just got worse from that point on for the Rams. John Carlson caught a TD pass from Matt Hasselbeck to complete a 73 yard drive and put the Seahawks up 7-0. Then came the play of the game. With Seattle driving late before halftime the Rams forced a 4th and 5 and Seattle went for a field goal. With 1:05 left in the half C.J. Ah You broke in and blocked the kick, which was recovered and returned for a touchdown by Quincy Butler. The Rams had tied the score! We were going to be in a 30 minute battle to win a game. But wait, they seem to be reviewing the play which came inside the last two minutes of the half. What could they be reviewing? Turns out the Rams had 12 men on the field and the TD would not count. To make matters worse it was 4th and 5, and the 5 yard penalty gave the Seahawks a first down. Well you know what happened after that, Matt Hasselbeck completed the 72 yard drive with a 12 yard TD pass to Nate Burleson. Within 53 seconds we went from being tied 7-7, to being down 14-0 at the half.

The Rams seemed discourage starting the second half as they were manhandled in the 3rd quarter. Seattle tacked on 2 more touchdowns and almost 200 yards of offense in the 3rd quarter alone to put the game out of reach at 28-0. The Rams only managed 41 yards and 3 more Donnie Jones punts in the quarter. The rams had 93 yards of total offense through 3 quarters, and almost as many penalty yards. The Rams wasted timeouts, had false start penalties, and two 15 yard personal foul calls on our friend Richie Incognito. Steven Jackson had 3 carried for 8 yards in the 3rd and was basically a non-factor on the day.

The numbers do not lie the Rams are just a bad football team. The Rams have lost 11 straight regular season games. You have to go back to October 19th 2008 for the Rams last victory, a 34-14 win over the Dallas Cowboys. The Rams have lost 11 straight division games. The Rams have lost 9 straight games to the Seattle Seahawks. The Rams have only 5 wins in their last 33 games. The Rams have cut a lot of dead weight off the roster but they still need to add some stars and talent.

There were not many bright spots for the Rams. They played hard to the end and Donnie Jones was great other than that the same issues were still there. The new offensive line only allowed 3 sacks, but they had their normal false starts and the run blocking was nothing to write home about. The offense was plain vanilla and was unable to get anything started or provide the defense with many breaks. The defense started off fast but faded. They once again allowed a lot of rushing yards (167) and one big run. The secondary played well but at times players were wide open. Hasselbeck was able to throw for 179 yards, 3 TDs, and a QB rating of 96.9.

The Rams will now travel to Washington to take on the 0-1 Redskins who lost 23-17 to the New York Giants today. Hang in there coach Spagnuolo, we believe in you but it will take some time. For now wipe off your shoulder and put those boys to work.