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Posts Tagged ‘St Louis Rams’

Mutton sure is tastes good!

Sunday at noon, the modern day Norseman will meet destruction upon the throwback wearing Rams.  The rams hope to gather some of the mojo they once had wearing royal blue and bright yellow.  “They look great. Hopefully, we’ll be able to bring back some of that throwback energy” said Rams cornerback Ron Bartell.  They will need it because the Rams (0-4) have been feeble offensively, mistake-prone and their 14-game losing streak is the longest in the NFL.  On top of it, the weather has changed.

A wet and now cold wind has moved into the St Louis area.  Three days of storms, wind and water everywhere and now near freezing conditions have been brought by the men of the North.  As Vikings players sleep and dream of long voyages across bitterly cold and ferocious seas, journeys that would exhibit their strength and ferocity as warriors and build their legends, the same feeling has wafted down on the first major cold front of the season and the locals are anxiously awaiting the bad things the feeling brings.

The first of those bad feelings comes with Brett Favre, the man who is looking to start his fourth decade on the planet with a win.  Brett Favre’s three touchdown performance against his former team last Monday Night earned him player of the week honors.  This week he is going against the 19^th rated Rams secondary who are averaging giving up 27 points a game and he knows since he has led the charge on the battlefield, Favre and his lieutenants rank 4^th in the league in point production with an average of 29.5 per game.

Sydney Rice is quickly becoming his favorite receiver to go along with Visanthe Shaincoe and Chester Taylor.  Bernard Berrian who now seems almost completely healed from an earlier hamstring tweak, also looks to get more action from that 40 years young arm that still throws lasers like the Viking long sword to the heart centuries ago.

This contest will feature two of the best running backs in the league, Steven Jackson for the Rams and Adrian Peterson for the Vikings.  If you ask who has the more 100 yard games and guess AD, you’d be wrong; Jackson has 2 and is really the only offensive weapon the Rams possess.  The last three weeks teams have forgone the Vikings passing game to their demise just to curtail Adrian’s forceful running.  Will the Rams defense, ranked 24^th against the run, try the same thing?  Will they have the same success as the better teams before them just to sacrifice the game to Favre’s arm?

Fearing  an offense that can slice on both sides of that battle axe,  Rams defensive coordinator Ken Flajole was asked how he was going to focus his attack.  Was he going to try and stop the run and let the Hall of Fame bound legend of Brett Favre pick apart a much depleted secondary or focus on stopping Adrian Peterson like the Packers did on Monday?  Flajole’s honest response was, “It is kind of a two-headed monster.  I am kind of hoping one of those guys misses the team charter.”

The Vikings lead the league with 16 sacks in their first 4 games, with Aaron Rodgers feeling the brunt of them last week.  The Rams promise to bring a young offensive line that has issues of its own and should have the Four Norsemen of the Apocalypse drooling puddles in the turf in anticipation of Kyle Boller on a spit.  Steven Jackson will just be a hors d’œuvre on the way to the succulent main course.

Asked about the Vikings defense and not just the front four, the Rams offensive coordinator Pat Shurmur seems to know what they will be up against.  “Their front seven is very, very dominant in some areas … obviously the two inside defensive tackles,” Shurmur said. “They’ve got great pass rush on the edges, their linebacking corps is solid, and their scheme is very good as well. Not to mention their secondary. Antoine Winfield is one of the finer corners in the league. All around, they are an excellent defense so we are going to have to play our A-game to get in the end zone.”

“A-game” from a team that has only averaged 6 points per game, seems to be a little wishful thinking from the kind and gentle folk of St Louis.

There have been some technical issues this week On Vikings Valhalla and elsewhere.  They have hopefully been completely rectified, but Greg the Greek wanted me to pass on his prediction for the men from the land of ice and snow.  “Vikes are -10.5 and the over/under is 41.  My prediction is [Vikings] 33-10 [over the Rams].  This is our year!”

Vikings Valhalla gets represented at home games every week; it will be at this away game as well.  A small crew of VV regulars vikechick, noroof, myself and family have ridden that same wind and will be in the Edwards Jones Dome cheering on our beloved Purple on every snap and with all the strength the of Vikings fans everywhere.

Skol and GO VIKINGS!

Last week I was musing over Marc Bulger’s benching and the demise of the proud St Louis Rams. It has its own Minnesota Vikings connection and can be something that both organizations can learn from.

I don’t know how much of the Linehan era in St Louis that you follow or even care about, but I had a thought:

Will Marc Bulger end up being the next Daunte Culpepper?

I always thought that it was Linehan that guided Culpepper to his best seasons. He got in his head, reduced his reads, etc., but now I’m not so sure. Given that DC followed Scott to the Dolphins following his unceremonious departure from Minnesota, and didn’t play well in the limited time he got. There was the excuse of his healing knee though.

Linehan gets plucked for the Rams job, and Culpepper goes to the Raiders for his last and final season. Culpepper is never the same as the all-pro years in Minnesota.

Linehan takes over a Mike Martz coached team with a Pro Bowler Marc Bulger at the helm. Bulger is considered one of the best quarterbacks in the league and was outstanding under the rigors of Martz’s most complicated offense. Things should have been easy for Scott, but injuries and misfortune decimated the once powerful Rams. The disturbing part is that the once top 3 QB in the NFC seems to not be able to play with any consistency and starts a slow mental deterioration in his play execution abilities. Why?

The only conclusion I can come to is Scott Linehan. Maybe Denny Green and Mike Tice were more the driving forces in Culpepper’s success, because it sure looks like Scott Linehan can’t even make good QBs better, but makes them worse. (Sound like another coach we know?)

Bulger needs a new coach and possibly a new team. Well, the coach part may be sooner than the team part. I just hope that we haven’t witnessed a destruction of a QB career again.

Fast forward one week and part of that reality has come true.

Scott Linehan’s first head coaching gig ended a few hours after Sunday’s come from ahead loss to the Buffalo Bills. It was only the third season at the helm after taking over for the mad scientist Mike Martz. He started 8-8 his first season rallying to win 4 of those games late in the season. Things were looking good going into the 2007 season, but the injury bug infested the organization in a major way decimating the offensive line in particular. Then towards the end of the season, the Rams’ beloved owner, Georgia Frontiere passed away. She had told here bratty kids to keep Linehan and due to the enormous amount of injuries he was given the benefit of the doubt and retained. Then comes 2008, and the hold out of Steven Jackson, the shell shocking of Marc Bulger and 4 of the most lopsided losses in Rams history.

St Louis was leading after the first half yesterday, just to collapse in the second half to a relentless Bills team. The Bills players looked to be getting stronger and the Rams weaker. Conditioning issues possibly, but that too falls under the coach’s control. It was the 17th loss in the last 20 games and was the last straw. Scott was fired a few hours after the final whistle and press conference. There was a reason that everybody wanted to shake his hand.

Marc Bulger was a prophet when he said that he would, “never play for Linehan again.”

Defensive Coordinator Jim Haslett was named interim head coach. The Rams are 0-4 going into their bye. Haslett has his work cut out for him. He’ll try and turn around a team with many issues and one that has a FOR SALE sign in the front yard. New owners usually like to put in their own coach.

As a Vikings fan living in the St Louis area, I hope both teams learn not all supposed “gurus” at the coordinator level are the real thing and it may have more to do with head coaches that believe in maximizing their players’ abilities, game planning and executing to those strengths to achieve victory. That is leadership and something that the players can believe in.