40-0 at halftime....47-3 final score. One would assume that thats the final score to a NCAAF game. In reality that was the score to a NFL game. Yes the National Football League, the league where players go to play a game they love, and try to win a championship. So who was a part of that 47-3 debacle? Well the St.Louis Rams and the New York Jets. The Jets ran all over the Rams, imposing their will from be beginning to end, quarter to quater, minute to minute, and the Rams in return let them. Why do the Rams suck well there are many culprits.
(1) Front Office
The Rams front office is filled with people who don't care about the team and know nothing about Football. Our Owner Georgia Frontierre died shortly after the Rams season ended last year and she left the team to her son Chip Rosenbloom a film maker in Los Angeles. Chip has stepped in and has already shown more interest into this team than the President and GM. He's made moves such as firing coach Scott Linehan, hiring Jim Hasslet, and taking the personnel power away from our corrupted GM and President. Our President John Shaw, has not been in attendance to a St.Louis Rams game in years. In fact, he has not done much for this team. Shaw is busy worrying about his retirement plans, and other funds. Where do the Rams rank on his list of priorites? One would assume somewhere closer to the bottom. So with the President MIA, all the power lies in the hand of our GM Jay Zygmunt. The man responsible for releasing Isaac Bruce, Kevin Curtis, Shawn McDonald, Grant Winstrom, and the drafting of Adam Archuleta, Trung Candidate, Trev Faulk, Damione Lewis, Brian Allen, Milton Wynn, Jimmy Kennedy, Dejaun Groce, Dan Curley, Shane Walton, and Tony Hargrove. All within the last 5 -7 years. Half of these players are sitting at home, and others are on teams but low on the depth chart, yet Jay believed that these players were the future of the Rams. Zygmunt was around during the Rams superbowl win, but he does not get credit for the moves made around that time. Those were decision of our head coach Dick Vermil. Over the last years the Rams has made good draft moves, but once again no credit goes to Zygmunt because those were decision of VP of personnel Bill Devaney. Zygmunt is a lawyer, that knew nothing about Football, yet he's running the place? He fired Mike Martz....DROVE Mike Martz out of St.Louis because Martz didn't want to be his friend and always butted heads with him on Personnel decisions. Zygmunt did various acts to get Martz out of St.Louis. Vermil, wanted Martz as his successor. Everyone knows Martz is an offensive genius...meaning he does nothing on defense. What do the Rams do? we sign Larry Marmie to fix our defensive problems (WHO?) Martz gets an infection and has to leave the Rams, leaving Joe Vitt as interim head coach. What does Zygmunt do, he bans Martz from talking to players, and coaches, and helping Vitt gameplan. He was not even allowed to return to work. After the season Martz was fired. Say what ever you want about Martz, he was a good coach, and lead this team to playoffs after playoffs and took us to the Superbowl. He was very different in the way he handled his timeouts and challenges, but at the end of the day, the Rams were winning. Martz gets fired, and Zygmunt hires SCOTT LINEHAN? Why? because Linehan would go out and grab a drink with Zygmunt. Fact is Linehan was not ready to become a head coach even though the team went 8-8 in his first season. That was in large part to the guys that were here in the Vermil-Martz era. Linehan and Zygmunt then does a house cleaning getting rid of guys like the doughnut brothers (Adam Timmerman and Andy McCullom) great guys on the offensive line and true leaders. Kevin Curtis and Shaun McDonald. Two young, up and coming WR's. Isaac Bruce our future Hall of Fame WR, Ryan Pickett, who is currently doing wonders on the Carolina Panthers defensive line. Brandon Chillar who is a starter for the Green Bay Packers at Linebacker. In return we brought in Drew Bennet to fix our WR issues? (Has been injured every year since he got here, has done nothing and we are paying him 30 million dollars) and a plethora of free agents to fix our offensive line? (too much to name in the Linehan era) Point is the Rams in 2008 are suffering from decisions made in the past. We have players starting that doesn't deserve to start, much less be on a team. Our offensive line can't hold a block. When our QB takes the snap, a D-Line man is usally in his face. Our offensive line gets so many penalties. If has been like this for years. What do the Rams do? we sign Jacob Bell in the offseason...and drafted rookies in late rounds. The Rams can get this thing turned around but in order for that to happen. Our front office must be a completely different one. At some point players has to be responisble for what happens on the field. But when you have a dysfuntional front office, head coach changes, coordinator changes, and position coach changes every year, there is no stability. The problem lies with our front office.
(2) Front office- See above!
*I just seriously needed to vent after that horrendous loss.