When looking at the schedule before the season started, I had this one chalked up to an easy victory. No Vick and no Schaub, piece of cake, right? Well what do ya know - Another game where we jumped out to a sizable early lead and then had to hang on for dear life at the end.
Sunday’s game against the Falcons was the fifth straight game in which the Rams had a double-digit lead, with this win being only the third out of that five. How our offense can come out on fire and look so awesome and then just completely tank in the second half is mind boggling to me.
When the offense died (again) after going up 14-0 to begin the game (again) and it began to look like it was “OH NO” all over again, I almost decided to turn it off and go with my wife to her underwater basket-weaving class. Almost. This team really pisses me off, and I don’t know if it’s all coaching or execution or what, but if at least one of the coaches doesn’t get executed after this year then we will be in for another long season in 2008.
I hear a lot of talk about canning Linehan and promoting Haslett, but it is really hard to execute a successful game plan when you have 17 different O-Line units in just 12 games. That is truly unbelievable. And considering that one of those left standing was Steussie, who hadn’t played at all until last week (Browns), I tend to once again give Coach a mulligan on almost blowing this one. Too many injuries TO STARTERS, too many dropped passes, missed tackles, and dropped Int’s this season make it difficult to know how to judge this team fairly. But hey, if they want fair then just win, baby! If they want fair then get out there and kick ass on a team who has a QB that hadn’t thrown a TD pass since 2002 and wasn’t even in the league last year. Instead we make him look like the second coming of Kurt Warner. Thank goodness it’s a dog-eat-dog world and Vick is wearing milkbone underwear or this one may have left us staring at 2-10. Here’s hoping Carson Palmer doesn’t put up 500 and 6 on us.
Now I would like to address Steven Jackson’s pregame comments about the fans needing to whoop it up a bit more and get into it. How about shuttin’ your mouth and giving us a reason to believe that when you jump out to an early lead you will win? I wanted sooooo badly to get excited Sunday but I knew, I just knew that it wouldn’t last. And I was right. So until you can hold a lead and actually do something with it, Steven, just shut up and play. And remember that your team is 3-9, not 9-3.
On a side note, the way the Patriots won last night was sickening. Gaffney did not have control of that pass, and there is no way in hell that the Ravens get that call. And that defensive holding penalty right before that, even Steve Young said how ironic it was, since "the Patriots have been raping and pilaging tight ends for years" but getting away with it. This season is enough to make me want to walk away from Football altogether, not just the Rams. I almost literally don't care to watch it anymore. I hate Belicheat and Brady more than Sauerkraut on Spumoni ice cream. And that's pretty frickin gross! But here I'll be next week, just as pissed off about something else that goes wrong and more than happy to tell you about it. Hopefully it won't involve THE BESTEST TEAM IN THE WHOLE WORLD, THE ST LOUIS RAMS!
I was going to research these numbers to update them, but this flu is kicking my ass so I'll just give you what I got. As of late 2006, here are some of Faulk's achievements and why he will be a first ballot HOF'er. Period.
