Is It Time For Another Rams Coaching Change?

Note: Originally published 10/23/2014. Slight update at the bottom following 10/26/2014 Rams v Chiefs game.

As a fan, seeing the Rams beat the Seahawks this past Sunday was absolutely fantastic. The Seahawks are easily my least favorite NFL team. Pete Carroll is one of the most loathsome people in sports and “The 12^th Man” is maybe more annoying than “BFIB ”.

Again, this Rams win was awesome. It’s a shame this hasn’t been a more common occurrence.

However, with Jeff Fisher receiving plenty of (deserved) praise for the gutsy fake punt late in the fourth quarter of Sunday’s game, people have overlooked the most important take away from the game: the Rams almost blew yet another huge lead. That makes three in the past 4 weeks, with the others of course being the 49ers and Cowboys games. All three of these games were at the Dome. How can they continually let down, especially at home?

Which brings me to my point: it may be time for Jeff Fisher and company to go.

I’m not a pessimist who is eternally unhappy with St. Louis coaches. I feel my defense of Mike Matheny following the NLCS could support that assertion. I was extremely excited when Fisher chose St. Louis over Miami following the 2011 season, to the point I wore one of those ridiculous fake moustaches on opening day in 2012.

I recognize a few days after a massive win against the defending Super Bowl champions might not be the most ideal time to bring this issue up.

Oh well.

It appears this coaching staff has run an excellent weekly practice and game planning routine. In all three of the aforementioned games, the Rams have come out focused and sharp. Using ProFootballReference’s Win Probability metric, the Rams had an 86% chance of victory at halftime vs the Cowboys, 89.40% chance of victory at halftime vs the Seahawks, and an 85.50% chance of victory before the 80 yard Brandon Lloyd touchdown with 1:08 left in the first half vs the 49ers. These are all encouraging signs, and show the Rams can be a good football team with many talented players.

Then the second half comes and it all falls apart. Half time in the NFL is an ideal opportunity for coaches to make in-game adjustments, and Jeff Fisher keeps proving he is unable to rise to the occasion. The Rams have been outscored 110-56 in the second half this season. Only once have they outscored an opponent in the second half, which came in the Eagles game where Philadelphia ran 22 times compared to only 11 passing attempts as they had no real reason to keep pushing after going up an embarrassing 34-7.

Then the personnel decisions. Along with GM Les Snead, Jeff Fisher has overseen three drafts. Starting with the Redskins trade for RGIII, they have had ample opportunity to set the ship straight. They have failed miserably. Beginning at the 2012 draft, they’ve taken some players that can only be described as ‘busts” thus far.

Michael Brockers, 14th overall pick.  The first pick by the new regime was a big defensive tackle out of LSU. He’s been consistently rated by ProFootballFocus (how they grade can be found here) as one of the worst defensive tackles in the league since 2012. Of defensive tackles that played at least 50% of his team’s snaps, Brockers ranked 19 of 44 in 2012, 32 of 40 in 2013, and 34 of 39 so far in 2014.

Brian Quick, 33rd overall pick. Quick was invisible his first two years in the league before taking a step forward this year. He’s still been a below average wideout (again, according to PFF), and receivers taken after him such as Alshon Jeffrey, T.Y. Hilton, and Reuben Randle have performed better so far, but there are at least encouraging signs.

Janoris Jenkins, 39th overall pick. A play maker with 4 touchdowns in his time in St. Louis, but his pass coverage has been atrocious (passer ratings when thrown to him being 82, 115, and 124) since coming into the league and he’s probably better suited as a safety rather than a cover corner.

Isaiah Pead, 50th overall pick. Just seeing the name annoys me.

Tavon Austin, 2013 8th overall pick. The Rams traded up into this spot to take Austin. Undersized and underutilized, he’s made little impact outside of the blowout of the Colts last season.

Alec Ogletree, 2013 30th overall pick. Ogletree was a pleasant surprise as a rookie last season. This year, he’s taken a massive step backwards, rating as the worst outside linebacker in the league by a wide margin.

The 6 above players constitute a 2 year stretch where they had six picks in the first two rounds, and failed to really do anything with them. This isn’t to say that they can’t turn into special players. They were drafted highly for a reason. But it’s on the coaches to get them to their potential, and it just hasn’t happened so far.

Free Agent signings haven’t been much better, with players like Jake Long, Jared Cook and Cortland Finnegan landing big deals only to come in and fail.

A common argument is that Fisher needs time to get his people in the system. Well, his people have failed. The top performers (guys like Quinn, Laurinaitis, Long, etc) on this team have come from prior front offices.

Like I said before, I  was excited about Jeff Fisher when he was first hired. I ignored the idea that “Fisher was fired for a reason”. I looked past the general mediocrity his Titans teams had, disregarding the 10 times in 16 seasons they finished with 8 or less wins, and instead focused on 3 division titles and 6 overall playoff appearances.

But it’s time for him to go, and not just him.

Brian Schottenheimer has to be the worst offensive coordinator in the league. Since Schottenheimer took over in 2012, the Rams have ranked 25, 21st, and this year 24th in points scored per game. Austin Davis has been a pleasant surprise, but has still performed negatively according to ProFootballFocus. This confused me a bit as well, so I took to Twitter (pictured below) asking a PFF grader how someone with excellent traditional stats can be rated negatively. Essentially, Davis is making the throws that need to be made and not much more.

Schottenheimer’s play calling is predictable and unimaginative. As mentioned above, Tavon Austin has been ridiculously underutilized. The guy has game changing speed and big play ability, and the most he’s being asked to do is take a handoff and run the ball right up the middle. If that’s not enough, it should be telling that Mark Sanchez would rather be a backup than start for Brian Schottenheimer.

Greg Williams also should be shown the door. Originally hired in 2012 before being suspended for “Bountygate”, Williams finally took over as defensive coordinator this season to much excitement. He’s known to be an aggressive, attacking DC and he took over an extremely talented front 7 that should have fit his scheme perfectly. The defense has been the only strong suit of this team the past few seasons, finishing 14th and 13th in points allowed. Under Williams, they’re ranked 30th.

After beating relentlessly beating offensive lines for 53 sacks, an average of 3.3 per game, last season, the Rams have only managed 4 in the first 6 games this year. PFF had them with the second best pass rush last season. It’s down to 17th this year. With the personnel the Rams have in the secondary, there’s no wonder they are getting torched game after game. A quality pass rush can hide a weakness in the secondary. When there is none, everyone gets exposed.

Under Fisher, the Rams have won more games than they did in a 5 year stretch between 2007-2011. And, while that’s great, that was the worst 5 year stretch of any team in NFL history. It’s a sad thing when mediocrity becomes acceptable, but after those awful teams we’re grateful to be somewhat competitive. It’s time for it to not be enough because there’s enough talent on this team to be special.

The Rams were expected to take a step forward in Year 3 of the Fisher era. Sam Bradford going down in the preseason didn’t help, but it’s hardly an excuse. 1) There should have been a reliable backup in place, and 2) it’s hard to imagine Bradford doing significantly better than Davis has done anyways.

And while not only have they not taken that step forward, they’ve failed to do so in spectacular fashion.

More than in any other sport, coaching in football can win or lose a game.

Jeff Fisher and co. have given away two, and nearly gave away a third on Sunday.

If it doesn’t change, and quickly, there unfortunately needs to be yet another fresh start in (hopefully) St. Louis

Updated 10/26/2014:

Well, the Rams came out hot once again. A solid opening drive game plan saw them go 6 plays for 65 yards and a touchdown in only 3 minutes.

The next 9 drives resulted in 46 yards and 0 points before a meaningless 62 yard drive that ended with 2 minutes left and a 12 yard Tre Mason run to run the clock out at the end of the game.

46 yards in 9 meaningful drives. An incredibly pathetic performance in all aspects.

I realize there were injuries, but you need to plan for injuries. It’s why you build a team and depth.

The Rams have now been outscored 134-56 in the second half.

Absolutely inexcusable.