RamView, September 1, 2011 From The Couch (Report and opinions on the game.) Preseason Game #4: Rams 24, Jagwires 17 The Rams go undefeated in preseason for the first time since 1979, beating the Jagwire blitz in the first half and riding a star-making performance by their third-string QB in the second half for a 24-17 victory. Bring on the regular season.  * QB: After a shaky opening drive, the Ram offense adjusted for heavy Jagwire blitzing and Sam Bradford cruised to an excellent outing, 7-11-133, 135.8 passer rating. It is encouraging to see how much Bradford has improved in Josh McDaniels' offense just since the team scrimmage a month ago. Sam's reading the defense quickly and getting the ball out quickly now. He beat an early blitz with a screen pass to Steven Jackson for 26, but Bradford and his receivers were really out of sync after that and the drive stumbled to a halt. No such problem the next drive. After a bootleg pass to Lance Kendricks got 13, Bradford executed a perfect play-action fake on 3rd-and-inches, the Jagwire safety bit harder than Joey Chestnut on the 4th of July, and Bradford had his second wide-open long TD of the preseason, 44 yards to Kendricks. Bradford continued to beat the Jagwire blitz with screens to Cadillac Williams, until the 1st quarter, and his time, were up. A.J. Feeley (6-10-61, 37.9 PR) didn't exactly maintain that momentum. He hit Fendi Onobun a couple of times with tight passes in tighter quarters, and had his one long effort dropped by Danario Alexander, but he marred his outing again this week with a really dumb interception, throwing almost blindly over a defensive lineman being blocked into him and directly to Terrence Wheatley, a really ugly interception. No points for Feeley tonight. Thaddeus Lewis stepped in after halftime and made as strong a push for a roster spot as a player can make in a preseason game. He ran out of trouble. He threw accurately and made clutch third-down and long-yardage-down plays. He overcame mistakes by his teammates, drops by his receivers. He drove the Rams 80 yards right out of halftime to lead them back to a 14-7 lead. On 3rd-and-4 near midfield early in the 4th, he uncorked a perfect bomb down the far sideline to Alexander, 42 yards, setting up the Rams' third TD. Lewis kept it up down the stretch. He fled the pocket on 3rd-and-12 and hit Mardy Gilyard for 17. He hit Ben Guidugli for 7 on a 3rd-and-4. At the Jag 35 with about 2:00 left, he hit Gilyard for 15 more just before the rush got to him. That set up a clinching FG for the Rams. Lewis' stat line tonight could be mistaken for Drew Brees': 12-15, 164 yards. 112.2 PR. He just gave the Rams another tough decision to go with two dozen others (or more) they have to make this weekend. Thaddeus Lewis is unmistakably one of the Rams' 45 best players. But, whether it's him or Feeley, do you keep a third QB, a guy who's going to do little most weeks besides hold a clipboard? Off the bubble: Lewis (1, PS). Feeley's veteran status and his mentor relationship with Bradford save him for now. Barely. If the Rams manage to hang on to Lewis, he's QB2 heading into next training camp. * RB: Ugh, what a night for the Rams running game. The longest run? By the third-string QB. Chase Reynolds was the leading rusher with 16 yards, and it took him 8 carries to get there. Steven Jackson? 3 carries for 7 yards. Jerious Norwood? 5 for 14. Yuk. The good news? Running backs are also receivers. The backs beat Jagwire blitzes and heavily-loaded lines of scrimmage with screen passes. Jackson took a screen pass back up the middle of the field for 26 to beat a safety blitz in the 1st. 33 total yards in one quarter? I'll take it. And his presence on the field makes the Rams' play-action game deadly. Cadillac Williams had 27 yards of offense off of screen passes in almost no time, and his pre-snap motion cleared the middle of the field for a big play for Kendricks. Keith Toston beat a blitz with a 14-yard screen pass to set up his own 1-yard TD run the next play. Not sure that'll be enough, though. Off the bubble: Ben Guidugli (2, PS), Britt Miller (3), Reynolds (4, PS), Van Stumon (5), Toston (6). Please keep Guidugli. Pleeeeease. Surprised to see so little of Miller tonight. I guess Billy Bajema is more of a factor in the passing game, and he or Michael Ohihurtmyknee can assume the fullback role the rare times McDaniels uses it. Miller/Bajema is a coin flip to me. * Receivers: The coaches will make their decisions based on a lot more, but a couple of individual plays in this game helped clear up a lot of the WR competition for this fan at home. I thought Danario Alexander (2-48) had blown it in the 2nd, bobbling and dropping a long sideline throw from Feeley after doing a nice job of working himself open late. But I believe he cemented his job with his 42-yard catch in the 3rd, a sample of what he did best here last year. Donnie Avery (2-42) polished off his comeback with a catch-and-run late in the 1st half. He caught a 7-yard pass, wheeled away from the DB and flew down the sideline for 20 more. Avery showed again he's the one Rams receiver who can make that kind of hay with a short pass. Greg Salas (2-23) was a little uneven, but good enough for a rookie. Now we get to the bad news. Mardy Gilyard nearly lost his first punt return deep in Rams territory, and though he rallied late with 2 catches for 33 yards, he also had a brutal drop of an EASY pass over the middle in the 3rd. Too many fundamental mistakes. Speaking of mistakes, I'd like the Rams' third-round draft pick back. Austin Pettis' preseason total is one catch for 6 yards after another 0-0 tonight. I'm stunned at how much he looks like a complete stiff. Tonight he blocked poorly and hesitated and got stuffed on his only touch, an end-around. With Billy Devaney in the broadcast booth saying things like “you can't fool the locker room” and “draft status is out the window,” it sounds like the writing is on the wall for Pettis. Maybe the Rams can still sneak him onto the practice squad. Completely different story for fellow rookie Lance Kendricks (3-73), who is just toying with defenders any more. I think the kid was open from the snap on all three of his catches. He's got speed to pull away from LBs and safeties, nice hands, and he's the tight end the Rams have needed for a very long time. Fendi Onobun (2-20) seems to have a drop every week, but he also pulled in a couple of passes in very tight quarters, and I thought he blocked well. I'd keep him. Off the bubble: Mark Clayton (7, PUP), Demarco Cosby (8), Gilyard (9), Greg Mathews (10), Pettis (11, PS). More cut-and-dried than I expected going into this game. Dominique Curry still hangs on as WR7 because he's more likely to make an impact play on special teams than Gilyard or Pettis. * Offensive line: The starters had a couple of breakdowns early, and Rodger Saffold's early performance bothered me, but they settled down. I think Bradford was only hit once. Jacob Bell and Jason Brown got downfield well to spring open some of the screen passes. Jackson got 6 yards behind Jason Smith for his longest run. If Quinn Ojinnaka doesn't make the team, it won't be due to a lack of chances. He got snaps at least at RG, RT and center tonight. He gave up a QB pressure from RT, and was a little bit of an adventure at center, with Lewis losing a snap late, but he blocked well overall. The running game tried to go behind Hank Fraley a lot, with little success. But I'm not sure Adam Goldberg even played like he's going to make the team. He didn't give up the sack – technically it was Randall Hunt, but the first sack of Lewis in the 3rd quarter saw Goldberg at LT getting the worst burn of the preseason to force Lewis into trouble. Later in that drive, Toston got stuffed for a loss, and, no surprise, there's Goldberg on the ground where the tackler came from. Starting to look like Goldberg's vaunted versatility has gotten a bit overplayed. Jack of all trades, competent at none. The only other sack was a coverage sack of Lewis, who had ample time to throw the ball away. But Lewis' scrambling no doubt saved the Rams' o-line scrubs their fair share of sacks allowed. Off the bubble: Hank Fraley (12), Cody Habben (13), Kevin Hughes (14, PS), Randall Hunt (15), Ryan McKee (16, PS), Drew Miller (17).  Off the bubble: C.J. Ah You (18), Damario Ambrose (19, PS), Zach Diles (20), Marlon Favorite (21), Pete Fleps (22), John Henderson (23), Darell Dorell Scott (24). Jabara Williams has outplayed Diles this summer, and he shows up on special teams. * Secondary: Pass rush was so good by the starters up front, the starters in the back didn't have much to do. Darian Stewart was a blitzing weapon. He also blanketed Mike Thomas on a deep route. He also hit a Jagwire backup RB so hard on a run stuff he put him out of the game. Justin King's grade from week to week this year may depend on who's refereeing. I thought he stood out and solidified his spot on the roster. He ended a drive late in the 1st by just about perfectly defending a back-shoulder throw to Jason Hill. He blew up a quick screen for a loss in the 2nd. He covered Cecil Shorts perfectly on a deep route in the 2nd. A flag flew on the play but was picked up, maybe to make up for the egregious call against King on the third play of the game. He did nothing but play perfect defense to knock away a deep ball from Mike Thomas and got a 35-yard penalty for it. King and Stewart did appear to get their wires crossed on Shorts' TD catch in the 2nd. I'm not sure why King thought Shorts was Stewart's man when Stewart had the TE. I think Tim Atchison made the team tonight, too. He broke up a quick slant, stuffed a rollout pass and got an inexplicable DPI of his own for perfect defense of an end zone pass. He's the shutdown corner of preseason second halves. Tae Evans was the weakest link in the back. He had a blown tackle that gave up a first down, he got beat for 30+ yards on a deep corner route, and he nearly blew the game at the end, letting a receiver in front of him in the end zone and getting away with contact to break up the pass. Off the bubble: Tae Evans (25), Jeremy McGee (26), Jonathan Nelson (27, PS). I kept James Butler because I was too chicken to go with so many young players. * Special teams: Special teams weren't terrible, but this was probably their weakest performance of the preseason. The Jagwires nearly broke off long kick returns a couple of times. Jabara Williams likely saved a return TD with a shoestring tackle and had a couple other tackles. Gilyard did little with kick returns and looks as likely to fumble a punt return as he is to bring it back a long distance. Josh Brown had little trouble, though, with a late 35-yard FG or with putting kickoffs out the back of the end zone. * Coaching/discipline: I get the feeling that the Rams didn't go into this game with a set game plan, but when Jacksonville brought blitzes every play and stacked the line of scrimmage like they were trying to lock up a playoff spot, Josh McDaniels decided he'd screen pass their blitzes into oblivion. And he did. Multiple long gains off of screen passes in the first quarter schooled the overaggressive Jagwires, and McDaniels wasn't done. The play-action bomb to Kendricks worked every bit as well as the play-action bomb to Brandon Gibson against Tennessee. Kendricks got another big gain the next drive thanks to the pre-snap motion of Cadillac Williams to a split left. He took a LB with him and cleared out the middle of the field. My only complaint with McDaniels tonight was the silly number of naked bootlegs he called with Bradford in the game. Yeah, let's repeatedly expose our $50 million QB in the least meaningful preseason game. That aside, the Rams look solidly prepared to start the regular season, and strides ahead of last season. They've expanded the passing game with Kendricks, and appear to have resolved the issues that popped up with run defense against Tennessee. The running game struggled again tonight, but unlike the Tennessee game, they quickly found ways to take advantage of the opponent overplaying the run. They've protected Bradford well since the Tennessee game and have working counteractions to the blitz. The Rams can enter the regular season confident but not cocky, just about where you'd want them to be. * Waiver bait: As is traditional for this time of year, my projected cuts are listed at the end of each position. PS, of course, is a practice squad projection, though I've very likely screwed up the eligibility rule on a couple. I can't do much worse than my 3-for-9 on the first round of cuts, though. My position counts: 2 QB, 3 RB, 7 WR, 4 TE, 8 OL, 9 DL, 7 LB, 10 DB, 3 ST. With Curry my 7th WR, I wouldn't be shocked at all if they kept 10 d-linemen and 6 WR instead. * Upon further review: Bill Leavy may be a good referee, but the back judge of his crew throwing flags for pass interference on the Rams all night was fecally brutal. King got a DPI early in the game for doing nothing but playing perfect defense on Mike Thomas. He got away with more on the deep route to Cecil Shorts, where the ref threw the flag but picked it up. Atchison got a penalty in the end zone in the 4th without doing anything wrong. Face-guarding is not illegal in the NFL, and he didn't touch the receiver he was covering. Then, at the end of the game, Evans bangs into the Jag WR from behind well before the ball arrives and doesn't get a flag. Thanks for that, at least. And actually, no, Leavy wasn't a good referee tonight. He flagged Jacksonville for leading with the head on a hit on Bradford, but he let a Jagwire hit a vulnerable Lewis at the knees on one play and let him get dragged down horse-collar style on another without a flag. Jermale Hines got flagged for hitting a Jagwire in the head when he hit him in the shoulder. Holy cats, regular-season officiating better be light-years better than it's been this whole month. Another summer-school F for the zebras. * Cheers: With all the blitzing by Jacksonville tonight, I thought it might be fitting to mention that game day was the 72nd anniversary of the original blitz. Hey, don't blame me that one of football's most common plays was named for a Nazi offensive. Normally you'd have to read TMQ to find that kind of stuff. The TV broadcast was as entertaining as I've heard in a long while. Orlando Pace jokingly accused Hall of trying to get an early night off when he left the game; when they brought that up to Hall during a sideline interview, he shot back that Orlando Pace never played in the 4th preseason game anyway. (Hell, some summers, Pace never played the whole preseason.) Funny stuff. Marshall Faulk continued to demonstrate his encyclopedic knowledge of the game, though it was sad to hear he'd lost a lot of the footballs he'd saved after TDs in Hurricane Katrina. And the interview with Billy Devaney during the 3rd quarter was riveting. Those interviews are usually cliche-filled pabulum that you yawn your way through, but Devaney really brought it.  Are the Eagles really a dream team, or has that notion just been implanted in people’s minds Inception-style? You could say the Eagles start with Michael Vick, the fearsomely-mobile QB who’s coming off a dream season in 2010 and just signed a dreamy new $100 million contract. I think that would be the wrong call, though. On offense, the Eagles are really LeSean (Shady) McCoy’s team. Shifty Shady was one of last year’s leading rushers, with over 1,000 yards total and 5.2 yards a carry. He also led the Eagles in receptions and is as good an all-around back as there is in the league. Rams linebackers will absolutely have to keep an eye on McCoy coming out of the backfield on third down. Vick and McCoy are a combination sure to give Steve Spagnuolo and Ken Flajole nightmares in the coming days. But then the dream starts to get a little weird. You know the dream where you’re back in high school and didn’t know there was a big test that day? That’s the Eagles receivers. DeSean Jackson held out and showed up late, and Jeremy Maclin missed a good chunk of camp due to illness. He hasn’t played a meaningful down all summer. Jackson couldn’t even get open in the preseason dress rehearsal against the Browns. Will their passing game be potent in 2011? Certainly. Will it be ready for week 1? Eh, maybe. And then there’s another dream, the one where you’re out in public and everything seems normal except for the fact that you’re naked. Vick should already be having that dream a lot, thanks to his offensive line, which has let him take a bigger beating this summer than the U.S. credit rating. They’re heading into the season with rookie Jason Kelce at center, rookie Danny Watkins at RG, and King Dunlap, with a handful of career starts, at RT. (Little wonder McCoy prefers to run left.) The inexperience showed in preseason, as Vick took some beatings that probably had Marc Bulger cringing in his Barcalounger. The Eagle offensive line is as far from gelling right now as the brigades occupying Tripoli. With the Dome crowd hopefully facilitating communications problems for the young Eagles up front, Fred Robbins and James Hall, as long as Hall especially is wary of McCoy’s cutback ability, could be poised to spend a lot of time in the backfield with Vick. Blitzing should be effective, too – not only confusing the line, but it was an effective weapon against Vick at the end of last season. Vick can still run, you bet, but it’s not his first instinct as much as it used to be, and pass rush has been getting to him quickly enough in preseason that he isn’t getting time to think about his options. The Rams can get to Michael Vick. Their success or lack of it against LeSean McCoy is going to dictate the day on defense. And that isn’t just a pipe dream. If the Ram offense has been dreaming lately, it’s probably been the one where you’re falling, or you’re in the back seat of a speeding car and there’s nobody driving. Philadelphia’s defensive speed will get you thinking like that. The Eagles assembled an elite secondary in the free agency period, signing Nnamdi Asomugha and trading for Dominique Rodgers-Cromartie to join Assante Samuel. They look as good as advertised, Asomugha blanketing WRs on field-wide crossing patterns, DRC breaking up passes and Samuel jumping rushed passes for INTs. Watching the Eagles on tape sticking to Browns receivers like spray-tan on Snooki isn’t reassuring, since neither the Rams nor Cleveland are exactly known for their speed at wideout. Philly’s defensive speed doesn’t stop there. LB Jamar Chaney seems able to cover everything underneath. Rookie Casey Matthews, very much to my surprise, is getting the job done at MLB. The Eagles signed a dangerous speed rusher in Jason Babin, and already had one in Trent Cole. Cole’s one of those pass-rushers who practically lines up out in the slot. Rodger Saffold has good enough feet to stay with him, though, in what will be one of the day’s key matchups. Another will be Chaney vs. Lance Kendricks. The Rams rookie TE has looked unstoppable in exhibition action; will he keep that momentum? Key matchup #3 for the Rams could be a nightmare right out of Freddy Krueger: Cullen Jenkins (another huge Eagle free-agent signing) vs. Jacob Bell. The Rams are better-equipped to handle monster DTs with Adam Goldberg on the bench, but Bell has his hands more than full. Jenkins is a freak who is dangerous on stunts, too, and recent Rams lines have had all kinds of trouble with those. How does Josh McDaniels cope with all this speed? How does he cope with the best group of corners in the league? You already know. You run the ball. Like the Rams did last week against the Chiefs. Like the Browns did last week against the Eagles, when they tried. Make those DBs tackle Steven Jackson. Move Kendricks around and get him matched up on the safety. If he’s not, a Rams RB will be. Sam Bradford has to quickly identify those opportunities and get the ball out quickly. He’s improved at it throughout the summer. Opening Day’s the big test. The Eagles are likely to be nice favorites when they take the field in St. Louis. They’re the Dream Team, after all. I’ve got two words for that: Dirk. Nowitzki. The Rams can play with these guys. I’m expecting a game that turns on a couple of big plays (beware that, Rams secondary: the Eagles were a major big-play team last year), and that at a minimum the Rams keep closer than the experts expect. It’ll be much different than the last time the Rams opened a season against the Eagles, and reflective of the change in the franchise since then. The Rams won’t just show up to be the Washington Generals to the Dream Team Globetrotters. They’ll put up a by-God fight. And the Eagles will know it afterward. -- Mike Game stats from nfl.com Photos from espn.com |