Countdown to Post-Linehan Era
Last week, Rams owner Chip Rosenbloom all but promised Rams fans that head coach Scott Linehan would be fire along with others responsible for assembling and running the worst football in the NFL.
You might think that Linehan and the Rams would have opened a can of backs-against-the-wall whoopass on the 0-2 Seahawks today.
They didn’t. Apparently, they fumbled the whoopass can in the locker room before the game, drenching themselves with the toxic substance.
For 3 of the 4 quarters of today’s game against Seahawks, Jim Haslett’s defense looked like they had a lot Seahawk skill players on their fantasy teams. At the end of the first quarter, Seattle led the Rams 17-0 in points and 146 to 6 in total offense.
Both the St. Louis and the Fox broadcasters were dumbfounded by the incompetence and weakness of the Rams’ defense. A streaker on crutches could have broken some of the attempted tackles Ty Hill and other Rams defenders threw on the Seahawks’ running backs.
Expect changes Monday. Head coach Scott Linehan and defensive coordinator Jim Haslett will get pink slips along with front office disaster Jay Zigmunt. Zigmunt pushed out popular and successful GM Charlie Armey wanting complete control of player personnel. Apparently he sought to destroy the team that Armey built into a two-time NFC champion earlier in the decade.
Adam Schefter on NFL.com disagrees that the Rams would make a mid-season change. But Schefter says in the same post that Haslett would be a contender to replace Linehan. Fat chance. Haslett is half the reason Linehan is on the rocks, the other half being shared by a porous offensive line and a quarterback who falls to pieces in the red zone.
Shefter mentions Rams’ wide receivers coach Henry Ellard as a possible replacement for Linehan. That move would make sense. I’d also look for Chip Rosenbloom to lure former Rams’s coach Dick Vermeil to take over for Zigmunt and to name a permanent head coach and defensive coordinator. Consider the possibility that Bill Cowher might entertain a short stint as defensive coordinator.j
At this point, there’s no reason not to fire Linehan. The players did nothing to save his job today. At 0-3 with Buffalo, Washington, and Dallas the next up, 0-6 is almost assured. Linehan won’t be back next year. A coaching change now at least gives fans a reason not to sell their tickets to the visiting team.
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The Worst Football Team Ever
The title probably belongs to the 2008 St. Louis Rams.
For the second week in a row, a team without serious injuries humiliated itself, its city, and the players’ families on national television.
Defense, offense, and special teams were sickeningly lackadaisical and inept. It was like watching squirrels do trigonometry.
If I owned this team, the entire coaching staff would be fired tonight.
Rams Worst Game Ever
Today the St. Louis Rams played the worst game in the history of the oft-horrible history, losing 38-3 to a mediocre Philadelphia Eagles team.
Watching the game on a big, HD television made the spectacle ever more frightening. The incompetence, laziness, lack of preparedness, inept game planning and powder-puff tackling seemed to delight head coach Scott Linehan, who believes winning is over-rated.
Linehan’s remarkable leadership and motivation worked magic on new offensive coordinator Al Saunders. Once the cream of the crop of up-and-coming offensive geniuses, Saunders burned his wildly successful playbook crafted with the Vermeil and Mike Martz Rams and KC Chiefs. Instead, Saunders changed the face of football offensive strategy by running plays designed to lose yardage.
Lacking talent, the Rams excelled at Saunders’s offense. Quarterback Marc Bulger is a master of negative yardage and missed opportunities, and he implemented Saunders’s "Net Negative" offensive strategy to a "T."
The Rams defense employed a remarkable of strategy against Eagles’ QB Donovan McNabb. The strategy involved giving Eagles receivers 20-30 yard cushions while allowing Donovan unlimited time to set up and throw the ball. This strategy ensured the Rams d-backs had plenty of energy for the post-game parties. McNabb appreciated the Rams’ gentle defense, completing 21 of 33 passes for 361 yards and 3 TDs.
Next week, the Rams hope to lose by at least 60 points to defending Super Bowl champion New York Giants.
"I think losing by 50 or 60 points to a time like the Giants would be a feather in our cap," said Linehan during the team’s post-game celebration.
Rams tickets are available throughout the St. Louis area at prices ranging from $5 to $15 for all 8 home games.
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