NFL 2016 regular season

[Timsup2nothin]

Couple that refusal to replace the stadium with the old version NFL/media agreement regarding sellout crowds and locally televised games. Back in the day for the Rams to make it onto local television the stadium had to sell out despite thousands of seats with obstructed view of the field. It was really hard to be a Rams fan back then, at least in the blackout zone where you could never watch a home game on TV.

 

[Gen.Mannerheim]

The NFL's blackout policy has always baffled me.

You want to punish local fans for not supporting their "local team", however the teams that in generally the most at threat of a blackout are those who desperately need all the exposure they can get. Thus blackouts can create a death-spiral which can be hard to escape.

Also, in this age of heavy multi-media marketing and huge amounts coming in from TV deals, having such a "butts-in-the-seats = $$$" mentality seems kinda backwards looking. Many people like to poke at baseball, because attendance and national viewership is down. However many baseball teams are doing just fine by building smaller seat stadiums, merchandising, and the proliferation of local area coverage and marketing.

 

[Serutan]

Couple that refusal to replace the stadium with the old version NFL/media agreement regarding sellout crowds and locally televised games. Back in the day for the Rams to make it onto local television the stadium had to sell out despite thousands of seats with obstructed view of the field. It was really hard to be a Rams fan back then, at least in the blackout zone where you could never watch a home game on TV.

Wasn't the old Big A stadium originally built as baseball only, and shoehorned into
a football venue when the Rams left the Coliseum?

 

[Timsup2nothin]

Wasn't the old Big A stadium originally built as baseball only, and shoehorned into
a football venue when the Rams left the Coliseum?

Yes. You left out "badly." Multipurpose stadiums are bad. Multipurpose by retrofit makes the others look good.

 

[MobBoss]

There's disparate expectations at play here... Everyone thought the 49ers would be horrible, so there were no expectations on them whatsoever, whereas everyone expected the Rams to be pretty good, so last night was a shocking letdown. If the score had been reversed no one would be batting an eyelash.

Gurley isn't a bust, the 49ers D was playing 11 on 1 against Gurley last night. Not since Barry Sanders have we seen a back who can succeed in such conditions.

I'm not sure who was thinking that the Rams would be pretty good. They have no QB and no real talent at WR to speak of which makes them extremely 1 dimensional. If every game this year is 11 on 1, Gurley, despite having all the talent in the world, will be a bust if he averages less than 3 yards carry.

 

[Serutan]

Agree. I'm not aware of anyone who thought the Rams would be good. Although a lot of people
thought they would be better than the Niners, that was a very low bar to clear w.r.t.
preseason expectations.

 

[Light Cleric]

I didn't think they'd be good but I thought they'd be better than the 49ers who are starting Blaine <expletive> Gabbert and are still coughing from the smoke generated by last year's dumpster fire season. Joke's on me, I guess.

It's a low bar and they ran right into it with a 2-yard Tavon Austin reverse.

Then again it's Week 1, who knows, maybe I'll eat crow if they ever start Goff.

 

[MobBoss]

I didn't think they'd be good but I thought they'd be better than the 49ers who are starting Blaine <expletive> Gabbert and are still coughing from the smoke generated by last year's dumpster fire season. Joke's on me, I guess.

It's a low bar and they ran right into it with a 2-yard Tavon Austin reverse.

Then again it's Week 1, who knows, maybe I'll eat crow if they ever start Goff.

Goff isn't ready, and if they start him and he gets crushed, it will be a major mental hurdle for him from that point on. That means, if they mismanage him, it will have been a wasted #1 draft pick.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

Goff isn't ready, and if they start him and he gets crushed, it will be a major mental hurdle for him from that point on. That means, if they mismanage him, it will have been a wasted #1 draft pick.

Exactly. Losing a game is bad. Losing a game while wasting your number one draft pick is substantially worse. Until the rest of the Rams show that they can carry their own weight let them sit on Case Keenum and crush him. Hate to say it so bluntly, but he's expendable.

 

[Light Cleric]

Oh I'm not saying they should. What I was saying was it's possible, however unlikely, that he'd come in and do an Andrew Luck type of thing where they win +10 games in spite of his protection.

This is actually one of those cases where, as I said earlier, an offensive line can be so bad that you wouldn't want to put the rookie behind it to get killed.

Problem is, though, in order to get Goff you gave up a bunch of picks you could have used to rebuild you offensive line. On the other hand, when you look at the INSANE amount of draft resources that have been poured into that offense and just wasted, you wonder if it would matter. Just the wasted picks at the RB alone before Gurley is embarrassing(only non-UDFA left is Tre Mason who they weren't sure was still alive until last month and he's probably going to jail).

By the way, I don't say all this stuff to bash on the Rams; I kinda feel bad that their fans are stuck with this garbage(edit: also for their St. Louis fans who got royally screwed). I say it all to bash on their head coach. It's kinda sad to realize that he's been a head coach for 22 of the 51 seasons there's been a Super Bowl and yet his biggest accomplishment will probably having the most losses of any coach in NFL history(if the Rams go 6-10 this year). Without stepping into #hottaek territory he's kind of a smarmy prick, e.g. telling Mike Zimmer to "watch the tape" when the Rams almost killed Teddy Bridgewater with a dirty hit last year(spoilers: the tape showed the Rams almost killing Teddy Bridgewater with a dirty hit), and hiring a legit sociopath as DC in Gregg Williams(how he's not banned for life is beyond me).

 

[Serutan]

On the other hand, when you look at the INSANE amount of draft resources that have been poured into that offense and just wasted, you wonder if it would matter.

You realize, of course, that this is just another way of saying "Jeff Fisher is still employed".

 

[mrt144]

Jeff Fisher is proof that meritocracy doesn't exist in the NFL and if you coach even one season as HC you get as many chances as a hedge fund manager.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

I know there have been a lot of discussions about how NFL head coaches face an often unfair burden of "produce immediately or be fired even though you have no players." I don't know where you guys stood in those discussions, or if you even participated in them, but I have to say this Jeff Fisher business does seem to cut against the conventional wisdom.

Fisher's biggest claim to unique qualification seems to be that if you want a guy to serve as a buffer between the players and the chaos that can swirl around a franchise leading up to and during a migration he's the one.

 

[Light Cleric]

I like how the Bills fired their offensive coordinator but the defense giving up 493 yards to the goddamn Jets is a-okay. I mean, Greg Roman was doing horrible and needed to go, but Rex and his entire staff are being exposed as godawful at their jobs. When you're down 13 with 4 minutes left and your team is just strolling down the field, that's on the head coach.

You could hear the crowd's collective realization (murmuring culminating in boos) that Rex Ryan doesn't know what the 2-minute warning is so they didn't get a snap off in time despite having 23 seconds to do so after a 3-yard completion.

Also, spoilers: Rob Ryan coming in didn't help. Remember when there were people who thought Rob Ryan was a great DC and were smug about having him, like this dumbass?

and maybe you can get rob ryan back

good times

 

[mrt144]

If you can't stop Fitzmagic and the Jets then who cares what the offense does?

 

[BirraImperial]

It boggles my mind how Rex Ryan and Jeff Fisher still have jobs...


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[Sommerswerd]

It boggles my mind how Rex Ryan and Jeff Fisher still have jobs...


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+1 Its a mystery...

 

[Serutan]

It boggles my mind how Rex Ryan and Jeff Fisher still have jobs...

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For me, the order is:

Fisher - Pretty much thermonuclear head explosion at this point.

Rob Ryan - Pretty mind boggling; likely is employed only due to nepotism.

Rex Ryan - If he gets another HC gig after this, it will become boggling for me.

 

[Serutan]

I know there have been a lot of discussions about how NFL head coaches face an often unfair burden of "produce immediately or be fired even though you have no players." I don't know where you guys stood in those discussions {snip}

While there are exceptions, I think in the general case this is true. Back in the Goode Aulde Daies (tm) they were usually (but not always) given 4 years before the plug was pulled. It seems like coaches only get 2-3 now.

 

[mrt144]

While there are exceptions, I think in the general case this is true. Back in the Goode Aulde Daies (tm) they were usually (but not always) given 4 years before the plug was pulled. It seems like coaches only get 2-3 now.

I feel like the ones that get 2-3 years are also the ones put in a stupid hard position from the get go. "Make this chicken crap into chicken salad in 4 years - oh your first 2 years didn't show ANY progress, one more year and you're gone."

Some teams are seemingly just flinging crap at the wall and seeing what sticks.