RamView: From Row HH
by Rams Nation's Mike Franke
Position by position:
* QB: We will rally behind Marc Bulger, and we will play good
football . Bulger had such a good game, and showed such good qualities,
that he should keep the job until Kurt Warner comes back. Bulger had an absolutely
vintage-Warner-like start. He had a perfect 1st quarter, 5-5 for 91 yards. He
took the offense 97 yards on its opening TD drive, which included a perfect
50 yard bomb for Torry Holt, the first “shot” a Ram QB has taken
downfield this year. He showed incredible poise in the pocket, releasing many
completions just a hair before getting crunched by Raider blitzers. And Bulger’s
arm strength, which is miles better than Jamie Martin’s, was a big factor
on several plays. Certainly on the long bomb to Holt, but especially on the
13-yard TD pass to Torry, where Bulger gunned a difficult, yet perfect, crossfield
pass to him to put the Rams up 14-0. Marc dropped a couple of bee-you-tiful
passes into Isaac Bruce’s hands along the sideline despite well-played
Raider zone coverage. It was easily the best performance by a Ram QB this year.
Bulger’s 14-21-186 isn’t the full story. It’s that he got
the team off to a great start, threw for 3 TDs, and threw none of the stupid
interceptions that have plagued Warner and Martin. Marc did take three sacks
today, all probably due to hanging onto the ball too long. He seemed to lock
in on a receiver and wait for him to make a move and didn’t feel, or ignored,
the oncoming rush. But Bulger showed a lot more pluses than that one minus in
a very clutch performance.
* RB: Marshall Faulk came up with that truly dominating game
the offense has needed all season, with 26 rushes for 158 yards and a receiving
TD. One of the key plays of the game may have been the Rams’ third play,
when Marshall surged for 3 tough yards on 3rd-and-3. Behind some of the best
blocking he’s gotten this season, Faulk figured for 10 plays of 7 yards
or more, including rushes of 40 and 32 yards in the 4th quarter. Marshall sliced
back between a pancake by Brandon Manumaleuna and Adam Timmerman’s seal
block to blow the 40-yarder open. The cutback was especially prescient because
the whole Raider defense overpursued, thinking sweep all the way. That set up
Faulk’s 10-yard TD catch. The 32-yard run set up the Rams’ last
TD, and has to be my favorite play of the season. Sweeping left, Faulk breaks
a DB’s tackle to avoid a 5-yard loss. Again taking advantage of overpursuit,
he cuts back right, into the open field, where he stiffarms Bill Romanowski
to the ground. After dropping Romo like a crumpled-up fake prescription, Marshall
busts inside the 5 behind a block from BULGER. How’d he beat Marshall
downfield? Marshall didn’t take that one all the way, but he carried the
Rams all the way today for a much-needed win.
* Receivers: Everything came together for the Rams today,
including high-impact performances from Torry Holt (4-80) and Isaac Bruce (5-70),
who caught the Rams’ first 2 TDs. Holt’s 50-yard catch on the first
drive set up a TD pass to Bruce, who made an impressive 1-handed snag, wheeled
and dived inside the pylon for the points. Absolutely impressive hands and feet
by Torry on his TD catch, hauling in a tight pass from Bulger while leaning,
stretching and tap-dancing to keep his feet in. No passes to TEs today, but
Terrence Wilkins and Troy Edwards actually got onto the field, and Wilkins even
had a 14-yard catch on a shovel pass. Bulger threw for Edwards once, but well
behind him. Marshall’s big day de-emphasized the role of the receivers,
but they showed up big anyway, for a nice change.
* Offensive line: This unit is starting to look like the 20th
Maine at Little Round Top. But if you’ve watched Ken Burns, you know how
that came out. The line lost Grant Williams for the season with a broken leg
on the first play of the 2nd quarter. But it was still their best run-blocking
game of the season by far, with good work from Timmerman, Andy McCollum and
Tom Nutten, who spent most of the game at right tackle after the Williams injury,
with John St. Clair shifting to LT and Heath Irwin taking Nutten’s LG
spot. Irwin looked good at his new spot, and Nutten looked all right at his,
despite a couple of false starts. Solid blocking from Manumaleuna and Conwell
added to the line’s performance. Pass blocking was porous, though. Bulger
was sacked three times and probably saved a half-dozen more with last-second
passes. They couldn’t handle the steady diet of Raider blitzing at all
and got Bulger whacked around like a piñata. But given the very makeshift
nature of the line right now, the run blocking gets them a moral victory.
* Defensive line/LB: FINALLY, a big-play day from what had
been a no-play bunch. The Rams had really missed Tommy Polley, but he was back
today and combined with Ryan Pickett for a huge 4th-and-1 stop deep in Ram territory
early in the game. That play made a statement the Rams kept repeating. Jeff
Zgonina sacked Rich Gannon on a flubbed pass attempt to squash the second drive.
They forced a 3-and-out the next drive, before Terrence Wilkins’ long
punt return set up a TD to put the Rams up 14-0. Adam Archuleta’s stop
of Tyronne Wheatley was key to forcing Oakland to settle for their first FG.
Leonard Little sacked Gannon and forced a fumble late in the 2nd, and the league’s
highest-scoring offense was held to just 3 points at halftime. The Ram defensive
line had a big speed advantage on the Raider offensive line, and used it. Little
and Grant Wistrom kept Gannon under significant heat today, although personal
fouls by each contributed to Oakland’s 2nd FG. By the 4th, with the Rams
now up 27-6, the front four really did some teeing off. Damione Lewis finally
showed up, with two sacks and a pass deflection to Wistrom for an INT. Hustle
doesn’t always show up on the scoreboard. The defense twice averted disastrous
12-men-on-the-field penalties. Once was with a wise timeout on the early 4th-and-1.
Another time Brian Young absolutely busted his ass getting off the field, and
with Gannon and the center not savvy enough to get off a quick snap, Oakland
failed on a 3rd-and-short and had to settle for a FG attempt. Effort and enthusiasm
were far and away better than any time this season, and probably not by coincidence,
big plays followed. Holding an offense that had been scoring 40 pts/game to
only 13 should give this defense a big confidence boost.
* Secondary: Adam Archuleta was a monster today, unofficially
with 13 tackles and a tackle-for-loss. He was a glorified LB most of the game
with the Rams in a dime setup, and really ate it up. But that’s what 40-year-old
Jerry Rice did to the Ram secondary, ate it up, 7 catches for 133. That included
a 53-yarder on the game’s first play, where he found a yawning gap in
the zone, Kim Herring was woefully late to close, and Marcus Knight took out
2 Rams with one block. Rice and Tim Brown got embarrassingly open a couple of
other times early, but Gannon didn’t find them and settled for the dumpoff.
Gannon threw for 332 today, but there’s a lot of yardage there when the
Raiders were well behind. The Rams played zone defense better than they have
all season. Chad Cota broke up a pass, and although Travis Fisher’s downfield
tackling was VERY poor today, he did notch his first career INT late in the
game. A big key for the secondary was holding Brown to just 3 catches. Aeneas
Williams played all game, mostly as the nickel back. This secondary will really
be a bear when he and Dexter McCleon are back to 100%.
* Special teams: Terrence Wilkins set up a Ram TD with a 55-yard
punt return, and a couple of times, he missed taking a kickoff back all the
way by just a hair. He’s becoming a bona fide weapon there. Jeff Wilkins’
kickoffs were all deep, but coverage was pretty poor, with the Raiders getting
across the 30 just about every time. Mitch Berger averaged 43.7 a punt, but
really disappointed me with dumb line-drive punts right at dangerous Philip
Buchanon. That’s either poor punting, poor coaching, or both.
* Coaching/discipline: The team has really come together since
last weekend’s game. That was the most enthusiasm I’ve seen on the
field this year. The offense visibly rooted on the defense from the sidelines
and vice versa. They even trotted out the tactic of introducing the whole team
at once instead of a player at a time. Any thoughts that the team is ready to
splinter, or that Mike Martz is losing his players, should be completely banished…
Martz wasn’t stubborn today. Big reason the Rams won. Faulk ran 26 times,
while 21 passes were thrown total. Martz also finally called good runs for Faulk,
letting him use his speed on sweeps, or getting the ball to him on quickly-developing
plays. Easily the best running game tempo of the season. Martz didn’t
force Bulger to do too much, either. Big key was that the Rams got to pick on
mainly man coverage for the first time this season instead of dealing with the
dreaded Cover-2… When you first saw two timeouts used in the first quarter,
you immediately assumed they were wasted. But the defensive TO prevented the
Rams from having 12 men on the field on the key 4th down. And the offensive
timeout may well have prevented a big Ram mistake deep in their own territory,
when instead they drove 97 yards for the opening score… Lovie Smith really
befuddled the Raiders today by calling for a lot of dime coverage. If that’s
what it should be called. It was surprising how little Jamie Duncan and Don
Davis were on the field. The majority of the game, they appeared to have Polley
at MLB with Aeneas and Archuleta lining up where the OLBs would. And even given
some slipups, the Rams played their best Cover-2 of the season when they were
in it. Today’s play held good signs that Lovie has the defense coming
together…
* Upon further review: I usually have nothing but criticism
for Bill Carrollo and company, but this looked like a well-called game. There
sure were a lot of calls; the teams combined for 25 penalties. Good call on
Holt’s TD, which was correct on the field and not overruled on the challenge.
Good call on an obvious block above the waist on a punt return early in the
2nd. Their worst call was the face mask penalty tacked on to the end of Faulk’s
long run to start the 4th; replay showed he was just dragged down by the collar.
So, has refereeing been better this year, or am I just mellowing out?
* Cheers: Fans were probably in a great mood as soon as they
came in; everybody got a very nice free team cap. Caps like that cost $20 at
the souvenir stand. When Bulger hit Holt with the early bomb, you could really
feel the love in the crowd again… I don’t want to hear any crap
about St. Louis fans any more, either. Everybody showed up today even though
their winless team was supposed to get rolled by an undefeated team. Everybody
stayed at least until Bulger started falling on the ball in the last minute.
The roar of the crowd was ear-splitting, and although they play in a damn loud
stadium of their own, the Raiders could not handle the sound. They had four
false starts… The stadium changed the Rams’ intro music, and for
some reason there was no halftime show at all. But hey, whatever brings in a
win, I’m for it…
* Who’s next?: The Rams have a chance to go into the
bye week with great momentum, as the Seattle Seahawks come in next Sunday with
a shortened week to prepare. The Seahawks are near the bottom of the league
in rushing despite the presence of Shaun Alexander. Going into Monday night,
Alexander was good for just over 60 yds/game rushing, although he seems to have
improved quite a bit as a receiver, where he is good for another 40 yds/game.
Alexander and fine young WR Darrell Jackson seem like Trent Dilfer’s best
available targets, and they have a big, tough rookie TE in Jerramy Stevens,
who could do some damage. Their offensive line has not given up many sacks,
but like the Rams’, is wracked with injuries. Now flip to the other side
of the line of scrimmage, where the Seahawks are extremely suspect. They do
have the Defen-sive Rookie of the Month, Rocky Bernard, who leads them with
4 sacks, and they get John Randle back from an injury this week. But their run
defense is 31st in the NFL, giving up a whopping 189.5 yards per game, an outright
invitation to feed the ball to Faulk over and over. The secondary’s not
that imposing, either, although Doug Evans has made plays against the Rams in
the past. Their pass defense is probably deceptively high, and that’s
just 16th in the league, because everyone runs on them. The Rams have a great
chance here to win a game in the trenches, establish the run and keep Bulger
from having to do too much. The swagger’s coming back, and as long as
the guys don’t press too much, the wins will keep on coming.
-- Mike