RamView, October 20, 2002 From Row HH
By Ram Nation's Mike Franke
Position by position:
* RB: Marshall Faulk did too much today to describe adequately.
He was called on to carry the team again this week, and did it again, with four
touchdowns, 183 rushing yards on 32 attempts, and a team-leading 7 receptions
for 52 yards. He had a mind-blowing 19 plays of six yards or more, seven of
which were over 10 yards, with a long run of 40. Faulk did everything today,
except for dropping a couple of passes he should have caught. He ran through
or broke Seattle’s often-sloppy tackling. He drove for his first TD even
though both his feet were tied up and drove through a pile at the 1 for his
second TD. He hit the big holes provided by the offensive line hard and fast.
Marshall really killed Seattle today with his endless arsenal of direction changes.
The man is a human pachinko ball. The run on which he joined the 10,000-yard
club was a great illustration of that. He runs left, cuts right and jumps to
hurdle a tackle, and then cuts left again, changing directions almost before
he’s landed. How do you stop that? Lamar Gordon spelled Marshall for a
while, but a bad late fumble put Seattle in the end zone and put Lamar deep
in Mike Martz’s doghouse.
* QB: Marc Bulger (22-40-265, 1 TD, 1 INT) wasn’t Otto
Graham today, but he more than got the job done. After an abortive first drive,
he took the team 62 yards for its first TD, keyed by a sweet sideline pass to
Rickey Proehl for 23 on 3rd-and-4. The two-minute drive at the end of the 1st
half, with no timeouts, was pretty well done. His key throw there was a 22-yarder
to Isaac Bruce to convert a 3rd-and-10 and put the Rams in FG position. Marc
helped put the game away early in the 4th with a dead-perfect, vintage-Kurt-Warner,
52-yard bomb to Torry Holt, which led to a Faulk TD to put the Rams up 30-14.
With that fine arm and surprising accuracy, Bulger has put the long ball back
in the Ram offense. He also continued to avoid the dreadful turnovers that killed
the Rams the first 5 weeks, with just one interception on a bad throw late in
the first half. Bulger had trouble today throwing behind receivers, and the
1st half 2-minute drive died after a couple of bad balls to Faulk in the face
of Seattle blitzes. But you will gladly take those blemishes when he has led
the Rams to two straight wins while giving them their best quarterbacking of
the season.
* Receivers: Faulk has almost made Ram receivers obsolete,
but all still contributed in today’s win. Torry Holt (3-71) made a fine
catch of Bulger’s 52-yard bomb in the 4th. Isaac Bruce (4-63) converted
a big first down in the 1st half 2-minute drive. Rickey Proehl had 2 catches
for 37; each converted a third down on a drive that led to a TD. Terrence Wilkins
gained 32 yards on reverses, and Mike Martz even called Ernie Conwell’s
number 3 times for 34 yards. Add Faulk’s 7 catches, and you’re looking
at a very well-balanced attack. I mention this with a bye week coming to avoid
a jinx – these guys are all handling the ball very well. So far this year,
the Rams have fumbled on only one reception, Faulk’s in the Giants game.
* Offensive line: THIS was the play we’ve been expecting
from the offensive line this year. They went well beyond that, actually. Today
the Rams dominated the trenches in every aspect, especially in the running game
for the second straight week, as holes for Faulk were big and plentiful. Welcome
back, Orlando Pace. The rest seems to have done OP good; he was a force today.
Adam Timmerman was splendid, and Andy McCollum also did some standout work.
Brandon Manumaleuna had a big blocking day at TE, and Ernie Conwell can play
fullback for us any time. I don’t think he missed a run block today and
he hit everybody hard. James Massey even looked good again; he was fullback
about 1/3 of the time. Pass protection was excellent, probably for the first
time this year. Seattle got to Bulger just once, on a Chad Brown blitz, as Marc’s
jersey was kept very clean today. Blitz pickup was excellent. The Rams can’t
help but win if they can keep up this level of offensive line play.
* Defensive line/LB: A second straight superb and dominating
performance here as well. Trent Dilfer was flustered into looking like most
team’s 4th-stringers. He was just 8-25 for 232, and 162 of that was on
two broken plays in the secondary. They never let Dilfer get comfortable, and
they also contained a banged-up Shaun Alexander to 30 yards. Tyoka Jackson had
a big 1st quarter; his sack stopped Seattle’s second drive. He helped
on Brian Young’s sack the next drive. Tommy Polley and Jamie Duncan combined
to make a big 3rd-and-1 stop of Alexander to stop that drive. Ryan Pickett is
turning into a monster; he stuffed Alexander twice for losses. He and Wistrom
also had deflections, as the guys up front are doing a much better job of getting
their hands up on passes. Leonard Little added the Rams’ third sack, also
forcing a fumble that would lead to a 3rd-quarter FG to put the Rams up 23-14.
Big play by Leonard. He and Grant Wistrom again exploited their speed advantage
over slow OTs and spent a lot of the day in Dilfer’s face. Tackling looked
good, but sacking could have been better; Wistrom and Jackson each blew sure
opportunities. But the defensive line made Dilfer look as nervous as the proverbial
cat in a room full of rocking chairs.
* Secondary: A real roller-coaster ride bottomed out with
a season-ending injury to Aeneas Williams late in the 4th quarter, a broken
leg and dislocated ankle. Aeneas saved a touchdown earlier in the 4th with amazing
savvy. Koren Robinson was breaking away for what would have been his second
long TD of the day, and Travis Fisher wouldn’t have caught him if Aeneas
hadn’t shoved him forward to catch Robinson at the 3. Kim Herring then
intercepted a HORRIBLE Trent Dilfer pass in the end zone to keep Seattle off
the board. Fisher gave up the long play by getting caught horribly flat-footed
with Robinson running a simple slant pattern. Robinson took that same pattern
for a 79-yard TD in the 2nd, whipping Dexter McCleon as the Seahawks answered
a Ram zone blitz perfectly. Still disturbing to see underachieving chumps like
Robinson and J.J. Stokes ripping this secondary a new one. Speaking of which,
Adam Archuleta probably has a fine coming after putting Dilfer out of the game
in the 4th with a helmet-to-helmet hit. But the performance was much better
than I’ve made it sound. Robinson was the only receiver with as many as
3 catches. Darrell Jackson had none, and Dilfer was just 8-for-25. Dre Bly had
a sweet interception in the 4th; he’ll need to step up big with Aeneas
out, Dexter hurting and Fisher still figuring out how to cover the dreaded slant.
* Special teams: Not to dampen enthusiasm over the winning
streak, but special teams have become a mess again. No one even within sniffing
range of Maurice Morris on a 97-yard kickoff return TD that put the Rams behind
14-13 after a first half they completely dominated. But the Rams avoided becoming
demoral-ized by poor special teams play. Note to Jeff Wilkins: PUT THE FRIGGIN’
SHOE BACK ON. Yes, I know both his FGs counted even though they bounced in off
the crossbar. But a million-dollar NFL place-kicker who can barely get 45- and
47- yard attempts all the way there, indoors? Unacceptable.
* Coaching/discipline: Even with the big win, the first questions
for Mike Martz on Monday are going to be about the personnel on the field with
a big lead late in the game. Faulk should not have been in the game the last
3:30. An injury to your clear MVP would have been a high price to pay to make
sure Gordon and Cani-date know they’re still in the doghouse… On
the other hand, I can’t criticize that Aeneas was in the game so late.
Seattle was using defensive timeouts; they weren’t giving up. You need
to be thinking pass when Seattle gets the ball, and with McCleon’s hamstring
problem resurfacing, and with Jerametrius Butler and Chad Cota inactive for
the game, there just wasn’t any depth for dime formations. If you question
anything, it’s the two inactive DBs… The run-pass ratio was right
about 50/50. Martz has made especially good use of Faulk the last two weeks
by letting him use his speed, on quickly-developing run plays or on sweeps.
He is also getting T. Wilkins involved in the offense, which is helping them
get back their speed intimidation factor… The coaches also deserve praise
for not letting the players get into a funk at halftime. Despite dominating
the first half, they trailed 14-13, but they rallied after halftime instead
of coming out flat… The Rams didn’t use timeouts efficiently at
all today, but the first one was before the big 3rd-and-1 they convert-ed on
the first TD drive. Don’t want to blow that play. The others did seem
like wastes. Let’s fix that… And I’ll say right now that I’m
not thrilled with Martz canceling practices during bye week. It’s not
like there isn’t anything to work on, and the light preseason didn’t
set a precedent worth repeating, did it?
* Upon further review: Decent officiating job by Terry MacAulay
and company, but it could have been better. NHL-quality officiating (get the
retaliator, not the instigator) on the personal foul call on Pace killed a first-half
drive. MacAulay could have been quicker to call roughing the passer. Bulger
took a couple of little late hits, and Dilfer took a late-looking one from Wistrom
the series before Archuleta got called for it on the two-point try. And was
that obvious forward lateral attempt by the Seahawks on the fumble return TD
so bad that they chose to treat it as a fumble?
* Cheers: Lots of mood swings for today’s crowd. Frequent
ovations for stiff defense and the incredible Faulk. Shock and disbelief, though,
after the Seattle kickoff TD, and especially for Aeneas’ injury. Where’s
the sage been, given the massive injury curse the Rams have been under this
year?... Not even close to the same intensity from the crowd as for Oakland.
I guess we play to the level of our competition… I haven’t mentioned
the Ram cheerleaders this season, and I do so today with a heavy heart, because
I don’t think they’re going to have costumes for Halloween this
year. We’ll miss you, Catwoman... The bye week comes at a perfect time
for Jack Snow, who can see his son J.T. in person for games 3-7 of the World
Series.
* Who’s next?: The sad irony of Aeneas Williams’
injury is that he won’t get a chance to stick it to Bill Bidwill’s
Big Dead after the bye week. Bidwill still has yet to pay for saddling St. Louis
with decades of terrible football and then taking it away for almost a decade.
The Rams are 0-2 vs. the Big Dead since coming to St. Louis. The Big Dead, shockingly,
are 4-2 this year and tied for first in the division, which they can take for
themselves if they beat the 49ers next week. They’ve gotten there because
their run defense has gotten significantly better this year. They’re in
the top 10 in the league and are giving about a yard per rush less than last
year. But the Cowboys had plenty of room to run today, and the two teams that
beat them ran for over 120 yards. Even so, Bulger may have to shoulder more
of the burden in this game. Especially because in games the Big Dead win, they
are excellent on 3rd down defense, allowing a 26% conversion rate. They have
allowed over 50% in losses. It seems possible that opposing offenses are just
inept, though. The Big Dead are in the bottom third of the league in pass defense
and don’t get to the QB (just 7 sacks). They allowed near-350-yard games
to Shane Matthews and Trent by-God Dilfer the first two weeks of the season.
Bulger has to continue to play mistake-free ball... The thought of Dre Bly defending
hulking David Boston already has me rolling my eyes. Dre better get himself
some Weight Gain 3000 or something. But even with Boston, the Big Dead haven’t
had a dangerous passing game. Jake Plummer has gone over 200 yards just twice
this year (the last two weeks, though). Jake has always been susceptible to
throwing damaging interceptions, and completes under 50% of his passes. A key
for the maturing Big Dead offensive line is that Plummer isn’t an easy
sack; just 9 in 6 games. But their running game has been poor. Thomas Jones
has been mostly a stiff since being drafted high in 2000. Maybe it’s just
my disdain for Bid-will, but I think the Big Dead are a pretender begging to
be exposed. We’ll probably find out for sure when they play the 49ers.
If not then, it will be up to the Rams, who have played well after byes, to
prevent big mistakes on offense, and force them on defense, to get some long-overdue
revenge for the Gateway City.
-- Mike