The Rams

[Yubaking]

In all seriousness, this game is a total mismatch in the Rams favor (on paper).

This will be an extremely difficult game. If we can get by with a win I would feel better about our chances on going on a mini-run against our remaining opponents.

On paper, the game is a total mismatch in our favor. On paper, the Rams don't really do anything well. They are not as good as we are on offense or defense. Their supposedly great front 7 and pass rush is not all that great so far this year. We beat the Bills in Buffalo and their pass rush is much, much better than the one displayed by the Rams.

They caught a flier at home against the Broncos when the Broncos were without half of their main receiving weapons, which left them exposed because they are not a good running team. Throw in a couple of picks by Manning and the upset was ready to happen. They also beat the 49ers when they self destructed and held on against the Seahawks after jumping out to a big 21-6 lead at the half in a game that featured a gimmick punt return TD and a fake punt.

Even with the gimmicks and turnovers, they are nothing but a 4-6 team. They aren't going to beat us in San Diego. In fact, if our offense is even a little sharper than it was last weekend, this game has blowout potential in our favor written all over it.

[Sec-E4]

I dont think we really can appreciate what Woody did for us on 3rd downs.

Im pretty sure most of us can appreciate what Woody did for us on 3rd downs. ;-)

[Sec-E4]

Rams vs. Chargers. I hope Dodge has bought a lot of the advertising time for this one.

I heard Sam Elliot is going to be in the booth announcing the game

[RTPbolt]

I think the Rams had about a perfect game as theyve had all year. I dint expect a repeat especially in an away game.
Im not guaranteeing a win but just think there are always games when everything goes right and everything goes wrong.

[MakoShark]

Special teams better be on their toes.

[Rams24/7]

Hi all. Rams fan here. Looking forward to having a good discussion leading up to this Sunday's game. I'm a SD native and I'll be at the Q. Just wanted to respond to a few quotes:

Stats don't tell the story.

Watch their DL.

Oneinchpunch is absolutely right. If you want to base your opinions of the Rams on our terribly skewed stats, so be it, but imo that would be short-sighted. Our young defensive players spent the first month+ of the season getting fully acclimated with Greg Williams' complex defensive scheme. The younger players have just begun to look comfortable the past 3 weeks and seem to be "reacting" instead of "thinking." This has had a huge affect on the speed that our D is playing with now. It also helps that our starting corner Trumaine Johnson back a few weeks back.

Okay, I get that we did not light up the scoreboard yesterday, but we are at home against the 4-6 Rams who have yielded more than 30 points on 6 different occasions, losing all 6. They gave up more points in those 6 games than we have all year long in 10 games. They yield the highest completion percentage against them of any team in the league at 68.6% despite playing a bunch of games against teams with QBs that do not complete a high percentage of their passes. Their run defense is statistically similar to ours.

They do not run or pass the ball particularly well.

IMO, we need to short pass and run these guys into the ground and get off the field on what should be the numerous third downs with which they will be faced. We might just score 30+ points before it is all said and done.

As I stated above, our D was working out several kinks at the beginning of the year including adjusting to a new scheme and losing 2 key starters. I really like to think we're past those performances and have shown significant improvement on both sides of the football in the past month+. Let me also remind you that Austin Davis, who took over for Hill after a minor injury has started every game but the opener and our last game vs Denver. Fisher made the switch because Davis had become a turnover machine, after a promising start. Davis accounted for 6 DEFENSIVE TDs for opposing defenses. Several came late in games the Rams were winning in the 2nd half (Dallas, San Francisco, Arizona). The switch was made back to Hill last week and he quietly put together 200+ yards 1 TD and 0 INT.

Additionally let me remind you that we have held our last 3 opponents (@SF, @AZ, vsDEN) to 34 points combined offensively. Those are more current stats that could allude to how the Rams have been playing as of late.

Do you know why teams have such high completion percentages against us? The same reason our sack totals were putrid after the first 5 games (1 sack). The Rams have earned quite a reputation around the league for their pass rush over the past 2 seasons finishing with 52 in 2012 (#1) and 53 in 2013 (#3). Not only that but Robert Quinn tore it up with 19 sacks last year. Teams were scared out of their pants to begin 2014 and had great respect for our rush. They schemed around it sticking to the ground game and quick, high completion passes. Screens, slants, outs, curls. Very seldom the first 4 games did a team even take shots 20+ yards downfield more than a few times from fear of our rush.

The recent uptick in sacks, 18 of our 19 in 5 games, is due to our players becoming more comfortable in the new scheme and our starting CB returning. The Rams can go off and have a 8 sack game like we did @ SF or have a 2 sack game. The numbers don't tell everything. We only sacked Peyton 2 times last week, but constantly harassed him and forced him to throw early or off target passes. The Rams will take the short passes any day of the week because our back 7 cover well and tackle well. As evidenced by Peyton having 380 passing yards, yet the Broncos were 4/12 on 3rd down and 0/3 on 4th.

As for our rushing stats, another example of stats horribly skewed by the first month of the season. We let Corarelle Patterson loose for a long sweep week 1 and he finished with 100+. Bobby Rainey ripped us for 140 in week 2 vs Tampa. And Murray had exactly 100 in week 3. After the Dallas game week 3 we are allowing 97.3 ypg and have yet to allow a 100 yard rusher since. Opposing RBs have scored just 5 TDs against us all year (3 coming @ KC). Even more recently lets focus on our 3 weeks of dominance. Teams have rushed 53 times for 136 yards at a measly 2.6 ypc and 0 TDs. A mere 45.3 ypg in this stretch. We have faced AP, Murray, McCoy, Gore (x2), Lynch, Charles, and Ellington so far, all considered to be top RBs in the NFL. How many crossed the century mark? Only Murray and he went for exactly 100.

Two things that really work in our favor in this game - we have them at home not in St Louis where they are much better defensively. Secondly, right now Denver's running game is worse than ours is and if we can run against a mediocre rush defense we can limit how many times Rivers is exposed.

Again maybe mediocre run D to start the season but we've allowed a franchise record low 56 rushing yards combined the past 2 weeks. Our solid play vs the run is becoming a trend.

On paper, the game is a total mismatch in our favor. On paper, the Rams don't really do anything well. They are not as good as we are on offense or defense. Their supposedly great front 7 and pass rush is not all that great so far this year. We beat the Bills in Buffalo and their pass rush is much, much better than the one displayed by the Rams.

They caught a flier at home against the Broncos when the Broncos were without half of their main receiving weapons, which left them exposed because they are not a good running team. Throw in a couple of picks by Manning and the upset was ready to happen. They also beat the 49ers when they self destructed and held on against the Seahawks after jumping out to a big 21-6 lead at the half in a game that featured a gimmick punt return TD and a fake punt.

Even with the gimmicks and turnovers, they are nothing but a 4-6 team. They aren't going to beat us in San Diego. In fact, if our offense is even a little sharper than it was last weekend, this game has blowout potential in our favor written all over it.

Again let me remind you how badly we started the year. We were wildly inconsistent on both sides of the football leading to us choking away leads against Dallas and SF, ultimately leading to a 1-4 start. Since then though, and more specifically within the past 5 games, we have immensely improved across the board. I guess the skewed stats we have from the first 5 games is where you get your "on paper" idea, because I don't buy it.

We don't do anything well? So what holding AP, McCoy, Gore (x2), Lynch, Charles, and Ellington under 100 yards worth? How about the fact that we are near tops in the league in TFLs (pretty sure we're #1)?

And its not all quantifiable stats. We've began to find our workhorse RB in Tre Mason who went 100+ against the #1 run D (DEN). Our TE Jared Cook is playing at an extremely high level. Kenny Britt is playing well. Our defense has been getting turnovers and big stops recently.

And again my friend, we had 1 sack in the first 5 games and we've registered 18 in the past 5.

And please don't try to shoot down our close wins. You probably watched the biased versions ESPN or NFL gives of the shortened highlights. Funny how ESPN tried to put their spin on our close wins vs SF, SEA, and even a more comfortable win vs DEN.

For SF it was "oh look at the terrible calls by the refs robbing the 49ers of a TD on the goal line!" When really we had whipped the 49ers all game. Somehow they put a spin on the game as if the 49ers "let the Rams hang around" when it was the Rams who sacked Kaep 8 times. The refs robbed the 9ers of a TD? Maybe so. But they also cost the Rams 14 points on 2 very questionable calls earlier in the game when we were starting to pull away.

Seattle? Headlines read "Rams get tricky" when, yes we pulled a few nice plays but they were only part of the reason we won. When Stedman Bailey made his "Sportcenter highlight" fake PR TD the Rams already had a 14-0 lead. It wasn't as if if was a 0-0 game!

And Denver. When national media is too shell shocked by a underdog W they never saw coming, they resort to proclaiming what the loser did wrong and not what the winner did right. Headlines after our 22-7 dismantling of Denver read something like "Rams shock injury depleted Broncos." Did those injuries have an impact on the game? Sure. But THE RAMS knocked Julius Thomas and Emmanuel Sanders out of the game. And even without those 2 Denver has enough firepower to score more than 7.

If I were to go by the same logic, I could say well the Chargers barely squeaked by a 0-10 Raiders team twice and blew out two bottom feeding teams in NYJ and Jax at home. But I won't use that logic.

[Heatmiser]

I was a BIG Rams fan last Sunday. This Sunday.... not so much.

TG

[Mister Hoarse]

If I were to pick a sleeper team I expect to go off in the 2nd half of the season, it would be STL.

[Yubaking]

Hi all. Rams fan here. Looking forward to having a good discussion leading up to this Sunday's game. I'm a SD native and I'll be at the Q. Just wanted to respond to a few quotes:



Oneinchpunch is absolutely right. If you want to base your opinions of the Rams on our terribly skewed stats, so be it, but imo that would be short-sighted. Our young defensive players spent the first month+ of the season getting fully acclimated with Greg Williams' complex defensive scheme. The younger players have just begun to look comfortable the past 3 weeks and seem to be "reacting" instead of "thinking." This has had a huge affect on the speed that our D is playing with now. It also helps that our starting corner Trumaine Johnson back a few weeks back.



As I stated above, our D was working out several kinks at the beginning of the year including adjusting to a new scheme and losing 2 key starters. I really like to think we're past those performances and have shown significant improvement on both sides of the football in the past month+. Let me also remind you that Austin Davis, who took over for Hill after a minor injury has started every game but the opener and our last game vs Denver. Fisher made the switch because Davis had become a turnover machine, after a promising start. Davis accounted for 6 DEFENSIVE TDs for opposing defenses. Several came late in games the Rams were winning in the 2nd half (Dallas, San Francisco, Arizona). The switch was made back to Hill last week and he quietly put together 200+ yards 1 TD and 0 INT.

Additionally let me remind you that we have held our last 3 opponents (@SF, @AZ, vsDEN) to 34 points combined offensively. Those are more current stats that could allude to how the Rams have been playing as of late.

Do you know why teams have such high completion percentages against us? The same reason our sack totals were putrid after the first 5 games (1 sack). The Rams have earned quite a reputation around the league for their pass rush over the past 2 seasons finishing with 52 in 2012 (#1) and 53 in 2013 (#3). Not only that but Robert Quinn tore it up with 19 sacks last year. Teams were scared out of their pants to begin 2014 and had great respect for our rush. They schemed around it sticking to the ground game and quick, high completion passes. Screens, slants, outs, curls. Very seldom the first 4 games did a team even take shots 20+ yards downfield more than a few times from fear of our rush.

The recent uptick in sacks, 18 of our 19 in 5 games, is due to our players becoming more comfortable in the new scheme and our starting CB returning. The Rams can go off and have a 8 sack game like we did @ SF or have a 2 sack game. The numbers don't tell everything. We only sacked Peyton 2 times last week, but constantly harassed him and forced him to throw early or off target passes. The Rams will take the short passes any day of the week because our back 7 cover well and tackle well. As evidenced by Peyton having 380 passing yards, yet the Broncos were 4/12 on 3rd down and 0/3 on 4th.

As for our rushing stats, another example of stats horribly skewed by the first month of the season. We let Corarelle Patterson loose for a long sweep week 1 and he finished with 100+. Bobby Rainey ripped us for 140 in week 2 vs Tampa. And Murray had exactly 100 in week 3. After the Dallas game week 3 we are allowing 97.3 ypg and have yet to allow a 100 yard rusher since. Opposing RBs have scored just 5 TDs against us all year (3 coming @ KC). Even more recently lets focus on our 3 weeks of dominance. Teams have rushed 53 times for 136 yards at a measly 2.6 ypc and 0 TDs. A mere 45.3 ypg in this stretch. We have faced AP, Murray, McCoy, Gore (x2), Lynch, Charles, and Ellington so far, all considered to be top RBs in the NFL. How many crossed the century mark? Only Murray and he went for exactly 100.



Again maybe mediocre run D to start the season but we've allowed a franchise record low 56 rushing yards combined the past 2 weeks. Our solid play vs the run is becoming a trend.



Again let me remind you how badly we started the year. We were wildly inconsistent on both sides of the football leading to us choking away leads against Dallas and SF, ultimately leading to a 1-4 start. Since then though, and more specifically within the past 5 games, we have immensely improved across the board. I guess the skewed stats we have from the first 5 games is where you get your "on paper" idea, because I don't buy it.

We don't do anything well? So what holding AP, McCoy, Gore (x2), Lynch, Charles, and Ellington under 100 yards worth? How about the fact that we are near tops in the league in TFLs (pretty sure we're #1)?

And its not all quantifiable stats. We've began to find our workhorse RB in Tre Mason who went 100+ against the #1 run D (DEN). Our TE Jared Cook is playing at an extremely high level. Kenny Britt is playing well. Our defense has been getting turnovers and big stops recently.

And again my friend, we had 1 sack in the first 5 games and we've registered 18 in the past 5.

And please don't try to shoot down our close wins. You probably watched the biased versions ESPN or NFL gives of the shortened highlights. Funny how ESPN tried to put their spin on our close wins vs SF, SEA, and even a more comfortable win vs DEN.

For SF it was "oh look at the terrible calls by the refs robbing the 49ers of a TD on the goal line!" When really we had whipped the 49ers all game. Somehow they put a spin on the game as if the 49ers "let the Rams hang around" when it was the Rams who sacked Kaep 8 times. The refs robbed the 9ers of a TD? Maybe so. But they also cost the Rams 14 points on 2 very questionable calls earlier in the game when we were starting to pull away.

Seattle? Headlines read "Rams get tricky" when, yes we pulled a few nice plays but they were only part of the reason we won. When Stedman Bailey made his "Sportcenter highlight" fake PR TD the Rams already had a 14-0 lead. It wasn't as if if was a 0-0 game!

And Denver. When national media is too shell shocked by a underdog W they never saw coming, they resort to proclaiming what the loser did wrong and not what the winner did right. Headlines after our 22-7 dismantling of Denver read something like "Rams shock injury depleted Broncos." Did those injuries have an impact on the game? Sure. But THE RAMS knocked Julius Thomas and Emmanuel Sanders out of the game. And even without those 2 Denver has enough firepower to score more than 7.

If I were to go by the same logic, I could say well the Chargers barely squeaked by a 0-10 Raiders team twice and blew out two bottom feeding teams in NYJ and Jax at home. But I won't use that logic.

In studying the Rams, I take away several things. First, you are correct about the run defense being improved. Unfortunately, the Chargers do not win games running the ball as we are right at the bottom in yards per carry. A defense does not have to be good for us to have negative runs. We pretty much take care of that all by ourselves. We are not going to pound anyone into the ground via a smash mouth attack. The take away: the Rams improved run defense really does not matter all that much.

The Rams yield a league high 68.6% completion percentage against them, but do not yield very many 20+ yard passes. Since everyone seems to realize that the Rams have good pass rushers, why don't the Rams take away the short yardage passes they know have to be coming versus their pass rush? The take away: they do not stop the short passes because they can't. (The only other alternative is that their coaches are just stupid and I will give them the benefit of the doubt.)

Unfortunately for the Rams, short passes are what the Chargers do best. So, it seems like a bad matchup for the Rams. If the Chargers do not shoot themselves in the foot, they should be able to move the ball pretty much at will as long as they use the pass to set up the run. Mathews' getting back into game shape will help the Chargers ground game as he has only played 2.5 of 10 games this year. The short passing game will negate the pass rush for the most part.

On offense, I see the Rams really struggling. If they do not get a big play TD or a turnover in their opponent's territory, they really struggle to go on long, sustained TD marches. They do get a good number of FGs. While the Chargers have not gotten many turnovers on defense, they have also been on the low side of 20+ yard plays surrendered and they do not yield many points. Also, their offense is among the best at not turning the ball over and their punter is very good at pinning opponents deep in their end and forcing teams to drive a long way to get any points at all. Their offense is good at flipping field position even when they do not score.

In addition, the Chargers just got back a number of defensive players after their bye. The return match against the Raiders was a night versus day difference in the level of defensive effort. The Chargers had the depth to play the right players in the right situations, which was something that had been completely unavailable to them for most of the season. They seem to have figured out which players should play in which situations. They looked very good albeit against the Raiders last week, a team that they gave up 4 TDs to in their first game against them.

I do not see the Rams, who are not a strong team on offense, having a great deal of success against the Chargers on defense. As long as the Chargers do not make big mistakes on defense, I do not see the Rams reaching 20 points and I do not think that will be enough against the Chargers, who are not likely to kill three of their drives with 10 yard penalties as they did against the Raiders last week. Also, if the Chargers are not controlling the game with their defense, the Chargers may choose to go for it on 4th down and 1 in Rams territory, contrary to how they approached the game versus the Raiders (which was a 4th drive that could have easily been continued).

I think if Rams fans are hanging their hat on their defense shutting down the Chargers offense, then they are in for a disappointment. The Chargers have the better defense and the better offense and they are playing at home. While location seems not to have mattered to the Rams, that Chargers have played much better at home than on the road this year.

Really, the only issue that gives me any pause is the Chargers NT situation with Lissemore dealing with a quad injury and Carrethers' availability after a dislocated elbow being in question. That could allow the Rams to get their run game established, which I think is the only hope the Rams have barring a complete brain fart by the Chargers.

[SFW]

This thread is about to be awesome. Let me get my popcorn for the Yubaking West Coast vs Yubaking Midwest. My money is on West Coast Yubaking.

[MakoShark]

This thread is about to be awesome. Let me get my popcorn for the Yubaking West Coast vs Yubaking Midwest. My money is on West Coast Yubaking.

Vegas giving odds on this matchup?

[SFW]

Vegas giving odds on this matchup?

Based on home forum advantage the line is opening up with West Coast Yubaking as a 4 point favorite.