Sunday, November 15, 2009

Rams Fall 32 Yards Short Of Paydirt

It was actually very fun today at the Edward Jones Dome as the St. Louis Rams played their best game of the season, but lost 28-23 in the end to the 9-0 New Orleans Saints. Bad clock managment forced Marc Bulger to throw up a prayer into the right corner of the end zone from the Saints 32 yard line as time expired. The prayer went unanswered and fans could only feel what could have been if the Rams could have pulled this one out. It was a great effort from the Rams who hopefully will continue to play for 60 minutes as they did today.

Steven Jackson continues to be a beast for the Rams. Jackson who touched the ball 35 times today was just the man in the first half as the teams exchanged touchdowns and the game was tied at 14 at halftime. Jackson who leads the Rams in receptions with 33 had 176 total yards in the game and a rushing TD. Jackson has rushed for over 100 yards three straight games now, as he had 131 yards today. In the first half he basically looked like he told the team to climb on his back and he would take them to the promise land.

Marc Bulger actually played ok today but he had a costly interception and his clock management on the last drive was awful. Marc continues to dump the ball off as if he is afraid to try and throw the ball down field. The two times he threw it down field to Donnie Avery both plays resulted in TDs. I am not sure at 1-8 why this team continues to dump the ball off on 3rd and long. There is also a disturbing lack of play action passes for a team that has Steven Jackson. This was the best game of he season for Marc as he completed 26 of 40 passes for 298 yards, with two TDs and one interception. It appears very obvious that Marc lacks a NFL caliber arm strength at this point in his career.

The Rams defense which battled the highest scoring team in the league continues to be very inconsistant. On one hand they held the Saints to only 21 points as the Saints scored one TD on a kickoff return to start the second half. On the other hand they did allow the Saints to roll up 420 yards of offense, and 203 yards rushing. In addition they continue to be unable to get off the field as the Saints converted 60% of their 3rd down conversions. The pass rush is also still anemic as the Rams managed only one sack on the day, by Chris Long as he bull rushed the Saints linemens ass into Brees forcing him to fall over. The Rams rarely even touched Brees. Again on the plus side the Rams seemed to hit harder than usual and they forced two interceptions and a fumble that resulted in a touchback. Overall inconsistant is still the best way to describe them.

The Rams will now have to get ready to take on Kurt Warner, Larry Fitzgerald and the high flying Arizon Cardinals next week at the Edward Jones Dome. The Cardinals already with a two game lead in the NFC West will look to pick apart the young Rams linebackers and secondary. This will be another tough test for the Rams. Hopefully the Rams will continue to improve and give us another good game.

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