Tuesday, April 20, 2010

Pardon my inattentiveness to this blog

I have been writing a more public forum, trying to head off disaster in this year's draft. I haven't had much time to devote to my private blog.

What is this disaster? I think it is a profound mistake to take Sam Bradford with the #1 pick in 2010. If were my call, it would be Suh in the first and Tebow in second. I would fire Pat Shurmer. I would end our fatuous attempt to implement the West Coast. I would hire Mike Leach. I would acquire some O-Linemen, most particularly Flozell Adams and Bobby Williams. I would make the deal for Albert Haynesworth.

"But Tebow won't be ready for several years?" Neither will the rest of the team. Get used to it. Bradford won't change that fact. You will see how much of impact Bradford makes on our wins and losses when they cart him off the field during game 3. No folks, the Rams are a couple of years away. This is the truth of the matter. In a couple of years, I want to have real gem of this draft ready to go for us at QB. I don't want to have a banged up medical bust on my hands.

To wit, I am amazed by the specious arguments made in favor of our offensive line. These are dimwitted arguments made by fans who have been drinking VanRam's Cool Aid. They do believe that living in denial is a good thing. What you don't admit can't hurt you. All we need to do is deny that we have a bad line and Sam won't get hurt next year. It is as simple as that.

Fallacies, fallacies everywhere! I have seldom seen such fallacious reasoning. Consider this tour de force of fallacious reasoning. When confronted with the fact the fact that the Rams line allowed 44 sacks last season. The typical Cool-Aid drinker responds "It was only 14 over 9 games." So the Rams only played 9 games last season? Well... no... they played 16, but Bulger was only sacked 9 times. No, he was sacked 14 times for a loss of 85 yards. Oh, well, we only gave up 14 sacks, everything after that doesn't count. Sorry, your argument is rubbish. The Rams line surrendered 44 sacks. That is an empirical fact.

"But that wasn't their fault!" Then whose fault was it?

"The quarterbacks! The new scheme! The injuries! The release of Incognito!" Excuses, excuses! The record shows that the Rams offensive line has surrendered 40+ sacks for 9 years straight. The first step to recovery is admitting that you have a problem. Now do something about it.

Why live in denial? Because the fans in St. Louis really want Jesus Christ to return... errr they really want the Rams to draft the savior Sam Bradford. They want to believe he will turn everything around. Understanding that we have a weak line that will allow a frail quarterback to get injured is the best possible argument against spending the #1 pick in the draft, and something like $80 million, on Sam Bradford in this draft.

I am throwing punches at a bullet wound, so there is a reaction. It s a bad reaction, but there is a reaction.

Frankly, I am going to be very glad when this draft is over. The dice will be cast. We will have rolled our bones. Then I can forget about our chances of improvement for another season.

But enough of this... only a fool worries about that which he cannot control, so I guess I am being a world class fool here. Devaney is locked on to his game plan. We'll see how it works out.

In other news, I am amazed at the negative press Kroenke is getting in St. Louis. He has not addressed the question of whether he intends to keep the team in St. Louis. Each day that goes by, the local sports writers try to apply more and more pressure on him to address this this question. No word.

They say silence speaks volumes sometimes. I remain convinced that things are on track for the city of industry. Ram Park... it has a certain ring to it doesn't it? They will probably license the stadium rights though, so they will call it "Oracle Park" or "Universal Studios Park" or something to that effect.