The state of the Rams

I've made fun of the Raiders a lot, and the Browns a few times, and even the Bills. But I don't think enough has been said, anywhere, abut the sad state of the St. Louis Rams.

The Rams have come full-circle in my lifetime as a football fan. They were terrible when I was younger, then they became really good and Super Bowl champions, and now they've become terrible again. I think the biggest mistake this franchise made was making Mike Martz the head coach. He was the natural successor to Dick Vermeil as the offensive coordinator, but he was not a good head coach. Martz just didn't care enough about the small things. His teams were always undisciplined, he was careless with his use of timeouts, and he wasn't afraid to let his QB get killed if it meant getting as many receivers out into pass patterns as possible. I will say this for Martz; the man knows offense. There are rumors that the Bears are considering him for their offensive coordinator, and I'm a bit scared by that. He could definitely take Jay Cutler and turn him back into a top-flight passer.

But anways, the point is that Martz was the wrong guy to sustain the success of the Rams. After 2001, the Rams steadily declined and he was fired at midseason in 2005. But that was only the beginning of the decline for the Rams. The drafts under Martz were pretty bad. Trung Canidate, Adam Archuleta, Ryan Pickett (who became good...for the Packers), Robert Thomas, Jimmy Kennedy, Steven Jackson and Alex Barron were the first round picks under Martz. Only Jackson and Barron have lasted with the Rams, only Jackson is a true star in this league.

But the 2006 draft is where the train really went off the tracks. Tye Hill, Joe Klopfenstein, Claude Wroten, Jon Alston, Dominique Byrd (Klopfenstein and Byrd were both TEs; anytime a team takes two TEs in the first three rounds, you know it's an epic disaster), Victor Adeyanju (I don't know how to pronounce it either), Marques Hagans, Tim McGarigle, Mark Setterstrom, and Tony Palmer. Those were the draft picks for the Rams in 2006, and that was the draft that firmly set in motion three consecutive top-2 draft picks. They got literally nothing out of this draft.

And you look at the work they've done since then in the draft and that's not real inspiring either. I think they've had the right idea by investing in the lines (Adam Carriker and Chris Long on the defensive line, Jason Smith at OT), it just hasn't worked out. They haven't hit on a mid-round pick since O.J. Atogwe back in 2005. I mean...this team is bad, and it doesn't look like there's a lot of potential waiting in the wings. Donnie Avery at WR, maybe?

They also probably made a mistake by investing so heavily in Marc Bulger. I used to like Bulger a lot, and he was good at one time, but as the years have gone by, it's pretty obvious he can't stay healthy for an entire season, which is something of a prerequisite for a starting QB you're going to invest heavily in. And when he has played, Bulger hasn't been very good the past few years. Part of that is the bad supporting cast (Torry Holt went from really good to washed up faster than Jason Alexander), and part of that is that Bulger just hasn't played well. And by investing so heavily in Bulger, they've bypassed both Matt Ryan and Mark Sanchez in the past two drafts. The jury is still out on those two QBs, but I think the Rams would feel better with either of those two than they do about Bulger. And now they have the #1 pick in a draft where there probably isn't a QB worth taking #1 overall (I love Jimmy but he's probably not #1 overall material).

It's rather appalling to see the lack of talent the Rams have. None of their QBs threw more than 5 TDs last season. Donnie Avery led the team with 589 receiving yards. Their kicker (Josh Brown) made less than 80% of his kicks while playing his home games in a dome. Their leading sacker was Leonard "you're still in the league?" Little with 6.5, followed by Chris Long, followed by James "YOU'RE still in the league?" Hall. Their corners intercepted zero, count them zero, passes last season. If you were to rate the Rams on a star system like recruiting sites do, it would look something like this:
5 stars - Steven Jackson
4 stars - O.J. Atogwe, Marc Bulger (maybe), Jason Smith (purely on potential), Chris Long (same), James Lauranitis (actually had a nice rookie season), Alex Barron (maybe), Donnie Jones (actually a good punter)
3 stars - Donnie Avery, Leonard Little
2 stars or less - everyone else

That's 10 players I listed as 3 stars or better, which is absurdly low. The Raiders may be bad, but they have McFadden, Fargas, Bush, Mario Henderson, Gallery, Zach Miller, Louis Murphy, Chaz Schilens, Greg Ellis, Tommie Kelly, Kirk Morrison, Thomas Howard, Nnamdi Asomugha, Janikowski and Lechler that I would rate as 3 stars or better.

Because the Rams have had so many bad drafts in a row, it will take years for them to become a playoff team again. And while I think everyone realizes they're a bad team, it doesn't seem like they receive the same level of humiliation that teams like the Lions, Browns and Raiders do. I think it's because the Rams are simply a bad football team, whereas the Lions have been historically bad (0-16) while the Raiders have been comically bad (Al Davis, JaMarcus Russell, Darrius Heyward-Bey), and the Browns have been some mix of both. In other words, there's something fun about the badness of those teams. There hasn't been anything fun about the downfall of the Rams, though. Nothing to laugh at, nothing to be historically invested in, just a lot of bad football.

Imagine being a Rams fan right before the 2001 Super Bowl, when it looks like they're going to blow out the weak Patriots to win their 2nd Super Bowl in 3 years, and it looks like the good times will never end. Let this be a lesson; don't hand over a Super Bowl-caliber team to someone as unstable as Mike Martz. He might do something crazy like draft Trung Canidate in the first round, and set the wheels in motion for a 1-15 2009 season.