Tuesday Wrap-Up: The 24-Hour Rule

Tuesday Wrap-Up: The 24-Hour Rule
Posted 2 hours ago

By Myles Simmons

[www.therams.com]

Around the league, there’s a mantra repeated in locker rooms and meeting rooms after both Ws and Ls: the 24-hour rule.

“We basically have this philosophy — and everybody does — that you’ve got 24 hours to get this thing over with, and corrected, and done,” head coach Jeff Fisher said at his weekly press conference on Tuesday.

When a team is on a short week like the Rams following Monday Night Football, that’s of particular importance. Los Angeles has one fewer day than usual to dissect the Week 1 loss before moving on to Week 2.

“In this case, I gave them a 22-hour rule because we’ve got a short week,” Fisher said. “We’re correcting things, and looking at the tape, and seeing what happens. And then we go on. We have to move on.”

In reviewing the loss, Fisher credited the team for its effort, noting there were strong individual performances at times throughout the contest. But the team could not string enough together at once to win.

“Offensively, we just couldn’t make plays,” Fisher said. “It’s a combination of bad decisions at the quarterback position, drops at the receiver position.


“When you look at games like this,” Fisher continued, “I’ll take, for example, the offensive line. You’ve got five guys up there who are going to grade out really well in a loss. But each one of them had a mistake. And if you add those five mistakes in critical situations, that cost you a third-down conversion, that cost you an opportunity to score. So we had too many mistakes at different positions at different times that added up.”

Fisher noted offensive coordinator Rob Boras was not happy with himself after the game, given his unit’s performance. The head coach said plenty was dictated by what the 49ers defense presented. San Francisco clearly loaded the box to stop running back Todd Gurley, challenging quarterback Case Keenum to make plays on the outside.

“As a head coach, as coordinators — we all second-guess ourselves after it’s all said and done,” Fisher said. “We wanted to get the run game going. We needed to get the run game going. We felt even at halftime, being down two scores, we felt we just need to take balance into this game, make some plays and get some points and we’ll find a way to win it.


“As I mentioned to you in the past, Rob did an outstanding job calling plays the last [four weeks of 2015] when I put him in a difficult position,” Fisher added. “He’s a good play caller. We just didn’t execute for him.”

The execution issues were compounded by the Rams’ 10 penalties — seven of which came on defense. And there’s no opportune time for running back Todd Gurley and defensive tackle Aaron Donald to receive unsportsmanlike conduct fouls.

“Todd was a little bit frustrated. When he flipped the ball past the official, it landed in the hands of the opponent. Sometimes that’s called, and that’s not called,” Fisher said. “The learning experience from that is just give it to him [or] put it on the ground.”

“With respect to Aaron, Aaron was playing really hard, and there was some chirping going on in that little scrum. And Aaron — he shouldn’t have done it — but he kind of pushed [No.] 11 away,” Fisher added. “So the helmet comes off. So now things start. And the officiating department got involved, and one of the officials put his hands on Aaron, and Aaron just didn’t know [whose hands were on him], and [he] just slapped the hands down. So that’s what he was ejected for.”

Given the leadership roles both Gurley and Donald have on the team, Fisher said he addressed those kinds of penalties with the players.

“These are two captains that had significant penalties in this game,” Fisher said. “We just can’t have that.”

As you would expect after any 28-0 loss, there is a natural sense of disappointment and frustration. Fisher said the challenge is to make sure the players are resilient and get back to work in order to win the next week.

“We’re on a short week already,” Fisher said. “So we’re back tomorrow. Today, we’re trying to recover, tomorrow’s going to be a mental day. And we’ve got to get everybody back in the swing of things physically.”

And that goes back to the 24- — or 22- — hour rule. As short as it is for this week, Fisher said he requested a bit of introspection from the team as it heads into Wednesday.

“I did ask the players just to take an extra half-hour — so maybe it’s a 22-and-a-half-hour [rule] — and go back and reflect. Make sure we did everything we possibly could do last week,” Fisher said. “That’s about preparation and everything.

“But players are resilient, they bounce back, and they’re excited about this challenge this coming weekend,” Fisher added.

EXTRA POINTS

— L.A. rotated two offensive linemen at right guard throughout Monday’s contest: Cody Wichmann — who made the start — and Jamon Brown. Their snaps were split almost evenly, with Brown taking 32 (52 percent) and Wichmann taking 29 (49 percent).

“Our plan going in was to let them both play — Cody and J.B.,” Fisher said. “They both played and both had a moment, but they also did some really good things there.”

While the Rams may have gone with the rotation for Week 1, they may not be doing it for very long.

“We’ll probably settle in to one or the other by the end of the week,” Fisher said.

— Rookie quarterback Jared Goff was inactive against San Francisco, but that could change this week in the home opener.

“I haven’t [made a decision]. I will, and there’s that chance [Goff could be the backup], too,” Fisher said. “He’s pushing along. This whole experience for Jared was good — not good for our team, but just good for him to see all this. We’ll decide later in the week.”

— Finally, there’s a lot of familiarity in this week’s matchup between the Rams and Seahawks, plus the venue at which the game will be played. The two teams have had competitive contests over the last few years, with the Rams sweeping Seattle last year, and winning three of the last four overall.

“We’re familiar with them, they’re familiar with us. We respect them, they respect us,” Fisher said. “I love watching them play — the Seahawks — because they play hard. Pete does a great job. And, fortunately, we’ve had some success against them.”

But this week will also mark the return of Seahawks head coach Pete Carroll to the Coliseum, where he coached the USC Trojans from 2001-2009. As is well known, Carroll brought an era of tremendous success to that football program.

“As far as Pete’s concerned, I can see the emotions Pete’s going to go through,” Fisher said. “But he and I have been doing this a long time. This is about our teams competing and finding a way to win. But I’m sure he’ll have an emotional moment. I may bring him into my office, which was his old office — let him see it.”