Quote
roman18
I look at one of Fishers decisions as an example of his want to make a better line but fail....IMO choosing Barnes to be his starting center. Not just for one year as a starter by way of injuries but to continue with him the following year. McVay cuts him...he is still out of work...and if he gets a job I don't think it would be as a starter. The demand of playing GRob and at the same time seeing his problems at the position.....McVay comes in and moves him out of the position immediately.....
My point being that although the RAMS have not shown improvement on the field yet with the new additions (yet) they have at LEAST seen and understood some of the problem areas and a LEAST have addressed them IMO very quickly......If Fish were still here how many think that Barnes would still be starting and GRob would still be in the running for LT? I would for 1.
Sometimes injuries are indeed a major problem with line development but IMO the choice of [players has as much if not more to do with it. If you address problems by using inferior parts you may be addressing the problem but not the needs and basis for the problems to be solved....IMO that is how Fisher addressed the situation.....
Barnes played decently well in 2015.
Everyone on the line fell apart in 2016. Not just Barnes. So did Hav, for example, and he played decently well in 2015 also.
Either way, remember the issue---the issue was that somehow McVay is the first coach to take the OL seriously, ie. to address it.
The response to that was that every Rams coach has taken the OL seriously. Which btw strikes me as being plain ordinary common sense.
BUT problems arose for 2 reasons:
Some however either made bad picks or signings
Or saw the OL wiped out by the kind of extensive injuries you don't just shrug off.
Or both.
And we don;t know if Barnes would have recovered in 2017 if a different coach saw him as the kind of center he wanted (which Kromer clearly doesn;t),
Either way it's simply not the case that this is the first Rams coach in a long line of coaches who took the OL seriously. They all did. What we hope instead is that McVay is the first Rams coach in a long line of coaches since Vermeil anyway who BOTH (1) makes effective choices for OL players, and (2) does not suffer massive extensive crippling OL injuries.
And yes we should all hope for both things. Cause otherwise right now, Whitworth and Sullivan at this point in the off-season look just as good (or questionable) as choices as Wells and Long did in their respective off-seasons.
...
