Some Fisher Love

I preface this by saying that I was not initially in favor of the Fisher hiring, figuring we'd get a coach with a scrappy but kinda dirty defense, good special teams, and a negligible offense. However, once hired I came on board and hoped for the best (since what else is there to do?). I also have no doubt that JF is a good human being (which is really the most important thing of all), cared for his players, has his heart in the right place and all that good stuff. Nevertheless, he didn't win, didn't look like he'd ever start winning more than losing, and deservedly got canned.

But there's one player with the McVay Rams that was a *BIG* find and should be a 100% credit to Jeff Fisher --and that is Johnny Hekker. If I recall correctly, Fisher targeted Hekker as a punter partly because of his punting --duhhh-- but also because he was a QB in high school. And as it's played out in the pros, Hekker is unquestionably one of the best punters of all time --just purely on punting stats; but, additionally, he's one helluva great player on fakes, having played as a QB in high school. And I always appreciated Fisher willingness to call for the fake punt at opportune moments. Though he got a little predictable with it towards the end of his tenure, I always liked Fisher's willingness to go for a suprise special teams play. And you could see that this got in Pete Carrol's head in a big, big way--which can never be discounted as an independant good!

Though it didn't salvage the game for the Rams, I was very pleased to see McVay call the fake punt. That's one attribute of Fisher that I would have sorely missed... and I'm so glad to see that McVay has that little slice of Fisher in him.

The Rams are on the rise.