You make valid points about the offense

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h2omelonhead
I would just look to the first half of the season when Rams had their stars playing.
When you remove Stafford and Donald on both sides of the ball.. then I would say it is bit unfair to judge the offense/defense during that time.***I get it but I disagree. No matter who is playing the coaches are still accountable***

So in the first half or so... Rams Defensive rankings were in the top quartile I believe... definitely top half.
If we look back to those games, the defense kept the team in the game for 3 quarters, while the offense struggled.
Even when we had the lead, the offense could not generate extended drives in the 4th quarter. So many 3 and outs.***I get it but if you have 3 HOF'ers on your unit, is it not realistic to expect a Top 10-12 Defense regardless of the o? Also, I don't remember our D being anything "special" during the beginning of the year. In fact, against Buffalo, they looked horrible. I also can't agree it was all on the D that kept us in games for 3 qtrs. Sometimes it was also due to the other teams ineptitude. Besides, games last for 4 quarters last I checked. Not 3. Not fair to judge on partial games IMO.***

At a high level, the issue I saw was the lack of recognition that the Offense was going to continue to struggle.
Seemed like the staff thought they could get the offense going, so the defense remained in their normal scheme which is built to limit big plays and let the team play catchup while the offense scores TDs. It's like.. trust us, we'll start scoring TDs, so keep the defensive scheme as is.***How come even after the season was lost we still ran the exact same Ultra Soft Shell? Was not giving up the "big play" more important than talent evaluation or using a little creativity and branching off the Soft shell a bit since the O was doing anything anyway?***

I don't think it was more of the defensive staff's fault at this. But more of McVay. After Stafford went out, then there seemed to be a realization that the offense wasn't going to get going.... so we started to see a shift in defensive philosophy. But by then, it's too late.... it's half way through, not enough time to install completely new things and then key players started to go down like Donald.***After Stafford went out, the defensive scheme looked awful similar to what they were running BEFORE he went out. lol If there was "change", it was minimal IMO. As for "half way through, too late for new things", I don't think anyone was calling for a whole new defensive scheme to be "installed" but rather some tweaks and a little less soft zone than normal therefore challenging the players to play better and learn and grow. The season was over. What better way to get your young guys some REAL time experience than in REAL games? That can't happen if you only play that Ultra Soft Zone 95% of the time***

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