You know, I watch the Rams ... when I can get the games. I don't watch other teams. So, when we hired McVay, I heard all this talk about an offensive guru, but I have not followed WASH. I haven't really had much sense of what form his approach takes.
So, I am interested to see what sort of thing he does. Those 2 plays seemed suggestive not just of the fact that his schemes are tough on defenses, but of HOW he might go about doing that. I'll be interested in seeing if the pattern holds or if others emerge.
As for the playoffs ... I don't have any feel for quantifying things like that.
I do expect significant improvement this year, and as I have posted, I thought we saw that the other night. I think we have a pretty good talent pool, I think Phillips and Fassel have proven to be trustworthy, and McVay looks to be pretty promising. Given decent health, I pretty much expect a level of performance that should give us several more wins this year.
But how many ... I can't say. As I've posted over and over, the league churns massively every year. Teams rise and fall. Teams in our division have done so. Is SEA sliding or maintaining? Can AZ keep it going? Is SF really a bad team? (I wonder if they are better than people realize.) How many games will it take to get to the playoffs? I've seen .500 teams get in and 10-win teams left out.
Honestly, I could see this going anywhere on a wide spectrum.
I could see us improving significantly and winning 6 games.
I could see us winning 8 or 9 games. That would be a 5 game improvement--a big jump. But that might not make it into the playoffs.
And I see no reason we couldn't win 11 or so. Honestly--I can imagine that. Wade P. could easily discipline our talented D into a Top 5 unit and with Sammy and good coaching, our Offense could vault a long way quickly. There are a lot of pieces in place for that to be possible. (I don't share the pessimistic view of our starting OL. I'll try to post on that this week.)
I say it again and again and again--teams vault up and down the standings every single year. Then they play each other. And games which people pegged on the schedule as wins or losses in August look completely different as the season plays out.
We were widely expected to be better last year and SF was expected to stink. What happened in the opener? NO ONE predicted that.
I see a team on the rise, but I honestly have no idea how far they can go this year.
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/14/2017 07:08AM by RFL.
