I totally agree.
The history thing is, I think, interesting. People often cite history in silly ways. Remember the "Rams have big years every 20 years which end in 9" schtick?
But consistent historical patterns can be pretty damn strong. They tend to demonstrate underlying realities that are hard to beat.
One consistent NFL pattern is the incredible difficulty of getting to the top in any year. The margin of error is so bleeding thin. What follows from this?
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Jimmy
the Rams last year were at the top of their game... elite... but last year did not seem that way to me. To me, and for the most part, the Rams did "just enough"... they squeaked by often. They did it consistently, however. Why? Simple: They had the ability and talent and coaching to do it. And to me those things remain intact.
Yes. The Rams had the talent and the vision and the nerve to get it done. But how close did they repeatedly come to failure? As Wellington said after Waterloo, it was a close run thing, a damn close run thing.
I don't think they can do it again. That love of chaos that Jourdan talks about ... we don't get away with that twice.
But I think what you are saying is that we can actually improve. I agree, and I would specify. We don't have to become more talented and open up new dimensions of excellence. We just have to execute better and make fewer mistakes. We have to wring out the chaos that we seem to love flirting with.
We can become a team that is much harder to beat. Doing that would realize much more of our potential. In many ways, as you say, we weren't ready last year. If we improve our discipline and efficiency we can raise our game several levels.
Will we? I dunno. I think McVay is focusing on this sort of thing, and very early returns are encouraging. We'll see.
But this is why I think we will go one of 2 directions: we either substantively raise our level of execution and approach the top of the mountain ... or we slide off the pace, perhaps badly. We cannot flirt with disaster this year and get away with it.
