This is a tough year and a lot of things were outside the control of McVay and Snead but still is was a disaster of a year. The fact that we started the year with a contender window of probably 2 years makes this extremely painful. I started as a Ram fan when Roman Gabriel was QB and we had the Fearsome Foursome. I was just a kid but the Rams were magical but couldn't get by Green Bay and later the Purple People Eaters. Seems like a long time before we got a decent QB though Vince Ferragamo was okay. I loved Eric Dickerson but San Fran was the class and the Rams tried to win with Dieter Brock. Then it seems like some fruitless years and we tried to get a good QB in Joe Namath, Bert Jones and Jim Everett but none of them was close to the answer. Jame Harris was a home grown talent but he didn't do it either. Finally Dicky V showed up and Trent Green when down with a knee and Warner got a shot. Wow 1999 was a great year and we finally had a QB. We Got Faulk & had Bruce & Holt and the greatest show on Turf with great offensive Coordinator in Martz. For a while it seemed as Martz would be the answer long term but he screwed things up. Well he did is part to screw things up but the front office was run by morons and Martz turned out to be a terrible judge of player potential. Martz wrecked Warner and they just let him go and then we had a low end QB, an inexperienced coach and a crap Front Office and we entered into the dark years. 15 years of futility with inexperienced coaches and a front office that couldn't put a decent roster together despite consistently picking at the top of the draft. We finally got to draft a QB in Sam Bradford but in the end he was injury prone and not very good. Fisher came on board and I think he was over the FO and we brought a young unprove Les Snead on board and almost fought our way from futility to medicorcy, Almost.
Then we Got rid of Fisher and Les was in charge of finding a coach and he goes and picks an offensive coordinator who just started shaving. Les was on shaky ground due to the Fisher futility but he showed he had a big set and sold the hire ups on McVay. McVay turns out to be a prodigy and Les turns out to be a heck of a GM once he is out of the control of Fisher. 5 great seasons McSnead put together and they were set to make another run until the wheels fell off and he offensive line got decimated with Injuries. What a shame and they where never able to recover.
But I have hope for next season, hope of contending for a playoff spot and once you get into the playoffs anything can happen. I look at our potential Roster and we have a great QB, Great WR with a lot more proven depth, TE is a Question, but the offensive line should be solid when everyone comes back and with more proven experience. RB with Akers and Williams & a draft pick should be okay. On defense the Dline will loose ARob and/or Gaines but there are a lot of young guys that are stepping up. On the Edge we are developing talent to compliment Floyd and we may be okay there too. Inside LB is exceptional. The defensive backfield will loose a bunch of players but last years investment in young players will help fill the void at safety and CB where we will most likely loose Hill, Long, Rapp & Scott.
I suspect we will get some comp picks so we should have a decent amount of picks. There is no reason why we shouldn't contend next season. We are not going back to the dark ages and while we will probably need to rebuild after next season things are different with McSnead running the show. They will figure out how to get us back on top again or at least that is what I believe.
So yes this season sucked but I have hope. Did you have hope with Fisher? Steve Spagnola? No there was no hope except that at some point the nightmare would end. 15 years is a long nightmare but we have a great team running the organization which should give us all hope that we will learn a lot this year while we are in the valley that will help us to reach the new mountain top and become winners again.
