Hey everybody. I have had completely no time this week to post about the Rams first win so I apologize for that. Unfortunately, I still lack much time to post anything with much subject matter so I’m going to whore out and post something from a different blog that I wrote last Friday. I’ll be back sometime next week with bye week musings. You can find the original post of my story here. I also suggest you check out some of the other things Turf Show Times has to offer, it’s a great site. Have a great weekend everyone.

The State of the Team

About ten years ago, the Rams were emerging as perennial front runners in the league after 10 years of just plain bad football. Some guy named Kurt Warner was throwing the ball to some rookie receiver named Torry Holt and newly acquired running back Marshall Faulk was running all over the place. The Rams were scoring at a record pace, and life was good.

The Rams obviously won the Super Bowl that year and gave some of us the best Rams memories we have to date. I remember the Super Bowl like it was yesterday, and would give anything to return to those days of downright awesome football. The passing game was good, the run game was good, the defense was good. Hell, even the special teams were good with Jeff Wilkins in his prime (if there’s such a thing for kickers) and Tony Horne returning kicks. Those were the days.

That team was coached by none other than Dick Vermeil. If you remember correctly, some fans were calling for Vermeil’s head after the ‘98 season. They believed he had run his course and the Rams hadn’t gotten any better with Tony Banks et al playing for the team. Well, management stuck with Vermeil and finally gave him something to work with in the offseason. As mentioned, they went out and traded for both Marshall Faulk and Trent Green. We all know how the Trent Green story ended, but it signaled to Vermeil and the rest of the team that this front office was willing to do something for the benefit of the team.

Not only did those acquisitions help, but the Rams were drafting well. The first few drafts may not show it (with really only Kevin Carter and Ernie Conwell to brag about the first three years or so), but when the team got the first overall pick in the 1997 draft, the “hits” started coming. In the next three years (’97, ‘98, and ‘99 drafts), the Rams drafted Orlando Pace, Dexter McCleon, Ryan Tucker, Grant Wistrom, Robert Holcombe, Leonard Little, Az Hakim, Roland Williams, Torry Holt, Dre Bly, Rich Coady, and Cameron Spikes. All within three years. If you remember, all of those players were key members of the Super Bowl team.

If you look back on it, it makes sense that the Rams were able to have such a successful tenure for the time they did. After three drafts like that, it’s easy to see why the Rams were able to turn it around so quickly. Obviously Kurt Warner coming out of nowhere and acquiring Marshall Faulk helped tremendously, but the team was honestly built on the superb drafting of the past three years, which is no surprise.

Anyway, as I’m sure you all know, Vermeil “retired” after winning the Super Bowl that year and Mike Martz was handed the team. The defense sucked in 2000 before Lovie Smith arrived and the Rams exited the playoffs in the first round. Lovie Smith turned it around during the offseason that year before putting the best team I’ve ever seen on the field in 2001. The Rams suffered a fluke year in 2002 before turning it around in 2003. That team went 12-4 and had a heartbreaking loss to the Panthers in the second round.

However, a disturbing trend was developing that a lot of us were oblivious to at the time. Rams draft picks since 1999 were either not playing or not on the team anymore. The ones that were able to make the team for a couple years simply were not performing well. After the Super Bowl, the Rams took Trung Candiate with their first pick. Also drafted that year was Jacoby Shepard and John St. Clair. The next three years, the Rams drafted Damione Lewis, Adam Archuleta, Ryan Pickett, Tommy Polley, Jerametrius Butler, Robert Thomas, Lamar Gordon, Chris Massey, Jimmy Kennedy, Pisa Tinoisamoa, Kevin Curts, Shaun McDonald, DeJuan Groce, and Kevin Garrett.

Some of these picks were good picks, don’t get me wrong. But none of these picks (except maybe Ryan Pickett) turned out to be great players. If you look at the 1997-1999 drafts, the Rams drafted great players. In the 2000-2003 drafts, the Rams drafted good-but-not great players. In tune with that, the Rams had some good-but-not-great years. In 2004, the team went 8-8 and had a second round blowout loss to the superior Falcons team. The 2004 draft reaped both Steven Jackson and Brandon Chillar, but the rest of the draft was terrible. The 2005 team was a team in transition with Martz sick most of the year and went 6-10. Martz was fired after the year was complete and the team moved forward.

Then it just got ugly. After Martz was fired, Jay Zygmunt and John Shaw rose to the top in the organization and were making all the football decisions, even though they were businessmen in LA. The oversaw the hiring process in 2005, and came upon Scott Linehan. I’m not going to go into detail about him, because we all know how that turned out. Linehan was able to reap the benefits of a great 2005 draft (OJ Atogwe, Ron Bartell, Richie Incognito, Alex Barron, and Madison Hedgecock) as well as a declining base of talent from the younder days to go 8-8 in 2006 and almost make the playoffs. The front office felt good, as they believed this was due to good drafting and Scott Linehan’s good coaching.

Then it got really ugly. The 2006 draft produced Tye Hill, Joe Klopfenstein, Claude Wroten, Dominique Byrd, Victor Adeyanju, Marques Hagans, and Mark Setterstrom. The 2007 team went 3-13. The 2007 draft produced Adam Carriker, Brain Leonard, Johnathan Wade, Clifton Ryan, and Derek Stanley. Hardly something to write home about. The 2008 team went 2-14. The 2008 draft produced Chris Long, Donnie Avery, Keenan Burton, Justin King, John Greco, Chris Chamberlain, and David Vobora. The jury is still out on this draft, but currently the 2009 team is 0-7 and simply not compeitive, but this is due to years of poor drafting by the team.

After the 2008 season, the Rams cleared house. Linehan was gone, Zygmunt was gone, Shaw was in a severley reduced role, and much of the roster over the age of 30 was let go. Billy Devaney was promoted and now oversees all the drafts the Rams make. The 2009 draft produced Jason Smith, James Laurinaitis, Bradley Fletcher, Brooks Foster, and Keith Null. Obviously the jury is still out on this draft, and we will see what they have in them next year.

What was left for Steve Spagnuolo et al in 2009 was a roster devoid of much any talent not named Steven Jackson. Spagnuolo knew what he was getting himself into, and he was fine with that. Otherwise, he would not have taken the job. Years and years of poor drafting had caught up to the Rams, and he knew it was going to be rebuilding time for the depleted team. Some players from previous drafts are still producing for the Rams (2005 most notably), and are some of the better players on the team. But the overall failure of drafting is extremely evident on the team today.

My point here is that the NFL is all about drafting. You can lie to yourself and others that it’s mostly about coaching and/or free agency, but that’s simply not true. The more young, great, NFL quality players you can bring in through a draft is the better team you’re going to have down the line, five or ten years from the fact. The reason the Rams were good from 1999-2003 was because of those three great drafts in the late ’90s. The reason the Rams are terrible now is because of terrible drafts since then.

Steve Spagnuolo was hired to oversee this rebuilding process. With him and Devaney in charge, I’m confident the drafts and subsequently the play of the team will improve. But you can’t build in an empire overnight. This rebuilding process is going to take 3-5 years before you can honestly say the Rams are back to where they should be. I would argue the Rams started that process with a decent draft last year and a decent draft this year, but that remains to be seen.

With that being said, there’s no reason to be calling for Spagnuolo’s, Devaney’s, or anybody else’s head right now. Everyone knew what could happen this year, and unfortunately it has. Has it been a little worse than expected? Of course. But are the Rams still making the commitment to move forward with the team and reverse the trends of poor drafting the past 8 years? Yes.

And that’s why I remain optimistic. If you look at the Rams on paper, they are a piss poor team. I know that, you know that, and Peter King knows that. But if you look at what they are trying to do, they are succeeding. That’s why I take the actual results of the game lightly and instead look at how the team played. For example, I don’t care if the Rams lost the game if it means that Steven Jackson, James Lauranaitis, and Jason Smith had good games but Marc Bulger threw three pick-sixes. Marc Bulger isn’t the future of the team, James Lauranaitis is. You have to look at this year with an eye to the future, and that’s what I’m able to do. This year is a lost cause is the won-loss coulmn obviously, but it’s not a lost cause to developing players and getting them some experience. It’s pointless to keep hoping for this team that’s so devoid of talent to succeed because you know they’re not. However, it’s not pointless to hope for a big game from a young player the next game, because you know that big game could actually mean something one or two years down the line.

In the culture of what have you done for me lately, the Rams are easy to target. I don’t think everybody should be as optimistic as I am, but I think everyone should at least have a realistic view of where the team is at the moment and where they are going. You can’t blame today’s regime for yesterday’s mistakes, but you can hope today’s regime will fix today’s problems and become yesterday’s problem.

all draft information courtesy stlouisrams.com