Rams Look Terrible Against Raiders

Rams Look Terrible Against Raiders

Conventional wisdom holds that the third preseason game is the most important in evaluating an NFL team’s starters going into the regular season kickoff.  If that’s true the St. Louis Rams laid an egg against the defending worst team in the league.  

The 20-10 loss came without contributions from starters Steven Jackson and Torry Holt, but even without those two players the offensive unit should be expected to score one touchdown, something the starting unit has yet to do in this preseason.  Despite the miserable performance of the offensive team so far this preseason, head coach Scott Linehan remains confident in the team’s ability to put up points.  Playing in a resurgent NFC West this season, the Rams will need to do so.  San Francisco and Arizona are on the rise and if the team hopes to break Seattle’s stranglehold on the division title performances like last week’s can’t happen very often.  Filling in for Holt, receivers Isaac Bruce and Drew Bennett combined for seven catches and 114 yards.  Perhaps the most exciting play of the night on offense was rookie running back Brian Leonard’s hurdle of Raiders corner Fabian Washington en route to a fifteen yard gain.     

Defensively, the Rams killed themselves with bad penalties with many keeping the Raiders alive on third down and leading to points.  The team even made Raider quarterback Daunte Culpepper look like he was still at the helm of the Vikings offense in 2002 and not coming off of consecutive seasons where his star has dimmed and he has killed any poor fantasy owners unfortunate enough to have drafted him and helped ensure that he would get the starting nod in Oakland.  With five pass interference calls, the secondary, one of the defensive team’s glaring weaknesses, made a poor showing and will be on their heels when opposing teams look to exploit them in the coming season.    With a ton of work still necessary to get the secondary up to speed for the start of the season, some bright spots were apparent along the defensive front and in the linebacking corps.  Defensive end Eric Moore had two sacks and a forced fumble working with the second team and staring tackle La’Roi Glover and end James Hall also contributed with a sack each.  Starting middle linebacker Will Witherspoon recovered a Lamont Jordan fumble in the end zone with the Raiders threatening to score.  The front seven will have a hard time picking up the slack if the secondary continues to be so weak however.   

Overall, the Rams are in need of some serious adjustments going into their final preseason game with Kansas City this week.  Holt and Jackson are expected to play and the first offense needs to show that they can punch it in for six against a Chiefs team that has so far gone winless in the preseason.  To instill confidence amongst the team and the fans, the team needs a strong showing in their final dress rehearsal for their opening week game against the Carolina Panthers. 

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