I wandered into a sister-in-law's friend's house on Sunday, and just happened to find that they had NFL Sunday Ticket. Rejoice, I had an opportunity to catch my second Rams game of the year! No, no I didn't. The husband of the house was too busy watching the Jags game, following his various fantasy players (dork) to even give me a little look of the Rams match. Lucky for me, FOX loves to do tons of in game highlights, and I got to see some impressive moments, as my boys shocked everyone with a 30-16 win over Washington. Yes, it was the most points ever scored in the Spags era. Yes, we put the game away with Steven Jackson and his groin on the sideline. Yes, I celebrated the win later that night with a Double Daddy IPA at the Yard House. Yes!
The Rams opened up amazingly strong in the game. A 42 yard TD sprint by the soon to be injured Jackson started things, and just about three minutes later Danny Fells caught a TD pass to double our pleasure. As you know, we did our usual second quarter meltdown, but somehow ended up on top 14-13 heading into the second half. Now, the meltdown usually lasts long enough for us to be well out of the game by the time we start moving the ball again with 3 minutes to go in the fourth quarter, but this game was different. In for Jackson, Ken Darby was outstanding. His 12 yard TD run put us ahead late in the third, and we'd stay there for good. Josh Brown finished with 3 fourth quarter field goals as the defense hung tough, and carried us to a nice win over a nice team (clearly our biggest challenge so far).
The Rams were impressive in the clutch, going 7 for 16 on third downs and 2 for 2 on fourth. Despite our 9 penalties for 99 yards, we kept the turnover margin at an even 2, and that really helped tip things in our favor. Sam Bradford went 23 for 37 in (arguably) his best game of the year, airing it out for 235 yards, a TD, and an INT. Despite going down to injury, Jackson led the team with 58 yards on the grass, but Darby was more impressive (to me) with 49 yards on 14 carries. He was moving the ball short distances, but he kept grinding like a champ. No surprise that Sam-Brad's favorite target, Markie Mark Clayton led the team with 85 in the air, but Fells made me proud with the lone TD snag. Unlikely heroes are always fun. Can we throw the ball to Gilyard more? One catch for 7 yards isn't enough action for me. On defense, Hall got the only sack on McNabb, while Diggs forced a fumble, and Big Boy Fletch snagged the lone pick. Not a shock that Laurinaitis led the squad with 7 tackles (6 solo). If only he didn't go to Ohio State, I could like him so much more.
I think we can finally give some love to Spags and the rest of the Ramies coaching staff. We ride them all the time for subpar coaching out there, but they clearly outcoached the Redskins in this one. When you lose your star on offense, not to mention on defense (Atogwe also went down), it takes some impressive play calling and strategy changing to win a game. The Rams coaches did just that, and that's why we were able to prevail.
The 1-2-0 Rams are no longer in last place! With the 49'ers behind us, we sit just 1 game back of Seattle and Arizona in the weak, weak West. Also, we have already matched our win total from last season! Hip, hip, hooray! Next Sunday is a big one, as we welcome the first place Seattle Carroll-Hawks to the Ed Jones' Dome. You kind of have to give it to Seattle after their win against the Chargers on Sunday, however, they wouldn't have won without two kickoff returns for TDs. So, are the really that good, or is it just lucky special teams work that helped them steal the game? Their only other win is against the 9'ers, and they got jacked up by Denver, so I'm not sure they are really any good. I guess we'll find out come Sunday. The Hawks are currently 1.5 point favorites according the Vegas...clowns.
Everyone who reads this blog obviously knows about BaseballReference.com, one of the best baseball statistical websites around (in my humble opinion). But, did you know there is a "Reference" site for the NBA, NHL, NCAAB, NCAAF, NFL, and even the Olympics? All of the sites are run fairly similar to the baseball version we all know and love, and really pump out quality stats. I thought I'd jog on over to the NFL version (Pro-Football-Reference.com), and see if Sam Bradford is as good as he seems to the naked eye. Here's a hint: he isn't.
Just starting out with regular stats, Sammy is 9th in the NFL in passes completed and 7th in passes attempted. He's ranked 3rd in passes intercepted with 5 in 3 games. His fantasy rank within his position, for all you dorks out there, is 20th. That's so un-Bulger.
Now, we'll have a little more fun with their Advanced Passing Statistics. Pro-Football-Reference.com has a number of "index" stats where a 100 rating would be average, and the more over 100 you are, the more above average you are. For example, Peyton Manning's Passing TD % index (passing TD/passing attempt placed onto an index where 100 is average, 120-130 is league leader, and 140+ is greatest of all time stuff) is 128 this season. Meanwhile, Jason Campbell's TD%+ (short hand for the aforementioned Passing TD % index) is 79. They have indexed stats for everything from "Adjusted Net Yards Per Attempt" to "Passer Rating Index" all based on the same scale (100 average, 120-130 league leader, etc). I guess it could kind of be used an a NFL equivalent to baseball's VORP/WAR stats in a way, only league average is clearly better than the ficticious replacement player from baseball. Anyway, my point in explaining all of that is a) I'm probably going to be referencing the stats on this site more often in my Rams posts (because I'm a stats nerd) and b) to set up Sam Bradford's current index stats.
The ONLY index stat where Sam Bradford rates above average (or even close to average, for that matter) is in the Sack Percentage Index (SK%+) where he rates a 106. This shows that he gets sacked on about 4.9% of his attempted passing plays (it's sacks/(passing attempts+sacks)), which is better (in this case, less often) than the league average. That's really a testiment to his offensive line helping him out, as well as his ability to get the ball off fast. But, that's about it. The lowlights of his other index stats are his Rate+ of just 87 (by the way, Rate+ really makes the QB rating stat more accessible, to me, by putting it on an index. Knowing he's an 87 while 100 is average is much better than just knowing his QB rating is 68.1 and not having a reference point), his Y/A+ of 80 (yards/attempt on the index), his INT%+ of 89 (interceptions/attempt on the index), and his CMP%+ of 95 (completions/attempt on the index).
Clearly, while we've all been having fun watching Sam Bradford develop, and while we've all been fooling ourselves into thinking he's already something special, he's still below average in all but one category. I expect him, of course, to finish the season much better than it has started (although, this will depend heavily on his receivers catching the ball), but I also remember that he's just a rookie, and I can take solice in the fact that he's been much better than Jimmy Clausen (#39 in fantasy position ranking)!
Despite all that, I'm still pulling for the big "upset" over Seattle.
-- Sent from my Palm Prē
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