The Rams were able to accomplish quite a few things over the weekend. We won consecutive games for the first time in two years (listen to me say "we" now that we're good). We doubled our win total from last season. We exposed Pete Carroll and the Seahawks for the joke they are this season, beating them for the first time in our last 11 tries. Steven Jackson, playing hurt, passed Marshall Faulk on the Rams' all time rushing yards list and has only Eric Dickerson ahead of him (by only 254 yards). We came into a three way tie for first place in the NFC West. Man, it's a good time to be a Rams fan.
While the Rams put up 20 points of offense (Gibson and Darby caught TD passes from Bradford, while Josh Brown kicked two FGs), it was the defense that was the real story. Held to just 3 points by the STL defense, the Seahawks had just 64 rushing yards and 193 passing yards. STL created two turnovers, sacked Hasslebeck 4 times, and brought pressure through the visiting team's offense line effortlessly. The defense held Seattle to a 4 for 15 mark on third downs, and stuffed them twice on fourth down tries. Fletcher got the pick, Hall forced a fumble along with two sacks (easily earning the LSF defensive player of the game award), and Dahl and King led the way with 6 tackles each (all solo). We were a force on D, against a bad team that the media likes to overrate, so take that for what it's worth.
The offense did enough to win, and I'm not sure what more we could want, the way we've played over the past 3+ years. Sam Brad wasn't perfect, but seems to be progressing, and hung tough despite 4 sacks. He went 23/41 for 289 yards with the aforementioned 2 TDs and a pick. Again, not great, but good enough. He's taking knocks and getting back up, showing he's a "good" NFL rookie (not "great," as we explored in the previous Rams post). Meanwhile, Jackson, who admitted to not being 100%, finished with 70 on the ground and 54 in the air. Is anyone else shocked that he's been on this team for 7 years? Markie Mark Clayton, Brad's favorite weapon, led the team with 74 yards on 5 grabs, but Darby and Gibson had the TD snags. The TD pass to Darby was a sign that St. Louis is getting better in the coaching department. Bradford found Darby on a designed screen play after the Seattle defensive line was getting pressure on nearly every down. It worked perfectly. Again, the offense isn't one of the best in the NFL by any stretch, but I'm starting to believe it's easily the best in the division...by far. I'm just not sure if that says something great about my Rams, or just something awful about the NFC West.
In honor of Steven Jackson moving up to second on the all time Rams rushing list, and because he's a real stud on the field even when he's not 100%, I thought we'd sneak a peak into his stat file to explore how he's doing so far this year, how he's done in his now 7 years with the Rams, and how he compares among the top three Rams rushers of all time.
So far, in 4 games, Jackson has amassed 284 yards on the ground, 116 yards in the air, and 1 TD. When you factor in stats like Y/A (yards per attempt) and Y/G (yards per game), we can compare his start this year to his previous campaigns. His Y/A is currently 3.9 (the lowest of his career) and his Y/G is 71.0 (3rd lowest of his career). However, his attempts per game (18.3) is also his third lowest of his career, so that can be factored in (and is most likely caused by not being 100%). In contrast, his receiving game has picked up. His Y/G of 29 is the third highest of his career, and his Y/R (yards per reception) is the second highest of his career. So far this year (compared to the NFL at large), Steven is ranked 9th in rushing attempts, 10th in rushing yards, and 7th in touches. For all you fantasy geeks out there, Jackson is currently ranked 17th for his position, and has a VBD (which is "Value Based Drafting," and takes the players fantasy points and subtracts the fantasy points of a "baseline" player, making it the fantasy football equivalent of baseball's WAR or RAR) of +12 (for comparison, RB Chris Johnson is a +29 and RB Frank Gore is a +31 this season). Clearly, he has a ways to go this year, and hopefully getting healed up will help him do that.
But, now that he has moved ahead of Marshall Faulk and probably just a couple of games behind Eric Dickerson on the Rams' all time rushing list, how does his Rams career compare with those two greats? Thankfully, Pro-Football-Reference.com has developed a couple of ways for us to compare across eras, and we'll use their help to compare our three rushing greats. First, they have created a stat called "Approximate Value," (AV) which is a complex stat that attempts to derive a value to each player's season, much like the value stats we all love in baseball (WAR, RAR, VORP, etc). As an example, Steven Jackson's best season in terms of AV was his 2006 Pro Bowl season where he finished with an AV of 19. It's a cumulative stat, much like WAR, and helps take into account different eras and the like. We'll be using "total AV" over each player's time with the Rams, "average AV" to provide an approximate per season mark, and the afrorementioned VBD (total and average for each player's time with the Rams) to compare our top three rushers.
Steven Jackson: Total AV of 57, average AV of 9.5, total VBD of 358, and average VBD of 59.67.
Marshall Faulk: Total AV of 98, average AV of 14, total VBD of 699, and average VBD of 99.9.
Eric Dickerson: Total AV of 56, average AV of 11.2, total VBD of 727, and average VBD of 145.4.
The first thing that jumps out is that these three players are amazing. The second is the conflict presented between the Average AV and the Average VBD in trying to determine who is better between Faulk and Dickerson. What is made clear, by both stats, is the fact that Steven Jackson has a ways to go if he wants to be seen in the history books as equally valuable to either Faulk or Dickerson during their time with the franchise.
Now, because I'm all about full disclosure, I'd like to present Julius Jones' AV and VBD, because as a Notre Dame fan I wanted the Rams to draft him over Jackson.
Jones: Total AV of 41, average AV of 6.83, total VBD of 8, and average VBD of 1.33.
See? I can admit when I'm wrong. Even if it takes me 6 years.
My 2-2 Rams get the Lions next week, as our quest to triple our win total from last season gets underway. The Lions were the ONLY team we beat last season, and even though this game is in Michigan, I'm SHOCKED that Vegas has the Lions as 3 point favorites and that the over/under is 43. I don't see how you don't bet the Rams and the under in this one. At 0-4, despite three of their losses being by less than a TD (two of them by a FG or less), the Lions don't scare me much. Maybe I'm just high off of a two game winning streak.
Let's show some Lion-type courage, and win in the Motor City.
-- Sent from my Palm Prē
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