Well folks, we scored a TD this week (note pic)…but we do have a lot to break down, and my “expert” notes from watching Rams @ Redskins has plenty of good, bad, and ugly to go around.  This week, I’ll start with the U-G-L-Y.

The Ugly: Donnie Avery stands out this week for the Rams’ ugly performance.  At one point in my notes, I wrote, “Where is 17?  Big problem.”  He finally stood out; when Steven Jackson busted a huge 68 yard run and Donnie did a useless block in the back that brought back some of those yards, and when the Rams were driving for the go-ahead score with a fumble around the 6 yard line.  Granted, it was a good play by Chris Horton to put his helmet on the ball, but it just didn’t look good.  Avery was supposed to be the gamebreaker.  The big gun.  The deep threat.  He’s not been any of those things, just locked down basically.  Maybe his foot hasn’t healed, because I don’t remember seeing him on any deep routes for the past 2 weeks – Laurent Robinson has been handling those.  But something is not right here, and it very well could be the same issue the Rams have on offense that I mentioned last week – no continuity.  Avery missed the preseason with his broken foot and Bulger missed most of the preseason with a broken pinkie.  It’s going to take some time for these two to get back into sync, but Donnie Avery was the epitome of ugly against the Redskins.

You know what else was ugly?  Clock management and timeout management.  Why in the world were there no timeouts available midway through the 4th quarter?  It alters playcalling in the Rams first legitimate chance to come from behind and win a game in what feels like eons, and we go back to Martz-style poor clock management without the Martz-style, high-flying offense that can overcome the lack of time.  Granted, Spags is a rookie head coach and so are both of his coordinators, but this is something that I’ve noticed the past couple of weeks – they just aren’t making sound decisions with the time and more importantly, with the timeouts.  The Rams may have young talent holding them back from time to time, but the coaching staff is also young and like the rest of the organization, this will improve with time and experience.  But until it improves, it’s markedly UGLY.

The Bad (or not Ugly): Penalties, yet again, show up on the week’s performance issues.  It went down from 10 to 6, but they would come at costly times, and usually on the offensive line.  Alex Barron got beat horribly one play and had to hold to keep Bulger from being battered (but he was anyway, more on that later).  On a huge 3rd and 1, Daniel Fells had a false start that thwarted what was a 5 yard gain by Jackson on a toss away from Fells’ side!  The drive killing penalties are beginning to really impact the offense, and that has to be righted ASAP.

Something else that needs righting, or should I say someone, is Randy McMichael.  We figured he’d be primed for a good season after being injured all of last year.  He dropped passes.  Right in his hands, and it’d slip to the ground.  McMichael is essentially the most historically established receiving threat on the Rams right now.  It’d behoove him to showcase that and make a play or two, get up the seam, or at the very least don’t drop the gimmies.

Something else that was bad was the offensive line, but they weren’t quite ugly.  They did lose their prized free agent acquisition, Jason Brown, to a sprained knee, and also lost their prized 1st round pick, Jason Smith, to an injury and he will be out for at least another week.  The offensive line will not perform as well with two major players missing, though Mark Setterstrom and Adam Goldberg are both former starters and know what it takes to get the job done in the NFL.  Either way, Steven Jackson’s 100+ yards were earned by #39 more than anybody on the offensive line, and Bulger was battered and bruised, getting rocked seemingly everytime he dropped back to throw.  Last week, the Rams looked like they were at least fighting up front, but this week they were being beaten play after play after play.  Definitely bad.

And again, the pass-rush makes the list.  While the Rams finally collected their first sack, due largely to James Hall just rocking the LT of the Redskins right into Jason Campbell, but far and away the defense was on the field a lot longer than it should have been and that is the fault of the pass-rush.  Something needs to change here, because a healthy Leonard Little isn’t making much difference, and Chris Long continues to just not be an effective pass rusher.  Spags needs to dial up more blitzes or something, because the front 4 aren’t getting any push and it makes getting 3rd downs much easier for an offense.  That’s why the Redskins had 3 drives of over 10 plays; they converted on 3rd down easily.  But even though they converted, they still didn’t score a touchdown, which leads me to the (I’m not talking about Plato here) Good.

The Good: That defense is really keeping the Rams in games.  The redzone defense especially was terrific, preventing any TDs from being scored and stuffing all the running lanes for Clinton Portis.  From a defense that barely had a pulse last year, the transformation and infusion of life into this defense is paying immediate dividends.  Another forced fumble for OJ Atogwe, another turnover for the defense, and they fly to the ball.  James Laurinaitis continues to just roam the field and hit whatever’s moving, but I am a little worried about Will Witherspoon.  Where has he been?  Just an observation.  If the Rams had a pass-rush, they would be a top 15 defense.  I firmly believe this.  The secondary is playing good ball, with very good safety play, and the linebackers are improving.  I just wish we had a pass rush…but still, this defense really is doing a good job bending but not breaking.  Win or lose, not surrendering a touchdown is an accomplishment in the NFL, so hats off to the defense again this week.

Steven Jackson, basically single-handedly earned 104 rushing yards on 17 carries, inflated considerably by his 58 yard run early in the game.  He ran tremendously hard and it’s clear he is not dogging it on any plays.  He’s really trying to make this team competitive offensively, but he’ll need more touches and perhaps different ways to get those touches, like screens or splitting him out wide.  It’s obvious though that he’s the Rams’ top offensive weapon, and he needs to get the ball more.

Laurent Robinson has played very well the past two weeks, including catching the first touchdown of the Rams’ season on a well-done goalline fade vs. DeAngelo Hall.  Robinson used his height and made a beautiful catch on a very well-placed throw from Marc Bulger.  He’s clearly the Rams best receiver right now and will continue to get looks as long as he continues to catch the ball.

3rd down conversion percentage as well as distance were both phenomenal for the Rams this week, as they converted 6-12 3rd downs, but at one point were at 6 of 9 on 3rd down with the average distance being around 5-6 yards.  Compared to past performances, this was tremendous and Marc Bulger was a very accurate passer on 3rd downs, zipping the ball with accuracy across the middle for a few of those 3rd downs.

And you know what?  I’ll put Bulger in the Good category – he’s been very safe in what’s been a very pedestrian and conservative offense, not throwing the ball into any dangerous places and he hasn’t thrown an interception yet.  While his yards per completion are like a high school team, Bulger is playing with a lot of fire and a lot of heart.  He hasn’t appeared too gunshy this past week, and was able to zip the ball into great spots.  There was a throw he made to Laurent Robinson where Robinson hadn’t even made his break and the ball was right where it needed to be.  He hasn’t been stellar, but he hasn’t been screwing over the offense.  The WRs not getting very open, the offensive line not having continuity, and some very…questionable playcalling have hindered him, I feel.  He did overthrow a few dumpoffs though, so he too has work to do.

That’s the Good, Bad, & Ugly of Rams/Redskins – What To Watch For is up soon for Packers @ Rams this Sunday.