St. Louis Rams 2011 Offseason Thread

[Icy Monster]

I like Sam Bradford, and think he'll be good going forward....... but he was one of the worst QB's in the NFL this year.

With the second-worst group of receivers in the NFL this year.

Rookies are all terrible. Even the best rookie seasons ever, like Peyton Manning, are still below average seasons.

Ryan had a spectacular rookie season. Maybe the best of all-time.

[TheoSqua]

I like Sam Bradford, and think he'll be good going forward....... but he was one of the worst QB's in the NFL this year.

With the second-worst group of receivers in the NFL this year.

Rookies are all terrible. Even the best rookie seasons ever, like Peyton Manning, are still below average seasons.

Ryan had a spectacular rookie season. Maybe the best of all-time.

Ok. Let's make a list of all rookie seasons that were average for a QB today. Let's say a QB rating over 80 and 3,000 passing yards. 22 QBs did that last season, so shouldn't be too hard.

Here's the list:
Matt Ryan
Jim Kelly

There's been 212 rookie QBs in NFL history that have gotten at least 100 QB passing attempts and only two would be considered even average by the standards of last season.

Even if you discount QBs from previous times, there's been 27 QBs make 250 passing attempts in their rookie season since 1995. 4 of them have had QB ratings over 80 and only one has had enough attempts to exceed 3,000 yards passing.

So your example is four tenths of a percent of all the QBs in NFL history to get a shot at starting during their rookie season. The other 99.6% of Rookies say otherwise.

Even then, Matt Ryan's rookie season, best ever. He was 11th in QB rating and 13th in passing yards. 2008 averages were QB rating of 84 and 3137 yards. Ryan was 87 and 3600. That puts him in the top 25% of QBs and above average, but he wasn't even a top 10 QB....and that's best ever.

[TGantz]

It is not true though that the Rams knew they would be drafting Bradford when they signed Feeley. Feeley was signed on March 5. Bradford did not make himself the consensus Number 1 until his pro day on March 29. At the time Suh was still a good possibility for the Rams.

Suh was still a good possibility for the Rams on draft day. The only reason everyone knew that we'd be picking him is because at the time, our only alternative that we had signed was A.J. Feeley. If they saw someone as bad as Feeley as a solution for 2010 then why wouldn't they just keep Bulger? Bulger would be better than an Anderson, Feeley, or Boller type. Feeley was a back up with a possibility of starting the first few games because we knew we'd have a rookie QB. But this is all a pointless argument. Feeley means nothing, and the Rams needed a QB. There are good D-linemen every draft. Suh will be a great DT. I think Bradford will be a really good QB. A really good QB is more important to a team's success than a great DT.

Ok. Let's make a list of all rookie seasons that were average for a QB today. Let's say a QB rating over 80 and 3,000 passing yards. 22 QBs did that last season, so shouldn't be too hard.

Here's the list:
Matt Ryan
Jim Kelly

There's been 212 rookie QBs in NFL history that have gotten at least 100 QB passing attempts and only two would be considered even average by the standards of last season.

Even if you discount QBs from previous times, there's been 27 QBs make 250 passing attempts in their rookie season since 1995. 4 of them have had QB ratings over 80 and only one has had enough attempts to exceed 3,000 yards passing.

So your example is four tenths of a percent of all the QBs in NFL history to get a shot at starting during their rookie season. The other 99.6% of Rookies say otherwise.

Even then, Matt Ryan's rookie season, best ever. He was 11th in QB rating and 13th in passing yards. 2008 averages were QB rating of 84 and 3137 yards. Ryan was 87 and 3600. That puts him in the top 25% of QBs and above average, but he wasn't even a top 10 QB....and that's best ever.

I'd say that qualifies "All rookies are terrible" as a true statement. Pretty amazing stuff.

[TheoSqua]

To underscore it even more (i'm having fun with the play index):

There have been 106 Rookie QBs with at least 200 passing attempts in their rookie season. They've combined thrown 1144 Touch Downs and 1443 Interceptions.

Only 27 of the 106 had an TD/INT ratio over 1.00. So almost 75% of rookie QBs who get at least half a season of playing time throw as many or more interceptions than touchdowns. Only two players in NFL history exceed a 2:1 td/int ratio: Dan Marino and Marc Bulger (Seven quarterbacks did it last season, so it's not easy but it's far from rare)

[Lesson]

This frustrates me a bit:

The St. Louis Rams have informed fullback Mike Karney that he is being released. Under new offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels the team is expected to use a fullback even less than it did last year, when Karney was inactive for several games.

http://www.stltoday.com/sports/football ... 2bc8b.html

Karney is a decent run blocker. He was inactive a few games because he couldn't play on ST. The guy who I think will replace him(Britt Miller) is okay, but nowhere near as good as a run blocker as Karney is.

[TheoSqua]

I wonder if it's more a courtesy to Karney than anything else.

[Socnorb11]

This frustrates me a bit:

The St. Louis Rams have informed fullback Mike Karney that he is being released. Under new offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels the team is expected to use a fullback even less than it did last year, when Karney was inactive for several games.

http://www.stltoday.com/sports/football ... 2bc8b.html

Karney is a decent run blocker. He was inactive a few games because he couldn't play on ST. The guy who I think will replace him(Britt Miller) is okay, but nowhere near as good as a run blocker as Karney is.

Didn't take McDaniels long to start dismantling the Rams.

[Lesson]

Didn't take McDaniels long to start dismantling the Rams.

No, if you followed the Rams closely this season, you could tell Karney was falling out of favor. He doesn't play ST and that's one of the reasons he was cut.

[TGantz]

Didn't take McDaniels long to start dismantling the Rams.

No, if you followed the Rams closely this season, you could tell Karney was falling out of favor. He doesn't play ST and that's one of the reasons he was cut.

He's a decent run blocker but can't really do anything else.

[Socnorb11]

Didn't take McDaniels long to start dismantling the Rams.

No, if you followed the Rams closely this season, you could tell Karney was falling out of favor. He doesn't play ST and that's one of the reasons he was cut.

Why wasn't he cut earlier?