Rams Won’t Replace Suspended Gregg Williams

The first wave of the bounty gate punishments are in, and like we all suspected, the St. Louis Rams newly hired defensive coordinator, Gregg Williams, has been indefinitely suspended from the NFL. His former head coach, Sean Payton, was slapped with a one-year suspension, so even if Williams wins any sort of appeal or gets and specific date on when he can coach again, don’t expect Williams to be on the Rams sideline during any of the 2012 NFL season.

In recent seasons, Gregg Williams has been touted as one of the leagues best defensive coordinators. He helped the Saints win a Super Bowl, established a quality defense while with the Redskins, and the St. Louis Rams were hoping for him to bring his magic to St. Louis. However, like most magic, their is a trick behind what makes it look so legit, and for Williams, his magic was a bounty system that paid players for injuring the opposing teams players.

Although their is plenty of time for Jeff Fisher and the St. Louis Rams to reconsider, it was reported that Fisher plans on having the Rams us a “collective effort” to coach the defense. This is in lieu of hiring another coach or appointing one of the current assistant coaches to take over the position Williams is leaving behind.

The Rams may feel cheated and punished for having no part of Williams past actions that have forced the NFL’s Roger Goodell to flex his muscles and send a message to the rest of the league, the Rams should at least be thankful this came to light prior to Gregg Williams getting the Rams in trouble as well.

St. Louis Rams Sign CB Cortland Finnegan

The St. Louis Rams just took a large chunk of change out of their pockets to pay the recently released corner back from the Tennessee Titans, Cortland Finnegan. The Rams and Finnegan agreed to a five year deal worth approximately $50 million. Finnegan is known around the league as a great corner back, but is also considered a dirty player by many of the players that have crossed his path, just look back at what happened between Finnegan and Andre Johnson in the 2010 NFL season. Some consider this a great building block for Fishers defense, but others question the move after all the attention their new defensive coordinator, Gregg Williams, has received regarding bounty-gate.

The Rams have been trying to build a quality defense for the past several years, and the St. Louis Rams believe that they may finally have the corner stone player to their defense.

Rams Defensive Coach Greg Williams to know his fate soon

New Orleans’s Saint Defensive Coordinator Gregg Williams and former head coach of the Buffalo Bills is expected to know his fate this week as the NFL will decide what punishment is best in regards to the bounty scandal he was involved in.  It is possible that the bounty scandal which was said to take place in the 2009, 2010, and 2011 season, would lead to the suspension of Saints General manager, Coach, and a number of players.

When the NFL meets with the players’ union this week about the bounty, they will announce penalties that would most likely mean the Saints would lose their draft pick and be fine heavily.  The punishment for Gregg Williams who has been the face of this scandal is expected to be strict due to support within the league calling for a lifetime ban, or long term suspension, meaning he will be out for a season or more.

Looking for a way to show your Rams pride.  Why not hang St. Louis Rams Flags  on the outside of your house.

Rams Ready to Deal Second Pick

With the second overall pick in the 2012 NFL Draft, and with their Franchise QB already developing right before their eyes, the Rams are in a great position to trade down to a team that desperately wants RGIII. Just look at what the Chargers were able to get from the Giants in the 2004 NFL Draft when they traded the first overall pick (Eli Manning) for the Fourth pick, third and fifth round picks, and the first round pick the next season. If the Rams can convince and of the top ten teams desperately willing to trade a boat load of picks in order to acquire the top prospect RGIII, the Rams would be a great position to add a lot of young talent and depth to their team.

Not many people are exploring the idea that the St. Louis Rams could have any interest in drafting RGIII, but that likely has to do with the confidence they have in Sam Bradford to continue to develop into an elite QB. One thing Bradford needs for sure is some talented offensive linemen and a quality target on the outside if they are unable to retain Brandon Lloyd.

Jeff Fisher New Rams Head Coach

After about two weeks of negotiating with Fisher, he finally chose the Rams over the Dolphins to become the new head coach.  There were a variety of reasons of why he may have made the decision of St. Louis over Miami, but it seems as though hand picking the front office may have been the crucial point.  Miami did not want to get rid of GM Jeff Ireland.  Billy Devaney is already out in St. Louis, so it is likely that Fisher will have a strong hand in who ends up as the new general manager.  The presence of a franchise quarterback in Sam Bradford likely helped, as well as the number 2 overall pick in Aprils draft.

Of course Jeff Fisher is a very well known guy around football.  He spent 16 seasons as the Titans Head Coach, even when they were back in Houston as the Oilers.  He had a 147-126 record as a head coach, including a 5-6 postseason record.  He won the AFC Championship once, back in 1999, where he was just a yard short from beating his new team.  I have to imagine that he has a short list of coaches that he wants to fill his staff out with, so it likely won’t take long.  It will be interesting to see who his favorite for GM is, but I’d also imagine he has a good idea of who he wants.

Rams Lose; Spags Fired

In the final game of the season, the Rams scored 27 points but still lost to the NFC West Champion 49ers.  The game was out of hand for most of the game, but two touchdowns in the final 5 minutes made it a 7 point game.  The day after the loss, head coach Steve Spagnuolo was fired, along with GM Billy Devaney.  It is hard to pin the blame on just one guy after a year of huge disappointment.  Last year the Rams won 7 games and nearly made the playoffs before falling to Seattle in the final game of the season.  Going into this season, may saw the Rams as favorites to win the NFC West with Offensive Rookie of the Year Sam Bradford leading the team.  However, injuries to many of the team including Bradford himself proved to be damning, and St. Louis could never really recover.  The Rams were also plagued with one of the toughest schedules in the league.  In the first 8 games, they played a team that ended up with at least a .500 record.  In fact, the entire season, only 4 of the Rams opponents had records below .500 and that includes two games against the 7-9 Seahawks.

Bradford proved his critics right this year who labeled him as a fragile QB.  He played in only 10 games this season, including missing the last 3.  It is unknown whether or not Bradford could have played in the last few games if the games had any meaning, but there was no point in playing the franchise QB at anything less than 100%.  The wide receivers also kept falling like flies.  Mark Clayton, Danny Amendola, and Greg Salas were all lost to injury, Austin Pettis was suspended at the end of the season, and Mike Sims-Walker turned out to be an awful signing.  The only good, constant receiver on the team was Brandon Lloyd who was traded for midway through the season.  It was very apparent early in the season that the Rams front office didn’t put enough weapons around Bradford.

The running game remained solid, but Steven Jackson can only do so much.  He had yet another 1000 yard season despite the rest of the offenses struggles.  The RB position shouldn’t garner much attention this offseason, but most others will.  First things first is finding a new head coach.  Gruden’s name has been brought up, but he has remained adamant about staying in the booth for ESPN.  Jeff Fisher’s name has also been mentioned, but he also getting interest from Tampa Bay.  If the Rams do decide to go after a head coach with experience, Brian Billick, Bill Cowher, and Tony Dungy could be brought up in discussion.  The Rams should get some serious consideration from a lot of teams because of the fact that they do have Bradford.  He is a more attractive choice to start at QB than most other places with coaching vacancies.

A new GM is also going to have to surround Bradford with some better weapons.  Brandon Lloyd worked well with Bradford and the other Ram QB’s this season, but has an attachment to Josh McDaniels.  He won’t be back, so it will be interesting to see which way he heads.  There is no telling where McDaniels will land, and if that spot will be interested in Lloyd as well.  So I won’t close the door on Lloyd yet, and I’d imagine the Rams new management will make some effort to retain the starting wideout.

St. Louis also has the luxury of having the second overall pick.  The first pick is almost certain to be Luck to the Colts, but St. Louis has a lot of options at number 2.  There has been some rumblings that they may look to trade out of the spot to allow a team to trade up for Heisman winner Robert Griffin III.  The Rams don’t have a need for the QB, and if does end up graded as the second best prospect in the country, there should be no shortage of interest for teams to move into the Rams spot.  They won’t want to move back too far though, as they will want to take one of the top talents as well.  If they keep the pick, they could look to solidify the line with OT Matt Kalil.  Kalil is a dominating left tackle out of USC, and should be the first lineman off the board.  If they want to bring in another play maker for Bradford, Justin Blackmon will likely be the top receiver taken.  They could also look to improve their secondary by going after CB Claiborne from LSU, who has been described as a shutdown corner.  The offseason will be interesting for St. Louis, which will help make up for a dismal regular season.