LIKE A BOSS
To those outside of the St. Louis metropolitan area my beloved hometown team, the St. louis Rams, have been somewhat of a running joke for the last couple of seasons. While yes, the Rams had only won 15 games in 5 seasons, and they seem to love passing to the other team, and dropping the ball, and not scoring touchdowns,and giving up fake field goals, I argue that they are just waiting for the right time to unleash a storm of wins on the NFL; crazy fists style. If 6-6-1 (yeah we tied, we didn’t even want to win that game anyway) isn’t good enough to reach a Super Bowl I don’t know what is. Sure, to the uninterested football fan (Probably Canadians) it appears that any mildly talented Pop Warner football team could give the Rams a run for their money, but thats because they don’t know shit about football. Or America.
We have, undoubtably, the best kickers in the world. Our newest addition to the elite society that is St Louis Rams kickers (entry reserved only to those who can literally kick a football over a mountain) Greg Zuerlein aka ‘Greg the Leg’ aka ‘Z money’ aka ‘young G.z’. aka ‘Legatron’, once kicked a field goal 100 yards in the dark. He was 5. Fact. And don’t even get me started on our punter, Johnny Hekker. Hailing from the wilderness, and oft-rumored to be raised by wolves, he grew up kicking 50 pound stones at wild animals as a form of rudimentary hunting. While none of what I just wrote is even remotely true (save the raised by wolves bit), Hekker has the ability to kick a ball further than physics can explain. In scientific terms, this guy is the man.
“Ok Alex, well tell me about something about the rams other than their kickers” Pshhh fine, Canadian. I will.
Under the watchful eye of hardened coach Jeff Fisher, for whom every month is no shave November, the Rams are utilizing everything in their arsenal to win games. Most importantly in their bag of tricks, The Rams hold the element of surprise. To the other teams in the league, those who enjoy their so called “winning” and “fans”, the St. Louis Rams surely represent an easy victory. Simply put: they take us lightly. This foolhardy approach to the fearsome competitors that are the St. Louis Rams now allows us to do all sorts of un-Ram like things, like convert fake punts and score touchdowns.
And do not forget about The Steven Jackson. This guy may or not be a horse. Seriously. Dude runs over tacklers. He makes grown ass men look like they are trying to tackle a semi truck. Jackson anchors a core of veterans working to drive the Rams in to a new era of winning.
In all seriousness though, I will stand behind my team for as long as they stand by my city. Of course I wish we could return to the Greatest Show on Turf. I wish we could draft a player that St Louis could get genuinely excited about. I wish that we could protect our quarterback, keep our lines healthy, and have a receiving core that might, oh I don’t know, catch the ball from time to time. But for now I am content that we are at least not mathematically eliminated from the playoffs, and are no longer below .500 ( No lie!).
The Rams have two first round draft picks in the upcoming draft and, it seems, the ability to finally draft well. We have the makings of a franchise quarterback in Sam Bradford. We have a talented receiver in Amendola. We have a horseman (Centaur?) named Steven Jackson, a coach rocking a mustache like nobody’s business, and a defensive end who could eat most opposing quarterbacks’ small children. We are finally beginning to show that we can score touchdowns, albeit occasionally, when they matter. And more importantly than any of those tangibles, the Rams are finally starting to play with the toughness of a team that wants to win. No longer do the Rams roll over when they are scored on first. No longer do the Rams exude the kind of confidence of a YMCA youth soccer team that is losing by 5 goals. The team is finally starting to give fans something to rally around.
We’ll see you in the Super Bowl.
-ACF
Honestly, I’d have preferred we tied that second game with San Fran, so that both teams could be the first two teams to ever tie two games in a season (since the rule change in the mid-70′s). This isn’t just two teams tying each other in the same season, this is two teams tying twice in season to any opponent either game and it just happens that it was a game between the same two teams both times. (Confused? Yes, I am too. Not sure how to write that last bit). Don’t get me wrong, I am happy that we could finish above .500 and in the playoffs, but I’d rather take two ties in the same season which happen to be against the same team for the first time in NFL history and being over .500.