St. Louis Rams Inside Slant
by Sports Xchange
Last week against Miami, the Rams made two early trips inside the 20, including one where they had first down at the Dolphins' 7-yard line. In both cases, the Rams settled for field goals in a game they lost by four points, 16-12.
For the season, the Rams have made just 19 red-zone trips (the Giants have been there 59 times and the league average is 38.7) and scored five touchdowns. Offensively, the Rams have just 12 touchdowns in 12 games.
Said quarterback Marc Bulger of the red-zone woes, "Right now, that is our Achilles heel and putting up three points is not good enough. If there is one answer, we would do it or try to do it. We know we have to get in better situations. We have to be able to run the ball in the red zone and we can't take penalties. There are so many factors and we are shooting ourselves in the foot. We are not playing good football. It's as simple as that. There are a million different excuses but none of them are valid."
Coach Jim Haslett realizes it's about touchdowns, period, from anywhere on the field. He said, "We haven't scored enough touchdowns, that's the bottom line. In the last four games, we've scored one touchdown. In the last six games, we've scored three touchdowns and two of them came at the end when we were down by 14 or more. Somehow, we have to manufacture points and get to the end zone. We've only scored 12 touchdowns all year on offense. Maybe we don't have the big-play type players that we've had in the past, but there are other teams in the league that are similar to us that are finding ways to get in the end zone and we just have to try to find some ways to get there and we're not.
"We're not doing it right now. We had good drives (Sunday), a 10-play drive, a nine-play drive, a 12-play drive, and then we sputter out and we kick field goals. Somehow, we have to try to continue those drives and get some touchdowns and right now we're not doing it."
Bulger has been a part of offensive struggles since the start of the 2007 season. Asked about those problems, he said, "I think our line is playing better this year. But you can tell when (running back) Steven (Jackson) is playing and when he is not. He is that guy that can get things going and the more we have him on a week-to-week basis, we can feed off of him. Unfortunately, he has been banged up the past two years and that kind of messes up our momentum."
Bulger took most of the heat after the loss to Miami, a certain amount of it deserved, but some of the problems rested with the receivers not getting open enough consistently.
Asked about that, Haslett said, "I think it's a couple things. One, if we can loosen up the secondary you have to have a great running game, so that's No. 1. I thought the line did a great job protecting them last week. We did a lot of three-man routes, so they were doubling people. I've never seen a team get doubled as much as we do on the outside guys. So I think once we get full-go and Steven's running, he's getting his 30 touches a game, or 25, 30 touches a game, it'll loosen the secondary up and we'll get the one-on-one (matchups) that we need to get."
Overall, the entire offense, including Bulger, has to play better. Concluded Haslett, "For us to win, with the offense we have right now, we're going to have to run the ball, Marc is going to have to manage the game well. We have to do those two things. We're similar to the team we just played and that's what they do. They run the ball well, (quarterback Chad) Pennington manages the game well and right now, those are the two things we have to do to win."
SERIES HISTORY: 60th regular-season meeting. Rams lead, 30-27-2, but the Cardinals have won four consecutive games in the series, including a 34-13 win in St. Louis on Nov. 2. In the four-game winning streak, Arizona has scored 34 or more points in each game, and has outscored the Rams, 150-83.
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