5 REASONS THE RAMS COULD GO 0-16:
1. THE RAMS MUST BE CURSED
Bad draft picks, bad coaching, bad free-agent signings. And at last count, the only person on the Rams who hasn’t gotten hurt is the guy who gives out game balls, unless you count how much his imagination had to be stretched when someone told him he had to give one to somebody every week no matter what.
I wish we had some exotic name for whatever it is that ails the ’07 Rams, such as “The Curse of the Bambino” or “The Curse of the Billy Goat.”
Maybe it’s “The Curse of Deacon Jones,” who must be awful mad every time he sees Claude Terrell wearing his No. 75 jersey.
2. NO MORE HOME-FIELD ADVANTAGE
Playing at home used to be the ultimate home-field advantage for the Rams.
Now the team can’t sell out home games, and the biggest applause is for the opposing team’s quarterback who hasn’t played here in four years.
With five home games remaining, the chances of several more TV blackouts are growing rapidly. At least three “home” games (Cleveland, Green Bay and Pittsburgh) could have 20,000 fans from the visiting team.
And the Rams fans who do bother to show up probably will be booing everything except the halftime show.
3. THE RAMS CAN’T SCORE
If the Rams continue producing such incredibly impotent offensive shows (averaging 12 points a game), they can’t possibly win.
I can’t understand how an NFL team can manage every week to find so many ways to stay out of the end zone.
4. LOSING IS CONTAGIOUS
Once the momentum of losing gets started, it’s sometimes impossible to stop. Strange things begin happening, such as players sensing a coach is a lame duck.
Linehan’s greatest challenge (other than trying to figure a way to score more than one touchdown every other week) is making sure that he doesn’t lose his players.
If they start to feel he’s toast, the impact could be deadly.
5. WHO CAN FIX IT?
The absolute biggest problem the Rams have as they continue on this downward spiral is that the people who are expected to fix the problem are the ones who caused the problem.
If you’re waiting on team president-general manager Jay Zygmunt to come up with a cogent plan, let me remind you that he’s the guy who was in charge of drafting the players who aren’t playing well, signing the free agents who aren’t playing well and hiring the coach who these players aren’t responding to. And now we’re supposed to be giddy about his next master plan?
I’m not sure which way this season will end, but I do know this for sure: Regardless of whether it’s 0-16, 3-13 or 4-12, this once-proud franchise has disintegrated into an atrocious nightmare with no foreseeable end in sight. <SCRIPT language=JavaScript type=text/javascript><!-- ctxt_ad_interface = 'http://cm.npc-lee.overture.com/js_1_0/'; ctxt_ad_width = 468; ctxt_ad_height = 60; ctxt_ad_source = 'npc_lee_stlouispostdispatch_t2_ctxt'; ctxt_ad_config = '3514931570'; ctxt_ad_id = 'sports'; ctxt_ad_type = 'sports'; ctxt_ad_url = 'http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/sports/columnists.nsf/bryanburwell/story/21BDC58C7F52AB698625737600150B58?OpenDocument'; ctxt_ad_bc = '9BBDC5'; // cell border color ctxt_ad_cc = 'FFFFFF'; // cell background color ctxt_ad_lc = '002CD9'; // cell text-title color ctxt_ad_tc = '002CD9'; // cell text-description color ctxt_ad_uc = '339933'; // cell text-sitehost color// --></SCRIPT><SCRIPT language=JavaScript src="http://cm.npc-lee.overture.com/partner/js/ypn.js" type=text/javascript></SCRIPT>