[/zn/]

We'll see because he still won't have Saffold or Sullivan this year, probably not Whitworth either.

And...as I am sure you will agree...no matter how good an OL coach is, he needs players, and sometimes, you're between players. Hanifan in 98 had Pace, but also Miller at guard, Weigert, and Gandy. 98 was not a good year. In 99, they dump W and G, add Timmerman, move Miller to ROT, and promote Nutten. Voila, good OL. Hanifan by then was already a legend. We;re supposed to question his coaching because they did not yet have the 99 OL in 98?

Is the standard for an OL coach that every single year their line must be top-notch, OR they're no good?

So extending that logic, McVay is not good head coaching material because in 2019 his team slipped back to 9-7?

[aeneas1]

Hanifan in 98 had Pace, but also Miller at guard, Weigert, and Gandy. 98 was not a good year. In 99, they dump W and G, add Timmerman, move Miller to ROT, and promote Nutten. Voila, good OL.

yep, that was the difference between 4 wins in '98 and a lombardi in '99...

[/zn/]

yep, that was the difference between 4 wins in '98 and a lombardi in '99...

Did I say that?

I commented only on the OL performance in its own right, aside from anything else.

It wasn't that good in 98, it was good in 99.

If nothing else that is indicated by the fact that they dumped 2 starters, shifted another starter, and brought in what was at the time one of the most expensive FAs in the NFL.

The post you're apparently responding to said they won in 99 only and solely because of the OL, but that particular post is located in some alternative universe the rest of us don't have access to. Either way the actual post in this universe did not say that.

[aeneas1]

Did I say that?

pretty much...

you have no way of knowing how successful the '98 oline would have been blocking for the '99 talent, just as you have no way of knowing how unsuccessful the '99 oline would have been blocking for the '98 "talent" - so to claim it went from bad in '98 to "viola" good in '99 by simply adding timmerman, putting a 7th rounder with 2 nfl starts under his belt next to pace, and kicking 5th round miller out to rt is pretty friggin' silly given the immense skill position talent the rams added in '99, not to mention the addition of martz.

[/zn/]

pretty much...

you have no way of knowing how successful the '98 oline would have been blocking for the '99 talent, just as you have no way of knowing how unsuccessful the '99 oline would have been blocking for the '98 "talent" - so to claim it went from bad in '98 to "viola" good in '99 by simply adding timmerman, putting a 7th rounder with 2 nfl starts under his belt next to pace, and kicking 5th round miller out to rt is pretty friggin' silly given the immense skill position talent the rams added in '99, not to mention the addition of martz.

Well no not in the least. You're trying to project your own assumptions about OL performance on to my post when in fact we could not be more different when it comes to that.

I was not talking about how "successful" the OL was measured in terms of team wins. I don't do that. I was talking about its execution and performance as a unit, taken independently. So yeah it is possible to have a below average OL on a winning team (see Seattle in some recent years) and it is possible to have a good OL on a losing team. All it takes is judging the OL in its own terms, seperate from any overall wins and losses. Which can be done and is done all the time.

In fact in PFF's year-end OL rankings, their top 10 OLs includes 2 8-8 teams (Dallas & Pitt) and 2 7-9 teams (Colts & Bux), while their bottom 10 includes 1 11-5 team (Seattle). Rams ended up with a better record than Dallas and Pitt in a tough division and their OL is ranked 29th. PFF doesn't say OL performance is entirely and only a product of the offensive system. Their rankings show that you can judge OL performance as a separate factor.

One sign that the Rams did not like the 98 OL was that they replaced it. They dumped two, shifted one, and brought in a free agent, and promoted a "ronin" guy (Nutten).

According to your take, they should not have bothered. All they needed was Warner/Green, Faulk, a healthy Bruce, and Martz and voila--no need to pay so much for Timmerman, no need to adjust the OL at all. In fact with that kind of firepower that might have been true. But they didn't do it that way. Their own judgment--and that includes the judgment of a legendary OL coach---was that regardless of any other consideration, taken independently, the OL had to be re-made.

Same thing in 2017. They didn't say, hey McVay is here they win regardless. They dumped GR, signed Whitworth and Sullivan. Same thing in 2020. They're not saying we have the system, OL is irrelevant, OL performance is just a product of other things. They are upgrading it (and that's whether or not Whitworth returns).

....

[PARAM]

He didn't inherit Whitworth or Sullivan.

GRob was our left tack when Kromer was hired. He worked with him during the off season and then we traded Grob to the Lions. That's when we signed Whitworth. All while Kromer was a member of the staff and presumably had substantial input into Oline personnel.

Same with Sullivan, we didn't sign him until Kromer had been on board and actively coaching our players for some time. In fact we made a move on Buffalo's Ryan Groy before signing Sullivan.

You can be sure Kromer was involved in shaping the 2017 Oline.

Look how seamless the transition from Brown to Blythe was. Havenstein had his best two years under Kromer.

If you're gonna blame Kromer for whatever personnel missteps you think we've made doesn't he get credit for the good moves?

I mean, he either had a voice in the moves or he didn't.

Spot on!! What's being ignored somewhat with respect to Kromer's job as OL coach and "run game coordinator" while citing the low ypc average is Gurley wasn't Gurley almost all season. Is that because of the knee issue or because Kromer is a bad OL coach who made bad decisions on personnel? To me 2019 was simply a bad season overall, in every facet of the team. The offense was less potent. The defense was inconsistant and sometimes absolutely horrible. The special teams were not special. Sometimes we gotta just realize things go wrong and they did in spades this year. And still we were 9-7.

Sure there are examples of other teams who had OL issues and injuries, played backups and excelled. But that has nothing to do with the Rams and Kromer. Just like when a team hires a new coach who turns the team around over night, fans think that should happen every time a coaching change for the better is made. "Why couldn't we go from 4-12 to 12-4? So-in-so did didn't they?" Under that guise McVay is a much better head coach than Shanahan. He turned the perennial 7-9 or worse Rams around in 1 year going to the Superbowl in year 2, while Shanahan went 10-22 his first two years. But anybody being fair to both would agree they're both good coaches who experienced two completely different situations.

This "Kromer sucks and needs to go" mantra is a total overreaction to an overall bad season all around. Did Wade need to go? He's gone. Did Bones need to go? He's gone. I gotta believe if the front office from Demoff to Snead to McVay believed Kromer needed to go, he'd be gone too. The slant that Kromer's resume isn't impressive is just that, a slant. IMHO, his resume is solid where ever he has been. And presently at least, it appears those management folks seem to agree.

[dieterbrock]

To me 2019 was simply a bad season overall, in every facet of the team. The offense was less potent. The defense was inconsistant and sometimes absolutely horrible. The special teams were not special. Sometimes we gotta just realize things go wrong and they did in spades this year. And still we were 9-7.
.

The o-line played a major role in the offense being less potent. Gurley had a poor year, Brown was pedestrian, and Henderson offered very little.
Kromer was handed an o-line in 2017 that included Sullivan, Saffold and Whit. And without 2 of the 3 the line regressed badly. That's where you expect to top coaches to shine, to make the best of it. Like Scarnecchia does every year in New England.
Don't know the value of an o-line coach if they are only successful when they have their top guys playing great and a full 16, but get a free pass when guys that they thought were ready to step up, clearly weren't.
And just because they didn't replace Kromer doesn't mean they are happy with him, that's just a silly observation

[CanuckRightWinger]

FACT: We missed the 2019 Playoffs with a pretty fooking loaded roster.
So I said emphatically: HEADS SHOULD ROLL!

Some heads HAVE rolled. I'd like to see one more.....that's all.

Simple stuff really. We'll see what happens.

But this notion, that once Kromer worked his magic on the yutes…..that the Rams OLine in the latter part of 2019 was aces....
is total bullshit.
None of the KeepKromer Lobby seems to want to touch those post-Bye pathetic Kromer OLine performances in Pitt, Dallas (1.6 YPC ) and at home vs the Ravens....2 of the 3 games vs non-playoff squads. Nobody wants to take a sniff at justifying the fact that only the lowly Fins and Jets had a lower 2019 Yds/Carry Rushing average than "Run-CoOrdinator" Kromer's charges.

Crickets.

In the end, we may be stuck another season with Aaron NFLSpinCycleSurvivor Kromer, the same way we suffered lost seasons with other NFL retread mooks like Spagnuolo, Haslett, Linehan et al...…..and you know what....I'll survive it and carry on. But to me, Kromer will always be the Architect of the 2019 Lost Season.

As I have posted in the past......either Goff has a titanium skeletal structure.....OR....we are just damn lucky that Mrs. Goff made her son Jared drink all that milk as a boy growing up......all that calcium (I guess) prevented any Goff bone fractures from occurring in that 2019 OLine BeatLikeAPieceOfVeal Gaunlet that Goff suffered thru due to Kromer's inadequate preparation and planning,
which resulted in that Adam Goldberg Choreographic Tribute we witnessed in 2019.

Yeah, and as a final note.....I guess that ProBowl vet Whitworth is just not a guy who would know the score on what the 2019 Ram OLine problems were, eh??!!

[PARAM]

The o-line played a major role in the offense being less potent. Gurley had a poor year, Brown was pedestrian, and Henderson offered very little.
Kromer was handed an o-line in 2017 that included Sullivan, Saffold and Whit. And without 2 of the 3 the line regressed badly. That's where you expect to top coaches to shine, to make the best of it. Like Scarnecchia does every year in New England.
Don't know the value of an o-line coach if they are only successful when they have their top guys playing great and a full 16, but get a free pass when guys that they thought were ready to step up, clearly weren't.
And just because they didn't replace Kromer doesn't mean they are happy with him, that's just a silly observation

Well I guess I'm a silly guy! As some have said, "he wasn't 'handed' that O line. He had a hand in constructing it". As far as "they thought guys were ready to 'step up' and they clearly didn't" goes, yeah, Noteboom wasn't the guy he was supposed to be, particularly from game 7 on. Blaming Kromer because we lost Saffold and Sullivan (not saying you are but that is part of the 'fire Kromer argument') and because Noteboom and Allen were injured and then turning around and not giving him credit for coaching up Evans, Edwards and Corbett, not to mention moving Blythe to center (and consequently increasing his value as a versatile piece of the OL) is extremely unfair, one side and probably a fools errand. I believe most point the finger more at Kromer than Wade but it seems management looked at it the other way around. Silly? I don't think so.

[Hacksaw]

Again with all the variables, it's nearly impossible to know precisely what/who caused the problems. AK was involved without a doubt.

Seems to me the keys questions are,
1) How much did AK have to do with the personnel decisions vs having to work with who he was given based on what they could afford for his group?
2) Could another coach (like Scarnecchia) have done a better job with what AK had to work with under AK circumstances?

Without knowledge of what went on last off season at Rams Park and the latter being impossible to determine, I still have to trust our FO made the decision to retain AK because they felt it was their best available option. Do we trust the brass or not?