The St. Louis Rams took another step forward with a decisive win 33-10 over the Indianapolis Colts in their pre-season opener at the Edward Jones Dome.
It didn’t matter to me that the Colts were without the services of
quarterback Peyton Manning. This transformation of the Rams is taking
full shape before our eyes.
It was just three years ago that Steve Spagnuolo was taking over the
reigns as new head coach. In his first season, the Rams were a
disastrous 1-15. But, like any coach he has to get his guys in here and
then implement his system. It was a grind for the defensive minded head coach and his first year defensive coordinator Ken Flajoe.
And don’t get it wrong; 1-15 is 1-15. A few of those games were winnable for the Rams, but they just couldn’t catch any breaks. But, they kept battling and had a surprising 7-9 season last year and were one game away from the playoffs. Now the defense is in its third year together and it’s starting to show.
In the scrimmage the previous week, the defense had a couple of
interceptions and dropped another one. So, the talk was that the defense is always going to be a step ahead of the offense. That maybe true to some degree, however we’re now referring to a live game against an opponent different instead of a practice against teammates.
The Rams forced a turnover with an interception on the first possession
of the game. The beauty of that play was some last second adjustments by the Rams secondary. When safety Darian Stewart came up to the line to show blitz, the Colts countered by having a running back run in the flats. Stewart picked up running back and then Colts quarterback threw an interception to new Rams free safety Quintin Mikell. The interception set up the Rams first touchdown.
This Rams defense will employ many different looks. At one point, the
Rams showed the old 4-6 defense look. It’s very encouraging to see the progress this team has made over the last three years, especially on the defensive side of the football.
There is plenty of competition at every position on the defense. And just for that alone that gives the Rams an edge in the NFC West division. With just about every team in the division trying to rebuild on both sides of the ball, the Rams can at least rest assure, that the last three years has put them in a great position. A position to finally be relevant again without a circus.
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