Reading Bernie at the end of 2013 was like reading a non-stop whine-fest. Maybe this last Cards loss has put him in a better mood to put his considerable heft behind the Rams. Nice to see Bernie has re-grown his testicles and made a non-hedged bold and optimistic prediction about the Rams. (which begs the question, would I be so up on Bernie if he made a pessimistic prediction about the Rams... hmm...).
His point about there being a "convergence" is the key thing here.
You start with a team that was 7-9 in 2013 in the toughest division in football despite losing their starting QB and not having an offensive identity for the first 4 games and having a defensive coordinator who was just lost...
- You lose nobody of consequence in the off-season (which is to say, nobody who was not effectively a liability)
- You continue to get "plus" play from vets - CLong, Laurinaitis, WHayes ("repaired" this off-season), Langford (2nd half last year was "plus"), JLong (presuming healthy), Saffold, Cook (perhaps?)
- You add a year of maturation onto all that young ascending talent: Tavon, Quick, Bailey, Stacy, Ogletree, Brockers, Quinn (yes, he'll get better!), JJenkins, TruJo, TJ McD. This is imho the biggest improvement we'll see from 2013.
- You get solid play from others: Kendricks, Barksdale, Dunbar, Givens, Pettis...
- You add four rookie likely day 1 major contributors in Donald, Robinson, Joyner, Mason.
- You add Britt, Davin Joseph, Shaun Hill (upgrade from Clemons), Carrington (upgrade from Conrath)
- You add surprise playmaking from a player or two: Ray Ray, Rodney McLeod, Cory Harkey, Benny Cunningham
- You get Bradford back, where the really seemed like it was coming on before his injury
- You get Gregg Williams who seems like he's ready to turn this defense loose...
The needle on this team is just pointing up, and doing so strongly in so many places, it's hard to not be a bit giddy.
The only past-his-prime and descending player I see on the roster is Wells. Sorry Scott, don't mean to be a h8er, just calling it like I see it! Hopefully he has enough in the tank to groom Robinson at LG and his eventual replacement in BJones or TBarnes.
The only thing we have left to "blame" on the previous regimes is that the talent on this team is "young and ascending" rather than "established". This is the first year that all this talent seems to be "converging", and just like Bernie, I believe it will go well.