Football Outsiders: No change in Rams' record: 6-10/Wagoner

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I see more of an 8-8 finish. Primarily due to Foles being an upgrade to QB. But question marks about Gurley and Quick injuries, combined with Foles and Austin still being relatively unknown from season to season how they will perform will factor in. Combine that with massive inexperience and questions about pass blocking ability on the OL make me think another year in the neighborhood of 7-9 8-8 9-7.
 
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I think 9-7 minimum since the defense will improve as well as the running game, even if Gurley doesn't play for a while as Mason is very capable. Also, the QB play has to be better than last year as how could it get worse?
 
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Just because I like reading Nick's stuff I will remind everyone that these aren't his predictions. These are Football Outsider's predictions which they make for every team. I'm sure nick has us going 8-8 at least.
 
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Jorgeh0605 stepping in:
Just because I like reading Nick's stuff I will remind everyone that these aren't his predictions. These are Football Outsider's predictions which they make for every team. I'm sure nick has us going 8-8 at least.
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Thanks Jorgeh. I was hoping someone else would step in and point that out. I did it the last time. :LOL:
 
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These guys do some heavy serious math, analyzing each play and player and situation. I respect their work, especially when it comes to fantasy football. That said, they need to go back and recalibrate something on this one. As we say in the software biz: garbage in garbage out.
 
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Realistically, I think 9-7 is a fair estimation if we aren't extremely unlucky with injuries. Homeristically, I'll say 10-6.

6-10 or 7-9 are possible if we get the short end of the injury stick again.
 
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So much of this is on what kind of Foles we get. If we get similar standard QB play to what we had last year - yeah we'll go 6-10 again. If Foles is 2013 version Nick Foles we go 10-6. I kind of feel we're getting to the point where we're "a QB away" from being real contenders.
 
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Number crunchers like Football Outsiders from outer space and cliche hags like USA Yesterday don't do that much for me...The biggest puzzler to me was why it makes sense to assume a drop off of the defense...What parallel universe did that come from ??? I think 8-8 is my best guess..Could be 7-9 worst case to 10-6 best case...Just my opinion os course...
 
I think this particular resource is better at analyzing specific players (especially situation specific stuff and positions few judge like offensive linemen) rather than aggregate/team results.
 
What do the Las Vegas experts say? The bookies are going to have probably the most realistic expectation as to team outcomes.
 
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I think its silly to think anyone can figure out where this team will be given all the unknowns. New QB, new OC, questions on the line, guys who may or may not come back the same from injuries.

Trying the non-homer route, what positions have the Rams upgraded in this offseason for sure? If you want to be honest, in my book it is going to come down to mostly Foles clicking right away in this new offense. The good thing I guess is they are going to be learning it together. If he's a beast and the OL can patchwork something functional, the sky could be the limit. But thats been the achilles heel of this team in recent years. Will Gurley be ready? What if the OL is far worse than last year? Scary thought.

All we can do is be optimistic, weirder things have happened in the NFL in just a year.
 
-X- said:
I guess that's that.

See you all this time next year. Last guy out, hit the lights.
Hopefully we'll project a better record next time and can play the season out.
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You forgot the blue font ;)
 
Jorgeh0605 said:
Just because I like reading Nick's stuff I will remind everyone that these aren't his predictions. These are Football Outsider's predictions which they make for every team. I'm sure nick has us going 8-8 at least.
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Thanks Jorge. You took the words right out of my mouth. Wagoner is just relaying what someone else has said and given his own take.
 
The Giants game last season was a shock, when our D, that had been looking like it was finally on its way to top 5, couldn't cope with Beckham. That is the only possible justification I can think of for having doubts about our D. With the exceptions of Long and Laurinitis, they are a young group who should be improving every year, and Long got hurt early last year and missed half of the season so should be better this year when properly fit. Akers and Fairley look like upgrades. If you add in another year in Wlliams' scheme, barring rotten luck on injuries I really don't see the D getting worse.

ST was generally really good last year, and was stacked with young guys who should still be improving, so I don't see any reason to predict their demise, either.

New QB, new and inexperienced OL, new and inexperienced OC, you can make a case for concern about the offence, but it's not as if we are trying to cope with the loss of great talents who performed really well for us last year. The OL we lost really had declined into unservicability, through age, injury or both. The QB position was filled by a journeyman backup and a scrub who bounced around our PS for a few years without ever being grabbed by anyone else. On paper, looking at his pedigree (undrafted, cut, PS etc) that is the bottom of the barrel as far as QBs are concerned. Overall, he didn't do much different to the journeyman, but it is hard to believe that our current choice of QBs (which still includes the scrub) could be worse than last year. I wasn't as down on Schottenheimer as some on here, but I don't see his loss as a big concern. There is continuity with Cignetti, Boras etc and it doesn't look like we will be running a high tech offence this year. The OL is a big question mark, but we have young, athletic guys and a great coach, so it is hard to imagine it could be worse than last year. Barring really bad luck with injuries, I expect our OL to be at least average by mid year and improving steadily from then on.

Given the above, I think 7-9 would be pessimistic. I think 9-7 is about right.
 
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