If anyone would know what a tough situation Spags had in New Orleans it would be the guy who hired him: Asshole Face. And Payton fired Spags the second his suspension was over...
Well, for the most part, how Spags did for the Saints is really irrelevant to me for the question of how good he was for the Rams. And what I see for the Rams is this:
2009: Inherits nothing except for Steven Jackson, a green Chris Long and an already Bulgerized Bulger. Anyone was going to fail.
2010: 6 game improvement over previous season, which would quite possibly make him the only "bad" and/or "incompetent" coach ever to do that if we insist he is such.
2011: As -X- went into above better than me, season was decimated by injuries, particularly to CBs and OL. Anyone was going to fail.
If Fisher is fired after this season (which is improbable I admit), I would rate Spags higher than Fisher. Fisher took a team that was 7-9 before an injury decimated season, and has kept them 7-9 since. And that's with the RGIII megadeal that was only made possible by a rule change after Spags was gone. (I bet Spags' immediate reaction to the reduced rookie salaries was to wish they had them in 2009.)
But we can agree to disagree on this.