RAMblings

Rams-’Hawks: Dare We Believe?

By Punit Vachharajani | November 24th, 2007

The Rams are on a tear — sort of — coming into Sunday’s game against the Seahawks at the Ed. They have won two in a row. The offense is finally showing flashes of the brilliance we expected from it at the beginning of the season, although it isn’t perfect yet, especially in the later stages of games. Steven Jackson appears to be fully healthy. Marc Bulger is hitting his receivers. Even the defense has stepped up its game and no longer makes subpar offenses look like a group of Pro Bowlers. The offensive line is slowly regaining stability, with Todd Steussie finally coming back from a preseason injury to reclaim his rightful starting spot. Given all this, do the Rams actually have a chance against the Hawks on Sunday?

The Seahawks have also won two in a row, but these are not the same Birds that were NFC West favorites at the beginning of the year. Shaun Alexander is injured and looks to be out for a considerable amount of time, but Maurice Morris has filled in adequately. Receiver Deion Branch has been injured at times this season, and even QB Matt Hasselbeck is sitting out during practice — although that hasn’t stopped him from putting up stellar numbers the last few weeks.

On paper, this matchup should be a no-brainer: Seattle’s players are better, its record is better, and the Hawks beat the Rams 33-6 during Week 7 at Qwest Field.

Keep in mind, however, that Steven Jackson, the heart and soul of this team, was out with a groin injury that game. Bulger played, but he was coming off a two-week absence due to a rib injury, and he clearly wasn’t feeling his best as the Hawk defense got to him for seven sacks and three picks. That week marked rock bottom for the Rams’ banged-up and underachieving offensive line. The front five have shown marked improvement since then, especially against the Saints when Bulger got unprecedented amounts of time to complete passes. Steussie’s return can only help continue that upward trend. The offense, in short, will have much more firepower tomorrow than it did on October 21 when it managed to put up only 6 points against a middle-of-the-pack Seattle defense.

Meanwhile, the Rams defensive front has actually managed to stop the run in the last couple of games. Against a backup running back, expect Haslett and company to try to shut down the run early. This should force Seattle to revert to the air attack, and with an ailing quarterback, that might just bode well for the Ram secondary.

Of course, everything I’m saying here represents the height of optimism. A lot of things will have to fall in place correctly for the Rams to walk out of the Dome tomorrow with their third victory. But it’s not impossible.

So, dare we believe?

Maybe. But we would save ourselves a lot of heartache if we didn’t.

Rams 21, Seahawks 27

This entry was posted on Saturday, November 24th, 2007 at 1:35 am and is filed under Rams Offense, Todd Steussie, Shaun Alexander, Jim Haslett, Rams Players, Edward Jones Dome, 2007 Schedule, Matt Hasselbeck, Marc Bulger, Seattle Seahawks, NFC West, St. Louis Rams, Steven Jackson, Professional Sports, Rams Defense, National Football League, NFL. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

4 Responses to “Rams-’Hawks: Dare We Believe?”

Brett Knight says:

November 24th, 2007 at 2:50 am

It’s sad that there’s not much difference between bottom and top for the offensive line.
Ernie Wert says:

November 24th, 2007 at 12:47 pm

Matchup against the Seahawks and Rams is never a given. Both teams have had many injury problems, and both are starting to get healthy, except for Shawn Alexander, who has shown no spark this year. Morris is a very capable running back, who runs hard. Seattle has not been able to stop the big plays, and Bulger and his recivers are heathly. I expect this to be close game, with Seattle winning in overtime, with a field goal.
Punit Vachharajani says:

November 24th, 2007 at 1:48 pm

Ernie–I agree, it should be a close game most of the way, but the Rams tend to stop playing in the late 3rd/4th quarters. That simply won’t cut it against Seattle. I certainly hope that we can take it into overtime, but I think Seattle will pull away in the 4th.
Brett Knight says:

November 24th, 2007 at 2:59 pm

The key will be for the Rams to come out throwing. When they’ve gone to the air early on this year, they’ve had some success. If we can grab an early lead, who knows…

And in response to Ernie above, I think that Morris is a more than capable backup, but I’m not sold on him when he has to shoulder the workload. Alexander hasn’t shown a spark - you’re right about that. But I’m not sure that Morris gives them much of an upgrade in terms of big play potential.