MVN - Most Valuable Network

Looking Ahead, Thankfully

Well, Rams fans, we are well into Week 17 of the 2007 NFL season. And we all know what that means.

The Rams’ season will end after Sunday’s game against Arizona.

The end of the Rams’ season will be bittersweet. It will be sweet because it will mark the end of a disastrous year. It will give us all a chance to catch our breath and get ready for next year’s slaughters. But it will be bitter because, as frustrating as this season has been, Rams football beats no Rams football, hands down. It will also be bitter because everybody on the team seems to be bitter at each other, but that’s a whole different article.

One more game and then we can end this awful, lunatic, terrible, degrading, nightmare of a season. Once the Rams lose at the Cardinals, their record will become 0-0 again. No, I know it will still be 3-13, but for our purposes, we can pretend it’s 0-0…right? An endless horizon will stretch out before us, just waiting for someone to come along and take advantage of it.

Yesterday, Brett ran down the list of reasons Rams fans should be thankful for this season. Continuing along this vein, I will run down a few of the top reasons Rams fans can be optimistic about next year without (too much) trepidation. The list will be brief, mostly because there aren’t really many reasons to be optimistic. But hey, it’s the Christmas season, and I will try to spread as much cheer as I can. (I’m sorry this isn’t in rhyme form, but I’m no good at poetry.)

• Healthy veterans. I hardly need to recount here how badly the Rams have been decimated by injuries this year. Presumably (hopefully? prayerfully?) most of these injured players will be back to form in 2008. I have a sneaking suspicion that Bulger will have a better year without broken ribs. And I have another sneaking suspicion that he won’t break his ribs if his offensive line stops going down faster than a bunch of Thai hookers (thank you, Snakes on a Plane).
• High draft pick. St. Louis will pick third in the draft, putting the Rams in prime position to beef up that D-line in preparation for their move to a 3-4 scheme. Or, alternatively, they could waste the pick on another hotshot tight end…
• The new 3-4 defense. Because it has to be better than the 4-3. It just has to.
• Will Witherspoon. The beast.
• Steven Jackson. The beast to beat all beasts.
• The 49ers are just as bad. So there won’t be much taunting going on there from 9er fans. Yeah, that’s one of the real bright spots for next year.

Well, there you have it, folks. Don’t get so down on these Rams, there are plenty of reasons to have a rosy outlook on next year. It’ll be like a Christmas miracle.

By the way, if you haven’t done so already, be sure to check out X’s 1st, 2nd, and 3rd installments of the “Art of War” series as he breaks down the Rams and Steelers according to Sun Tzu’s millennia-old standards of war.

This entry was posted on Thursday, December 27th, 2007 at 12:05 am and is filed under Will Witherspoon, Marc Bulger, Most Valuable Network, 2007 NFL Season, National Football League, Professional Sports, St. Louis Rams, San Francisco 49ers, Steven Jackson, 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.