Mike: Hi Jim,

Thank you for your time and forum on the St. Louis Rams!

I live in Orange County and have taken my son to a Rams game every year since they moved to St. Louis. The time we spend at the games has been great.....but....this was the first year that I could not stomach a trip to see this team.

My question is..."What can management due to bring the fans back to the dome?"

The organization seems to be living in a dream world. The fan experience is horriable, the coaching situation is well below NFL standards and Player Decisions have sucked the past 5 years. Does Georgia, Stan, John S...know this?

Let's take McFadden...trade Jackson for pics and rebuild the DL and OL....kick out Byrd, Wroten, Chaveous and Bennett. Let's sign a PROVEN back up QB when Bulger get's hurt again and get the fans back in the dome.

Let's get an audio visual person to the dome to pump in crowd noise and make this the second coming of a stones concert....if they want to lose...make it fun at least.

Venting Rams Fan

Jim Thomas: Before even making a decision on players, coaches, etc., club management could announce they are not raising ticket prices. Why not take it a step farther, and say: We are not raising ticket prices until we have another winning record. I've suggested this in the past even brought it up to someone in the front office. (Don't hold your breath waiting for it to happen, although I don't think they'll raise ticket prices for '08.)

You could do a lot for the atmosphere at the dome, in terms of music, (fewer) commercials, better scoreboards, better sound system. Some of this is in the works; some are being considered.

Ron: Why is it that Torry Holt's knee problems appear to be chronic and will affect him the rest of his career? As I recall his operation was pretty much suppossed to be a relatively minor procedure,i.e. no ACL tear, so what gives? Did arthritis set in or what? Thanks for this forum Jim.

Jim Thomas: A good question, Ron. The procedure was supposed to be pretty much standard. But turns out Holt has very little cartilage remaining in that knee. To my understanding it's pretty much bone on bone, which causes the discomfort. Holt even had some kind of lubricant injected into the knee to help his movement.
In short, the lack of cartilage in the knee is what caught up with DT D'Marco Farr and RB Marhsall Faulk. And it could catch up with Holt.

Gabriel to Snow: Hello Jim, Haslett has a penchant for leaving receivers uncovered when blitzing, especially the slot receiver who is often completely uncovered until 10 to 15 yards downfield. Matt Hasselbeck recognized this & ripped us up using the slot man. I've seen this over & over all year. If the staff couldn't recognize this inherent weakness in their scheme, & use one the many alignments & adjustments available to correct it over the course of an entire year, I think I will be taking the Niners & the over in both their games against the Rams. Mad Mike is going to clean our clock. How do you see the Martz hiring playing out.

Jim Thomas: I wouldn't say the alignment you're talking about happened over and over, but the Rams were burned more than once on it. It puts a lot of pressure on the safeties and linebackers, and it doesn't make much sense to me either.
Mad Mike needs playmakers in San Francisco. He is great at maximizing talent, heck, Mike Furrey caught 90-plus for him in '06 in Detroit. But the 49ers don't have a proven QB, don't have a No. 1 WR (they barely have anyone you'd consider a good No. 2 _ perhaps Darrell Jackson), and they have a much-hyped TE (Vernon Davis) who doesn't have good hands. What the 49ers do have is a good defense, so that will help. And if Martz gets a couple of weapons, look out.

Justin: I guess Scott Linehan didn't get the memo when the Post Dispatch told him to STOP HIRING HIS FRIENDS!! Hopefully Art Valero will not be another mistake by this organization.

Jim Thomas: "FOSL" (Friend of Scott Linehan) or not, I hear good things about Valero. Trouble is, if he's the Rams' offensive line coach, he has yet to be an o-line coach in the NFL. In his six NFL seasons _ all with Tampa Bay _ he coached RBs and TEs. All of his work as a line coach came in college, and I did have one NFL assistant say in college he had a reputation as one of the best in the college game. But can that translate to the NFL?

Marc Furtado: Jim, we have exchanged e mails before. I am a football coach and a life long Rams fan (going back to the days of Tom Mack, Charlie Cowan, Joe Scibeli, Ken Iman et al)and am beside myself with the latest Rams coaching news. I was supportive of Shaw's decision to retain Scott based on the horrendous injury bug that hit the team this year, especially as it pertained to the O-Line. However I think it is crazy for Scott Linehan, given his short leash, to hire Art Valero as O-Line coach. How you come up with essentially a college O-Line coach (he has only coached backs and TE's in the NFL) when guys like Mike Solari and especially Hudson Hauk were available. This is obviously a critical year in Scott's tenure and this move just doesn't add up for me, especially given what happened this year. I cannot think of any great teams in NFL history that did not have great O-Line play. The O-Line, I have long held, is the foundation on which great teams are build. This is a terrible mistake on the team's part. What do you think?

Marc

Jim Thomas: See my answer in an earlier post. It could be possible that Solari and Houck have no interest in coaching with the Rams. I had at least one offensive coordinator candidate tell me he was a bit leery of joining the Rams since Linehan could be one-and-done in '08.
Almost all coaches hire friends or people they have worked with before. I do think Linehan takes it to the extreme, both with coaches and players.