Mark J. Rebilas-USA TODAY Sports
If there were any questions as to just how lofty the expectations are for the St. Louis Rams as they ready themselves for training camp, the club’s chief operating officer (COO) Kevin Demoff put any of those to rest with his most recent comments. He told TurfShowTimes:
“I think you could see this offense resemble an offense like the Saints, where you have four or five players catch 40 to 50 balls, but nobody who catches 70 or 80. I’m not saying that we are the Saints’ offense, we need to improve to become that, but more that style where anybody can be a threat on any play.”
Now certainly the New Orleans Saints are as explosive as they come by necessity given their atrocious defense in recent years, but for the Rams to reach that type of offensive stratosphere they will need to score more than 299 points – their total from 2012 – in the 2013 season. The additions of Tavon Austin and Jared Cook give them weapons that can rival the Saints, but the trigger man in still in question.
Sam Bradford has never been mentioned in the same breath as Drew Brees aside from this sentence. Much of that has been due to the inordinate amount of trips to the turf he has taken in his first 42 games as a starter (105), but he still needs to step it up in terms of consistency and eliminate the poor decisions from his repertoire.
Not all of the team’s struggles can be pinned on him, however, as the Rams have also led the NFL in drops during his tenure under center with 95 over the past three seasons. Bradford is a very accurate quarterback (similar to Brees), but he just doesn’t get the type of help that the Saints signal caller gets from his receivers. Much of Brees’ yardage total comes from yards after the catch (YAC) whereas Bradford’s lack of dynamic weaponry combined with that startling drops statistic has left him behind the curve.
Now with Austin and Cook in town as well as blindside protector Jake Long to fortify the offensive front, the Rams have the makings of a dynamic offensive attack for sure. Running the hurry-up offense seems to be in the plans as well for the Rams in the upcoming season. Bradford is familiar with that style of attack from his collegiate days at Oklahoma, and he has the ideal skill set to captain that type of offense in the upcoming season. Once this team finds a mismatch they plan to exploit it by not allowing their opponents an adequate amount of time to change their personnel and get back on track.
Will this attack be worthy of the Saints-like praise right away? Probably not, but there’s nothing like setting your goals high.
Anthony Blake is a Senior Writer/Copy Editor for Rant Sports. You Can Follow Him on Twitter, on Facebook, or add him to your network on Google.
