So how do we beat the Rams

All you guys are on track imo. Lets hope that coach Fox has his boys feet back on the ground come Monday morning. They can take the Rams but they cant go in there starry eyed. Execution will be critical Saturday. Poise will be needed. Penalties and turnovers could decide the winner......or the loser.

 

Yeah, gotta get Aeneas to be a non-factor. I think we can put Smitty on Archuleta deep, especially off the pump fake.

As well, with a MLB in there in what's basically a cover three - most of y'all gotta realize that the vaunted cover two of Tampa pushes their safeties out to what amounts to deep thirds and drops the LB a bit deeper than usual - I'd push Foster deep in the center of the field, and hang our TEs at about 12 yards for stop routes.

Would be a good place for crossing routes, too. But have to be careful - Jake doesn't always

Anyway, Timmerman's still pretty decent, so in those cases we will need to hang Rucker and Jenkins, or Wallace and Rucker if we have our otehr DTs out and Jenx goes to the left - out on shades outside, influence Timmerman and Pace (Rucker's had success v/s Pace, right?) and put a safety and a linebacker in through A gap? Hell yeah. If Jenkins can continue to be this fast off the snap - he's always fast, but he had help last week - he'll disrupt Bulger.

I think we'll be in good shape since they'll have a hard time justifying putting help back there for Pace and Turley, and since Faulk will usually be in a pattern there may be no contain blocker either.
The really neat thing about that - yes, I used "neat" is that without anyone outside of Pace, we can bring the corner without likely having much

You're right, in that Nolan does bring some nice blitz packages, so we should be able to see some things on tape for pressure. Probably some nice delay blitzes we can use.

The thing is, we've had success beating an undersized cover two all year. The thing is, when we've stayed in our gaps - I'm looking at you, Favors - we've stopped the run regardless of who it is.

Now we just have to scheme some pass D situations. We can't blitz every down, but I'd suggest more second down nickel and more liberally devisive coverages, more disguised coverages. I dunno if I'd zone blitz that much, but tape will show if they attempt to dump off.

Do I want a DL in coverage against Marshall Faulk? Hell, I don't really feel that comfortable with some of our corners against him.
Seeing Peppers be in on a sideline tackle of Glenn (?) downfield was awful cool, though.

 

I know we can't afford to have Morgan shadow Faulk the whole game or if we even need to. I haven't seen the Rams play at all this year so I'd like to know if you guys think Faulk is still the threat that he used to be. By the numbers his 800 rushing yds 300 receiving yds and 11 TDs sounds pretty good but those aren't the Superman stats that he used to put up. I like the idea of a delay blitz as long as any potential targets for Bulger have a black & blue shadow on them.
When we are on O wouldn't play-action be the way to go since they are probably going to load up the box and single up their cocky DBs on the two or three guys that we put in patterns. If so, and Jake plays close enough to error free ball WE WIN.)

BTW - I'm a little concerned about Stuess against either Wistrom or Little (not sure which plays on his side). Aren't they both speedy smaller guys that could make a day of getting around him?

 

Faulk the last two games: 2.9 yards rushing v/s Detroit, 6 for 40 rec; 121 on 22 carries and 5/33 rec v/s Cincy.
He missed four games, early, and didn't get a ton of carries before then.
Is he hurt at all? Probably not.
It seems like, obviously, the way to shut the Rams down is to get them back into passing without concern for the running game.

 

Did I mention that the Ram's Offense is ranked 30th in the run?