Last week, Rams owner Chip Rosenbloom all but promised Rams fans that head coach Scott Linehan would be fire along with others responsible for assembling and running the worst football in the NFL.
They didn’t. Apparently, they fumbled the whoopass can in the locker room before the game, drenching themselves with the toxic substance.
For 3 of the 4 quarters of today’s game against Seahawks, Jim Haslett’s defense looked like they had a lot Seahawk skill players on their fantasy teams. At the end of the first quarter, Seattle led the Rams 17-0 in points and 146 to 6 in total offense.
Both the St. Louis and the Fox broadcasters were dumbfounded by the incompetence and weakness of the Rams' defense. A streaker on crutches could have broken some of the attempted tackles Ty Hill and other Rams defenders threw on the Seahawks' running backs.
Expect changes Monday. Head coach Scott Linehan and defensive coordinator Jim Haslett will get pink slips along with front office disaster Jay Zigmunt. Zigmunt pushed out popular and successful GM Charlie Armey wanting complete control of player personnel. Apparently he sought to destroy the team that Armey built into a two-time NFC champion earlier in the decade.
Adam Schefter on NFL.com disagrees that the Rams would make a mid-season change. But Schefter says in the same post that Haslett would be a contender to replace Linehan. Fat chance. Haslett is half the reason Linehan is on the rocks, the other half being shared by a porous offensive line and a quarterback who falls to pieces in the red zone.
Shefter mentions Rams' wide receivers coach Henry Ellard as a possible replacement for Linehan. That move would make sense. I’d also look for Chip Rosenbloom to lure former Rams’s coach Dick Vermeil to take over for Zigmunt and to name a permanent head coach and defensive coordinator. Consider the possibility that Bill Cowher might entertain a short stint as defensive coordinator.j
At this point, there’s no reason not to fire Linehan. The players did nothing to save his job today. At 0-3 with Buffalo, Washington, and Dallas the next up, 0-6 is almost assured. Linehan won’t be back next year. A coaching change now at least gives fans a reason not to sell their tickets to the visiting team.
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