My team is back!

Alert:  Boring nostalgic post coming.  I make no apologies.

I grew up as an L.A Rams fan in Southern California throughout the 80's and 90's until they left for St. Louis in 1995.  Thank god I was in High School at that time and had a little more perspective. Otherwise I would have been heartbroken.  I followed the Raiders and rooted for them on occasion as well but nothing could compare to how I felt about the Rams.  They played in "The Big A" in Anaheim which was only about 30 min from my house in San Clemente and they played on the same field as my favorite baseball team the "California" Angels.  I think my first memory of the Rams was when I was very young maybe 5-6 years old and watching them on TV play the 49ers with my dad. The 49ers were like gods to football but I loved that the Rams were always fighting for relevance and support in a town where there is everything else to do besides watch football.  The Rams were never really great during that time but they were never really bad either.  They would go to the playoffs most years as a wild card and even made 2 appearances in the NFC Championship Game. Unfortunately, both games were played against arguable one of the best teams in NFL history.  The '85 Bears and the '89 49ers.  I was old enough to remember the magical run they had in 1989 but the NFC Championship Game was a gut punch.  They had won two road playoff games on the east coast leading up to the game and I was convinced this was their year.  My dad and I were all set to watch the Rams finally go to the Super Bowl.  They had been there in '79 but I wan't born until later that year. What transpired in the '89 game against the 49ers could only be described as a beat down.  If anyone remembers that was the game where the Rams QB Jim Everett was sacked by a ghost.  He felt pressure (or so he thought) and decided just to fall down.  That stigma of being scared would follow him for years until finally coming to a head when he fought Jim Rome on national TV.  The game was so bad that my dad and I went outside to shoot hoops because we thought somehow if we stopped watching the game would turn around.  It didn't and the 49ers went on to kill the Broncos 55-10 in the Super Bowl.  The Rams never made it that close again while they were in Los Angeles.  In the early 90's I started going to some of the games with my Uncle and Grandfather.  The Rams had fired long-time coach John Robinson who went back to USC.  Instead they brought in Chuck Knox who was the former coach of the Seahawks.  It really made no sense because he was basically the same exact coach as Robinson.  An old school conservative coach who wanted to run the ball.  The Rams continued to decline and eventually brought in Rich Brooks from Oregon.  Not much changed and the Rams still didn't make the playoffs.  The last game I ever went to was when the Rams played the 49ers in 1994.  This was the year the 49ers basically caught fire after the 3rd game of the year and completely destroyed everyone they played.  They could not be stopped on offense with Steve Young, Jerry Rice, John Taylor, and Ricky Waters just to name a few.  It was a colossal mismatch but I remember how much of a joy it was to watch the 49ers in action.  They were like poetry in motion.  The lasting image for me in that game was Jerry Rice catching a fade route down the sideline and sticking out one hand and catching it for a touchdown.  That pretty much summed up the season and the end of the Rams in LA.  The Rams left the next year for St. Louis and I swore I was done with them.  I don't think I watched another game for a while.  That was until 1999 when Kurt Warner came out of nowhere and took the league by storm.  Those teams were great and I started to support the Rams again because of it.  They finally won that super bowl I was waiting for but it was bittersweet considering it was in St. Louis and not LA.  The funny thing is that was the same year that I began playing for the very same coach that I grew up watching.  John Robinson was now the head coach of UNLV where I played football from 1997-2001.  Every day I got to play next to the same man that coached my beloved Rams which for lack of a better word was pretty cool.  I look back on that time and I wish I had asked him more questions about his time with the LA Rams.  Either way , they are back and I couldn't be happier that they are back in LA where they belong.

Me and my friend in our Hutch 1980's NFL uniforms:

Healing Through Humor

Part of my healing process is being able to laugh at myself.  Like this video honoring Joey Porter, the former Defensive Lineman for Colorado State.  He had a great College and NFL career but this is only funny to me because a majority of the highlights they show from his college days are of him intercepting or sacking me.  Not one of my best moments for sure. The interception they show is just flat out awful. Even if Porter didn't pick it off the guy behind him would have. I have no idea what I was looking at.

My Biggest Regret

I played college football at UNLV from 1997-2001.  After graduation I was hired as a Graduate Assistant under John Robinson.  I served in that position for two years but unfortunately at that time I made a decision that I regret to this day.  I was about to get married and have my first child and I panicked.  I thought about how the coaching business was unstable and that I wouldn’t be able to support my new family.  I thought about all the things that could go wrong instead of all the things that could go right.  I made a decision to leave the coaching business and get a “real job”.  That was 10 years ago and I’ve regretted it ever since.  I am currently an Internet Sales Director for a major automotive group and I make a very good living at it. I have a beautiful wife and 3 beautiful children ages 10, 8, and 4.  I have every reason to be happy but I am not.  I still have huge void in my life that stems from leaving the game that I love and spend my entire life working toward.  I wish I could go back in time and find that 25 year old me and shake some sense into him.  Explain to him that you can't live in panic.  You can't live in fear.  It's such a cliche but its true that you don't know until you try.  I haven't failed at many things in my life.  But I see know that the main reason for that is that I haven't taken many chances either.  It's kind of like bragging about your completion percentage when all you do is throw screen passes.  It's a little deceiving.  I don't know who this will reach out there if any but please don't make the mistake I did.  Ask yourself a simple question before you look for work.  If I had all the money in the world and I never needed to worry about rent, food, clothes, etc, what would I do with my life?  The answer to that question is what you want to do for work.  If you do that it won't be work at all. 

Chip Kelly Offense Terminology

Like most coaches was interested to see how Chip Kelly's offense was going to perform at the NFL level. I would say that most would probably agree that his first season with the Eagles was a success.  Sure, there were some bumps in the road and I personally was very concerned early on that teams were going to catch on to the lack of route concepts.  But Kelly adapted and once Nick Foles was named the starting QB things began to take shape.  The Eagles led the NFL in rushing and considering the stigma of the "Spread Offense" I really think this convinced the naysayers that this offense not only can work but flourish in the NFL.  Chip Kelly would probably be the first to tell you that he isn't doing anything "innovative" as far as his actual plays. But what is innovative is the way they practice and communicate.  I'm very intrigued by how all teams call and communicate their plays.  Especially in the no-huddle offense.  A simple Google search will find hundreds of NFL and College Playbooks that have been posted online but so far I have found nothing about Chip Kelly's Oregon or New Hampshire Offense.  With all the talk of how they use one word play calls and boards I was really interested to see how this would change in the NFL given that you can communicate directly with the QB on the field.  I had almost given up my search until I was watching an Eagles game earlier this year and noticed that when the camera shot a close up of Kelly on the sidelines his play call sheet was sitting there in plain view.  Also, with HD cameras, the sheet was completely legible.  I went back with my DVR and paused the video and sure enough there were the calls.  I took a screen shot which is posted here but it got me thinking.  I can't be the only one who noticed this right?  I began searching Google again except this time for "Chip Kelly Play Sheet" and sure enough someone else had done the same thing. Supposedly this person had posted the screen shot on the Eagles message board and received mixed emotions from fans.  Some wanted him banned for posting it and others were intrigued.  Evidently the team reached out and asked him to delete it which he did.  However, in the time it was up multiple people transcribed the plays and posted again.  The two pics I found are also posted here.

Enjoy and if anyone can "decode" what some of the play calls mean please let me know.  I'm dying to figure out what "Boundary Mario" is.

2000 St. Louis Rams Pass Plays

Sorry for the video quality but here are some cut-ups with only pass plays from the St. Louis Rams Offense. This is from the Mike Martz, Kurt Warner, & Marshall Faulk era.  The interesting thing about the 2000 team is their offensive numbers were actually better than the '99 Super Bowl winning team.  You'll see a lot of the mainstay concepts from the classic "Air Coryell" offense.  Lots of F-Post to Faulk out of the backfield and with motion.  Also, the Rams did a great job with the deep 20yd In route which is a "4" route in their terminology.  It takes a long time to develop but they were deadly when Torry Hold or Issac Bruce caught one in stride.  Here is a link to the Rams playbook of that era.  Rams Playbook

In my opinion the best part of watching this offense was the use of shifting and motion.  It's something you don't see much anymore at the pro or college level due to all the no-huddle hurry up offenses.  But for some reason I always enjoyed it and thought it was effective.  See for yourself:

Boise St Offense Install Video

This is an offensive teaching tape from the 2001 Boise St. Broncos.  Dan Hawkins was the Head Coach but Chris Peterson was the Offensive Coordinator.  The offensive philosophy is based on what Peterson ran when he was the Off Coordinator with the Oregon Ducks under Jeff Tedford.  Boise added some fly sweep and more motion which was a staple of Dan Hawkins' earlier years.  Sorry for the tape quality but her is a link to the Boise St. Playbook that coincides with the videos.

The 1989-1990 Houston Cougar Run & Shoot

   It's possible that we may never see anything like it ever again in College Football.  An offense that changes the game forever.  Some will argue that the current shotgun spread offenses have changed the game but I disagree.  Those offenses are just taking old concepts and putting them in a shotgun spread formation.  What the Run & Shoot did for offensive football was something completely different.  It brought a scheme that had never been used.  For the first time receivers changed their routes based on what the defense was doing not only pre-snap but also post-snap.  It also stretched the field vertically and horizontally.  The west coast offense of the time wanted to stretch defenses horizontally and the classic drop back teams using the Sid Gilman system wanted to beat you vertically.  The Run & Shoot combined the two by spreading you out and giving the quarterback deep and short options on every play.  It also didn't completely sacrifice the run game because at least in the old run and shoot, the quarterback was under center. 
    You'll see in the Houston Cut-ups that they spread out much further than the traditional run & shoot teams of Mouse Davis and June Jones.  Houston's receivers were out past the numbers and the slot receiver was much wider than the 1-2 yards that Mouse Davis preaches.  Houston of the late 80's and early 90's was actually very similar to what Baylor is running today in 2013.  They wanted to make you declare your coverage and make it nearly impossible to double cover any one receiver.  
    Now I will say that defenses were much different in this era.  Most Defensive Coordinators were scared to death to play man to man or blitz so most hung back in a 2 or 3 deep zone.  This would usually cause a slow death as the quarterback could select almost anyone to throw the ball to while barely having any pressure to deal with.  The teams that were successful against the R&S were usually the one's who had more talent up front on the defensive line and could just flat out beat you without blitzing.  Then others had the guts to just bring everybody from everywhere.  Bob Davie did a great job of this when he was at Texas A&M.
They usually handled Houston pretty well and consistently put pressure on the quarterback while making the receivers uncomfortable as well.
     When I see high powered offenses today I wonder why more defenses don't play tough man to man with 1-2 safeties over the top.  Sure it makes you vulnerable to the run but most offensive teams are not patient enough to just run the ball and they will eventually try to force the big play.  Plus, it forces the offense away from the dink and dunk strategy that they want. 

Anyway, enjoy these clips from one of the best offenses of all time.  Featuring Heisman Trophy winner Andre Ware and First Round Draft Pick David Klingler.