|
A Long Way From Lambeau
St. Louis Ramshackle
by Mark Lyne-Austen
1/10/2009
 Pro football is a deliciously brutal world and injuries are part of it. Injuries are not evenly distributed around the league and luck has little if anything to do with that. The Week 3 game between the Green Bay Packers and the St. Louis Rams is a case in point. The Rams are not a great side. They might be a slightly better side for having Kyle Boller as their starting QB instead of Marc Bulger but overall this is not one of the elite teams especially on offense. As they are not as skilled as some of their opponents, the Rams have picked up injuries. While other factors such as age, history, and position matter for the individual player, it is relative prowess that makes most of the impact on a team.
The Packers are not known as one of the NFL’s most physical teams yet they put a toll on St Louis that saw QB Bulger, WRs Laurent Robinson and Donnie Avery, and Safety James Butler all withdrawn from the action. Arguably only Robinson’s injury was a freak event but even then it came as a result of a run play that was being stuffed and where the receiver was being blocked back towards the action. A key part of these players being injured is that they play for a team that finds itself in difficult situations.
Quarterbacks notoriously find themselves injured when their offensive line cannot handle a pass rush and Bulger was a clear example of that kind of casualty. For all that QB is the most important position in the game, he is reliant so heavily on the protection in front of him and the St Louis protection was not able to save him. The wide receiver injuries during the game were both a result of the lack of offensive production. The Rams main offensive weapon is Running Back Steven Jackson and the ground game did have some productivity, Jackson ran for 117 yards on the game. Still, it was on a stuffed run that Laurent Robinson was hurt. The receiver was being driven back into the action when his knee was rolled up.
Bad luck? Not really. The Rams just did not get the push and were contained so when a player fell as is often the case, it was into Robinson who had been shoved into the way. Injuries like that are unfortunate when they happen out on the perimeter but near the line of scrimmage means that trouble is brewing and Robinson is out for the rest of the season. Donnie Avery will be back much sooner but he was taken out of the game in a clear case of being on the wrong end of the matchup when taking a dump off in the 4th quarter and receiving a clean and hard shot as a result. If the game were closer at the time, the Packers defense would have been guarding against a score rather than gambling for the big hit. Had the Rams an offense that could get open or give more protection to the QB, the dump off into danger need not have happened. Avery was knocked out of the game thanks to his team’s lack of offensive prowess.
Defense is a slightly different story. Defenders have long borne the brunt of the battle and that has only gotten worse as rules changes have added doubt to the defender’s mindset. The reason that defenders are injured more often is because they are often in the wrong positions physically when someone else runs over them. This is not bad technique, it is being put into that position by the opposition attack. James Butler, Safety for the Rams could be out for around a month after being hurt on the second Packers play from scrimmage.
Still, the Rams strength is in their defense and head coach Steve Spagnuolo has the unit working reasonably well despite some of the stats. Leonard Little at Defensive End for one had a disruptive game against the Pack but the Rams face lots of difficulties now they have taken over as the worst team in the NFL. The 13 game losing streak is the league’s longest now that the Lions have finally found an opponent to win against. This Rams squad has suffered injury but that is not the reason they have lost so many, it is because they are not a top quality side that injuries arise.
Every team and every player gets hurt, that is the way of things in the NFL. There are trends and reasons behind many of those impacts though. Teams such as the Indianapolis Colts claim a high casualty rate because they play a fast and relatively light-weight version of football. The Colts have taken hits over the past couple of years at wide receiver yet star wideout Reggie Wayne has not missed a beat. This is not a fluke. Wayne is not only faster than many opponents but stronger as well. He does not get caught out and hurt because he is not put into bad positions by defenders.
Of course each situation is different and there are more factors at play in who manages to stay on the field and who does not but the one that is far too often overlooked is that bad teams get hurt. Bad units are more likely to suffer but bad teams are more likely to be desperately reaching for something extra in order to win and that means being in tackle positions, routes, and play calls that open up the extra risk. A team that is running down the clock with inside power rushes in a comfortable 4th quarter lead is also probably doing so with backup personnel on the field. The St. Louis Rams are unlikely to find themselves with that luxury very often this season.
Steve Spagnuolo did a very good job with a New York Giants defense that picked up more than it’s fair share of injuries especially on the defensive line where his players were pushing hard to get to the QB and were more vulnerable to hits than a D-Linemen who is tasked mainly to hold up his point of defense. Now Spagnuolo will have to work out how to improve the worst team in the NFL having already incurred injuries befitting their position.
|
