Rams got new pants

[STL FANATIC]

There was a story on the news about this. They were saying how the real contreversy is not a QB one, but a pants one. Tyoka Jackson loved em, Grant Wistrom didn't, he thought they looked to Charger-esque. Martz was kinda like meh. Someone off Camera yelled they were horrible. Because of his daughter, I know Special Teams Coach, Bobby April didn't care for them. In the end, it was the owner Georgia Frontiere who had em wear them, so...

I just hope they go back to gold. Especially since the next game is at home meaning they'll be in blue jerseys...

[See Red]

And Vick thought that he was deliberately being injured was because he had heard that the other team said to take out his knees.  That can be taken in more than one way, and you can't blame Vick for taking it the way he did.

[JQK]

i hope they have gold pants with the stripe pattern.... those pants need stripes...

And hey.. late or not, dirty or not.. it's not wrong if you don't get caught...

[STL FANATIC]

i hope they have gold pants with the stripe pattern.... those pants need stripes...

And hey.. late or not, dirty or not.. it's not wrong if you don't get caught...

If they add stripes that would suck. I love the solid gold. There awesome.

Actually, it's late, dirty, and wrong, it just happens to not be illegal. Well that's not even true either, it is illegal. It's pretty much just freakin lucky that its not called. I'm not blaming em for doing what they could. I hate the fact that they went after him like that, and I surely don't respect it nor would I want the Rams to do that, but it is the NFL, and I guess you do what you can.

[STL FANATIC]

Here's an article from stltoday.com, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch's website, that talks about the Rams pants. Since the topic was discussed here, I'll also include the portion that talks about Tiki Barbar's (non)fumble.

Article

Blue uniform pants weren't exactly gold in the Rams' opener

By JIM THOMAS

Post-Dispatch

09/13/2003

For the first time since their uniform redesign following the 1999 season, the Rams came out in blue pants Sunday against the New York Giants. Except for a preseason game in San Diego in the 2001 - when the team wore white pants - the Rams have always gone with gold trousers.

Coach Mike Martz wasn't quizzed about the fashion change until Friday, and expressed (mock) surprise that the question didn't come up earlier in the week.

"I thought that would be the most important topic," Martz said.

Well, there have been a couple of other issues swirling around the team lately.

"Our owner (Georgia Frontiere) had suggested blue pants, and I thought it was a good idea," Martz said. "I kind of liked them. I don't think they had anything to do with our performance."

Martz said the blue pants might return later in the year, just not at home, where the Rams always wear blue jerseys.

"All blue? Grape's not in this year," Martz said.

Among the players, the blue pants met with mixed reviews.

"I'm not a big fan of the blue pants, but I think it's because I'm not the most slender guy," said 310-pound offensive guard Adam Timmerman.

On the other hand, wide receiver Isaac Bruce gave the blue pants two thumbs-up.

"They're cool," Bruce said. "I like the stripes on them."

League stands

by Barber call

 Lost in the concussion and game management hysteria coming out of the Giants' game was what looked like a blown call by the officiating crew headed by Tom White.

With the Rams trailing 23-13 early in the fourth quarter, and the Giants backed up at their 9-yard line, New York running back Tiki Barber appeared to fumble a short pass from Kerry Collins. The Rams recovered the loose ball and would have taken over inside the New York 10 with 13 minutes 49 seconds to go. A quick Rams TD there, and it's 23-20 and anyone's ballgame.

But officials ruled the play incomplete, and with the play blown dead, Martz couldn't challenge the call via instant replay.

"You can't review it if it's blown dead," Martz said. "We would have liked to have reviewed it, because it was a fumble. It was clearly a fumble. The officials definitely made a mistake."

Television replays and game film both seemed to show that Barber clearly took two steps with clear possession of the ball before it was jarred loose. The Rams formally complained to the league about the call, but in its review, the NFL told the Rams that possession of the ball by Barber couldn't be clearly established. So in the league's opinion, the incomplete call was correct.

Well, it doesn't sound like the blue pants will become the main pants, so that's good. It also doesn't sound like they will go blue on blue this year, so that's great.

As for that call, I'm not blaming the game on it, nor wore the Rams, but it was freaking obvious the call was blown and the NFL couldn't even admit it. Pathetic. They could have said the call was wrong and we will look into a way to making it reviewable. Or, they could have said it was wrong, but bad calls happen. Or they could have said it was wrong, but he didn't have control for very long and the ref didn't have a great view, so that's why the call was blown. However, they can't even admit they were wrong. I had a great front view on TV, and I saw thought it was obvious in real time. However, if the ref didn't have that view, Barber didn't have possession for very long, so I don't blame him for making the wrong call. I do think it's sad that the NFL afterwards has access to the same view I had and as slow as they want as many times as they want, and they can't admit their mistake.

[CDunn]

It was a blown call, but the league is going to protect the refs.  Leagues admit mistakes with the same frequency as national governments.  It ain't gonna happen, even when they know they're wrong.

At least no mono-unis this year for the rams.

[Puckguy14]

As a 49er fan, let the Rams THROW!  Bulger seems to have the "hot hand", but I agree, give Marshall the ball!  Glorified Arena football only worked in 1999.  Now, everyone knows how to stop it.  As for the pants, We'll see what they wear tomorrow.  My guess is that they go back to the plain golds, or would they add stripes to them too?

[JQK]

Actually, it's late, dirty, and wrong, it just happens to not be illegal. Well that's not even true either, it is illegal. It's pretty much just freakin lucky that its not called. I'm not blaming em for doing what they could. I hate the fact that they went after him like that, and I surely don't respect it nor would I want the Rams to do that, but it is the NFL, and I guess you do what you can.

If you don't think that the Rams were trying to do the same to Kerry, your high.

Everyone tries to get that last little nudge in... one extra *pop*...

That is the league. It is a violent league. If you don't wanna get hurt, don't play....

(Can you guess which side of the ball i played on?)

[sc49erfan15]

Funny we're discussing the Rams and late hits...

I agree that contact is part of football and all that stuff, but I don't think Leonard Little's hit on Garcia today was the cleanest... :angry:

[STL FANATIC]

I disagree there, as that was part of a fake. Little didn't know where the play was. When you are faking and pretending you have the ball, you leave yourself open to hit. It wasn't sparkling clean though, I'll give ya that.

So, after Bulger's showing, do you guys still think he should get the nod. He didn't play better than Warner, and Warner coulda done the same thing today. Bulger kinda got a lucky win. I think Martz will go back to Warner next week.

[Phil]

Absolutely... not taking anything away from Marc, he's easily the best backup QB in the league, but when Warner is healthy, Warner is the starter.

The one thing Martz has done is limit the turmoil a QB controversy can cause in the dressing room by not letting any doubt grow as to who he's starting.

[Sterling84]

I am by no means bashing Warner. I think they can take Warner for granted some times. Bottom line is Warner, when healthy, is the best QB in the league

I just had to read this thread and see how on earth you guys were filling two pages on blue pants. Now, I get it.

Regarding the above quote: This kind of burns me. It's the least true thing ever. I get in fights with my fantasy buddies all the time. We never agree, but I say...."fine, think so? draft him then".

Kurt had a magical season in 99. Everything came together for that team so quickly, all at once. It was hard for anyone not to be happy for them or amazed. But Warner was just a piece of that puzzle. He had a back in his prime, deadly targets all around him, a quick opportunistic defense and everything to prove. But he was not, is not the best QB in the league. This is liable to draw irrate responses but please listen carefully. I mean this with all due respect. Warner, like Aikman before him, was a tremendously accurate passer. PASSER...with all the pieces around him. I like to think the TERM quarterback, rather than the position, implies that quality of leadership, toughness, determination that you can't see on paper. Stat-monkey that Warner was in fantasy for those three years, he never had to take the team on his back and win a game. He never raised anyone up. Bruce already kicked a$$. Faulk was already the all-purpose yardage king. Post 1999, Little by little, as Rams left for free agency as is often the case, certain opponents schemed for Warner with terrific success. Most notably Tampa and Philadelphia found that applying terrific amounts of pressure to Kurt rendered him a fumbling, happy-footed, ineffective QB. Now, doesn't that kind of pressure make most QBs look like crud? Yeah, it does. But Warner, again like Aikman, looked especially ill-at-ease in those type of situations. Pretty soon, Tampa and Philly , and the Giants beating up on Kurt and beating the Rams was fairly common. THe Pats took this formula to perfection in the Superbowl. I also blame Martz for much of this Warner decline. His "I don't need timeouts or punting" attitude has not given Kurt a chance to build on positives and simply win games to help put the controversy behind them.

For all his ability...his accurate deep throws, he is not an athlete that had escape-ability like Vick or Elway, Young, Gannon and to a lesser extent Favre to create something positive out of a negative situation.

Maybe I am looking at this through tinted lenses. Marino was just as lead footed and made arguably THE best career ever out of just throwing darts. But all I am saying is this reverence and entitlement Warner fans are feeling toward him is understandable, but really misplaced. Some people burn bright, some burn long....few do both. How many QBs have captained "out of nowhere" teams to a title only to never be heard from again? Ummm, quite a few. Dilfer, Doug Williams, Rypien to name a few.

Warner was, with all his stars aligned, was a terrific, nearly unparralleled PASSER, for a few seasons. He looks jittery, uncomposed, and strangely like he believes he can escape pressure now. He's a fumbler and has less weapons to work with than ever before. I hope the man finds additional success, I really do. But the Rams have to do what's best for their organization and I have real real doubts as to what Warner's place with that team or in the NFL is.

It happens man. Look at my username. I used to follow every single down Sterling played. I would watch him instead of the snap and know whether the ball was coming based on which way the QB looked. I would catalog his accomplishments as GB and NFL records fell. I happen to give him some credit for why Favre lasted through a comparatively long "growing pains" era by at least having a reliable target to turn his ducks into scores. At any rate, it was all gone one day and since then I watch the Harrisons, Carters, Tim Browns break the records that should be Sterlings. But I fool myself. They shouldn't be. Some people burn bright...some burn long.

I think Kurt's done. But I hate his wife and am a jerk. But by no conceivable measure is he currently the best anything in the league.healthy or not.

[See Red]

I happen to agree with Sterling.  Seeing as though the judge of a good QB is not arm strength or arm accuracy as much as it is decision making ability and making audibles and stuff like that.  The thing that gets me about Kurt Warner is that in those seasons where everyone acted as though he was a gift from god, the system worked to favor him incredibly.  Decision making skills lose importance when 3 of your 4 or 5 recievers on any given play have 4 steps on the Defensive back.  Bottomline, when that team lost Ricky Proehl and Az Hakim, they lost alot of ability and speed in that recieving core.  Defenses no longer have to go in nickel and dime sets every play and have the ability to blitz and put more men in the box, like the 49ers did in the first half of today's game, and never should've stopped doing, even if St. Louis was developing their running game.

Kurt Warner wasn't blessed with any particular ability to do what the majority of QB's in the league couldn't... he was just given the advantage of being able to throw the ball up to any of his 3 wide open recievers and to know that they'd come down with it, and not just that, he had more time than the average QB to decide which one.  The Patriots had led the way to bottling up this St. Louis offense.

I just wish that Jim Mora Jr. would've understood that what they were doing in the 2nd half to stop the run and pass didn't work all too well to stop either of the two, and they should've stuck with the "8 in the box, blitz the hell out of a young, somewhat inexperienced QB".  Because atleast THAT stopped the pass.

[STL FANATIC]

But by no conceivable measure is he currently the best anything in the league.healthy or not.

As serious and straight faced and all that as you said that, I say your wrong. If Martz does what I think he will and puts Warner behind the gelling O-Line against the Seahawks next week, you'll see.

[Sterling84]

As serious and straight faced and all that as you said that, I say your wrong. If Martz does what I think he will and puts Warner behind the gelling O-Line against the Seahawks next week, you'll see.

Because you are a fan...I sincerely hope so. It doesn't do me any good for him to fall into obscurity. It might as well make someone who cares happy. Let's hope huh?

I hope you understood I wasn't trying to be jerky. Perhaps I've got a little old man in me now...but I would hear my little cousins (10-13yrs old) talking when Madden 2001 came out. And they, being from here, would take the Packers in seasons. But they'd swap out Freeman for Moss and Favre for Warner...and I didn't know what to do with that nugget. Ya know? They're just kids and it SO doesnt matter...but I just felt like smacking them and saying.."Flavor of the day what??"

Anyway, if he's got it in him, here's hoping I'm proved wrong next week or any week.......unless it's midseason when Green Bay comes to town...we don't need any help losing that one...stupid domes.

[STL FANATIC]

I understand what you were saying, and how you were saying it. Didn't come across as jerky at all. I just simply think your wrong.

[Sterling84]

cool.  

to tell you the truth.  Wouldnt have it any other way.

Represent STL.

[See Red]

If Martz starts Warner, like you expect him to, then you're gonna be 1-1 in NFC West play.  A mark that, by all means, should be 0-2 if not for a stupid mistake by a greedy player who admitted to 'thinking endzone' instead of the obviously better choice of going down -- Now, if I had my way, Cedrick Wilson would've been in a heated battle with another young WR for the #3 WR spot, and would have lost it following that decision -- but there is no reciever to challenge him for that coveted opportunity to be on the field at the same time as Terrell Owens.

The Rams have a bottom 5 NFL coach.  Mike Martz is not good, which is the ONLY reason the Rams have not won a Super Bowl after Dick Vermiel left when Martz had just as good as, if not better offense, and a defense which was just as good, if not better.  Mike Martz does what everyone else has done, and blown Kurt Warner's abilities way out of proportion.  When Marc Bulger is in the game, the Rams run the ball.  And when the Rams run the ball, the Rams win.  But Mike Martz has come to think that Kurt Warner is the messiah over the past few years and now almost refuses to give the ball to one of the 5 best players in the NFL.  9 carries is not enough.  It's simply not.  And Mike Martz's track record over the past year is to give Faulk very few carries when Warner is under center.  The gameplan when Kurt Warner plays is just so much worse, and unbalanced than when Marc Bulger plays because their head coach is a moron.

I thought I heard that Kurt Warner has fumbled the ball 24 times in his last 6 full games, but I have been unable to verify that information.  But with his week 1 performance, I don't exactly doubt the validity of that statistic.  But that's just too many mistakes by ONE man, the supposed leader of a football team, to win a football game.

The only thing Mike Martz has proven good for is screaming at the official for calls that didn't go his way.  Nobody can tell me in that in real time, they saw Kevan Barlow fumble the ball clearly.  And you want a situation that changed that game, how about the ref stepping in front of Terrell Owens drag route to throw the flag on the chop block, resulting in a deflected pass going to where Terrell Owens would've atleast been that was intercepted and run back deep into 49ers territory.

[tajmccall]

Some people burn bright, some burn long....few do both. How many QBs have captained "out of nowhere" teams to a title only to never be heard from again? Ummm, quite a few. Dilfer, Doug Williams, Rypien to name a few.

Warner was, with all his stars aligned, was a terrific, nearly unparralleled PASSER, for a few seasons. He looks jittery, uncomposed, and strangely like he believes he can escape pressure now. He's a fumbler and has less weapons to work with than ever before. I hope the man finds additional success, I really do. But the Rams have to do what's best for their organization and I have real real doubts as to what Warner's place with that team or in the NFL is.

It happens man. Look at my username. I used to follow every single down Sterling played. I would watch him instead of the snap and know whether the ball was coming based on which way the QB looked. I would catalog his accomplishments as GB and NFL records fell. I happen to give him some credit for why Favre lasted through a comparatively long "growing pains" era by at least having a reliable target to turn his ducks into scores. At any rate, it was all gone one day and since then I watch the Harrisons, Carters, Tim Browns break the records that should be Sterlings. But I fool myself. They shouldn't be. Some people burn bright...some burn long.

I think Kurt's done. But I hate his wife and am a jerk. But by no conceivable measure is he currently the best anything in the league.healthy or not.

this is exactly how i feel, but you said to absoulute perfection.

Of course the points about the difference between passer and qb are much more detailed than i got into.  but i agree with it all.

nfl football is a war,you want to trust your leader, they trust bulger right now, right or wrong.

ultimately the players dictate what happens,a nd they happened to vote someone who played 7 games the entire season as team mvp.  he was the most VALUABLE to the team to the players around him. that alone makes me put him in.

[IronChefShark]

If Martz starts Warner, like you expect him to, then you're gonna be 1-1 in NFC West play. A mark that, by all means, should be 0-2 if not for a stupid mistake by a greedy player who admitted to 'thinking endzone' instead of the obviously better choice of going down

I disagree somewhat on that point. Yes had cedric wilson did the right thing and ate it to get the field goal unit out there, it very well could have been a different result. however even if he did it would have been at least a 38 yard field goal if my memory serves me correctly (I had to get that in)

and Im sure the other 49ers fans would agree with me on this, that a mid-to-long range field goal for jeff chandler is by no means a slam dunk. he very well and most likely would have missed it, resulting in the inevitable OT which it ended up going to anyways

in all though, it was a very sloppily, unfundamentaly sound game on both teams parts. too many penalites and too many dropped passes. it was definitly a lucky win for the rams, but if the role was reversed it would have also been a lucky win for the 49ers.