Rams Coaching Staff - Plenty of Room For Growth

If there's one thing we found out for certain about Scott Linehan, it's that he's a man of character, a man of his word, and that he refused to allow his ego get in the way of his decision making. Never was it so evident that he would not allow ego to blind his reasoning as in the dreadful shutout against the Panthers.

After the humiliating meltdown of his team he did not allow it to fluster him, he did not allow his ego as head coach get the better of him. Instead he remained calm, focused and even keeled when he decided that perhaps calling the plays just wasn't going to work for him as head coach and decided to hand those duties over to his offensive coordinator Greg Olson, and by sticking with this decision the rest of the season and into the 2007 season. By doing this, he was able to salvage a season that was teetering on the edge of being worse than the 2005 season. In making this decision he allowed himself to have more insight into what was going on with the entire team and individual players. His decision to cast aside ego paid off, especially in the last four games of the season where his offense began to flourish and he finally became the head coach each and every game day.

One flaw though was his reluctance to play the younger players a good part of the season. But in the end, he threw them in and discovered that he might actually have a few diamonds in the rough.

Jim Haslett on the other hand had a far harder task to undertake with the defense and even though they put out some big bucks for some players, the overall result of Haslett's first season as defensive coordinator was a major disappointment. The entire year it seemed they were still shy of three to four major players needed at key positions on the defense.

They've had enough time now to see where they need to go for them to reach the next level. In the off season there will be plenty of time and room for this coaching duo to grow and improve upon their shortcomings of 2006.

Overall Grade: C+