St. Louis Rams 2009 Preview: Out With Greatest Show, In With Spagnuolo

Training camps have wrapped up, the NFL season is right around the corner, and it's still hot as sin outside. But instead of cooling you off with a warm island song, FanHouse break out ye old heat check for our 2009 NFL Season Previews. We'll rate each club in 5 categories on a scale of 1 to 10, high score wins.

The Rams enter the 2009 season in full-on rebuilding mode. Another bad season wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing for the future of the franchise as a whole, as they need to continue to grow their young players. The remnants of the strong Rams rosters from earlier this decade are either gone or aging quickly. New head coach Steve Spagnuolo will look to mold the next generation his way, starting immediately.

Offense: What was once the Greatest Show on Turf crumbled to the 27th ranked offense in 2008. They went through some injuries to key personnel, but overall it's not a very stout unit. The offensive line is reworked, and Jason Brown up the middle will pay dividends. Rookie Jason Smith will be developing this year, so the pick may not fully pay off until 2010. Steven Jackson is a monster when healthy. Remember, this season he's had a full training camp, as opposed to last year where he held out for a significant amount of time. Plus, the Rams have added a solid blocking fullback in Mike Karney. Expect Jackson to have a big season. The passing game, on the other hand, is a problem. Their group of receivers -- Donnie Avery, Laurent Robinson, Keenan Burton and Derek Standley -- isn't going to scare anyone, despite the potential possessed by Avery. Bulger has been sub-par the past two seasons as his weaponry dwindled and appears to be in a decline. We know they'll be able to run, but will there be enough from the air attack to prevent Jackson was consistently seeing 8-man fronts? Heat Index: 4 (would be a 2 without Jackson)


Defense: The 2008 defense was almost equally as bad as the offense. Only four teams allowed more yards than the Rams and the only team who gave up more points was the Lions. This was a brutal defense. In Spagnuolo, they have brought in a defensive-minded head coach. Second-year defensive end Chris Long and rookie middle linebacker James Laurinaitis will spear-head the youth movement. Adding James Butler via free agency gives the Rams one of the stronger safety duos in the NFL -- along with O.J. Atogwe -- but they are still weak at corner. Leonard Little is a good bookend to the defensive line along with Long, but the outside linebackers and defensive tackles leave a bit to be desired. As is the case with most areas of this team, they have plenty of holes. To reiterate what we mentioned in the intro -- and it's probably tough to do so for the fans -- more important than winning games this season is watching the development of players like Long and Laurinaitis and allowing Spagnuolo and his staff to evaluate the personnel around these future centerpieces. I do, however, believe they will be slightly improved on this end of the ball due to the new coaching and the additions of Butler and Laurinaitis, along with Long's improvement. Heat Index: 3

Special Teams: Well, now we can say something good. In Donnie Jones, the Rams have arguably the best punter in the NFL. He kicks it high enough to give his coverage a chance to bottle up any sort of a return, and he kicks it deep (50 yard per punt average last season). He alone helps them in the field position battle, of course, they really need that help. The Rams finished dead last in the NFL in starting point last season, due to a dreadful kick returning game. On the other side of that, their kickoff coverage was also the worst in the NFL. Josh Brown is a quality field goal kicker, so there's another plus. Overall, things balance out and make the team have average special teams play -- due to being elite on a few ends and awful on a few others. I'm inclined to bump them up a point, though, due to the training camp intensity. Player intensity can help kickoff coverage. Heat Index: 6

Coaching: We love Spags as a defensive coordinator, but the jury's still out about him running his own team. He does appear to balance his intelligence and intensity well, so that's a good sign. He's coached under Andy Reid and Tom Coughlin, so he's learned from two of the best. The ways things stand right now, it looks like the Rams have their best coach since Dick Vermeil. Spagnuolo's supporting staff is of the same ilk as him. Ken Flajole has never been a defensive coordinator, but he was a very well respected linebackers coach in Carolina for the past six seasons. Pat Shurmur has never been an offensive coordinator, but he has been the quarterbacks coach in Philly for the past seven years. We know about Donovan McNabb, but we should also remember the great play the Eagles have always gotten out of their backups -- Jeff Garcia, Koy Detmer, A.J. Feeley -- when McNabb was injured. Tom McMahon is in his first season as a special teams coordinator, but he was the assistant for the Falcons last year, who had good special teams play. The whole staff is like this. In fact, they look much like the players' roster. There seems to be good potential for development, but 2009 is going to be a learning campaign. I like the looks of things here, but they need to prove it in their collective new positions. Heat Index: 6

Intangibles: We know the team can't have a ton of confidence or swagger, considering the miserable past two seasons. There should be a renewed feeling of hope and perhaps some optimism under the new administration. The star of the team, Jackson, has been embraced as a leader by Spagnuolo, so he'll remain happy. The young players will work hard to establish themselves as true NFL competitors, but it's going to be difficult to remain positive as they get their teeth kicked in a few times this year -- and they probably will. Heat Index: 5

Total Heat Index: 24/50 It's a work in progress. While the Rams are likely to have one of the worst records in football in 2009, they are at least headed in the right direction -- which is more than can be said in a few other places doomed to have a bad year. Unfortunately, they are probably going to have to address quarterback as they look to the future. Fortunately, they can probably squeeze 2010 out of Bulger, if they need to, after having drafted a stud quarterback (I'm expecting them to have yet another top-5 pick in the 2010 draft). But that's getting way too far ahead of ourselves. For now, the excitement with the Rams is watching the development of the young players and inexperienced coaching staff as the season progresses.