For the Win

(photo by Nick McGlynn, more here)

What's awesome about the St. Louis Rams' first win of the 2009-2010 season -- their first win of all of 2009, for that matter, and their sixth win in their last thirty-four games -- is that it exhibited zero evidence of progress.  This wasn't any kind of turning point.  The players won't be able to shake the goat off their collective backs and win out the rest of the way.  We beat the Detroit Lions, and barely.  We only scored the go-ahead TD in the final minutes because of a questionable interference call against Detroit; they wouldn't have been tied with us before that if one of our own players, after having intercepted the Lions deep in our territory, hadn't run backwards into our own end zone and gotten tackled there.

Our first touchdown was scored on a pass from our kicker on a faked field goal attempt; the coach rewarded him by LETTING HIM PLAY THE WHOLE NEXT SERIES AT QUARTERBACK.  IN A CLOSE GAME.  (The second thing was apparently not true!  It was a play-by-play and box score error replicated in a couple different places.  Totally believable as Marc Bulger was every bit as effective as a place kicker on that series.)

This is not a good team, and I had to laugh when the St. Louis Post-Dispatch suggested that the Rams' 0-7 record had anything to do with the schedule.  Games on the road versus teams coming off bye weeks aren't allowed to be factors when your team is losing by an average of ten billion points each week.  We have loused opportunities against bad teams (Redskins, Jaguars).  The first commenter on that article very rightly pointed out that "As long as the Rams' schedule includes another NFL team, it has been a schedule that has been 'against the Rams.'"  This is a very bad team that just happened to barely beat another very bad team.  A commenter from Detroit, where I assume the game failed to sell out, said on NFL's Game Center, "I wish this game was blacked out on the radio also."

We had to have this one.  Not because it was an easy way to start a winning streak; it was practically our only opportunity to grab air from a sea of failures.  Following our bye week we get New Orleans; we will play Arizona twice.  Middling teams like Houston, Chicago, and San Francisco are insurmountable opponents for us.  Woeful Seattle already beat us by 28 points.  I have to think Fisher will have found something right with the Titans by the time we play them.

So even though it doesn't feel good in any way, I'm going to celebrate this lone win.  It's always good to be reminded that, on any given Sunday against any one of a very select batch of loser opponents, even the worst teams get the opportunity to feel like someone else sucks more than they do.

tags: rams  

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