Week 14 Quick Reads

by Vincent Verhei

Enough. Stan Kroenke had seen enough. The Rams' 42-14 loss to the Falcons on Sunday -- their fourth loss in a row, eighth in their last nine games, and 45th since the start of 2012 -- was the breaking point for the Los Angeles owner. Kroenke didn't move his team from St. Louis to watch them fail on offense game after game, all while preparing to sell 80,000 seats a week in the league's newest stadium. And so on Monday Kroenke fired Jeff Fisher, the head coach responsible for those 45 losses, and also responsible for an offense that seemed to get worse every year under his watch.

Here at Quick Reads, we have gotten quite familiar with Fisher's Rams over the years. They have provided us with our worst quarterback of the week five times (including twice in 2016), and also delivered five of our worst receivers of the week (including three in 14 weeks this year). There's a lot to get into about just what Fisher tried to do with the Rams and why it all went so wrong, but the crux of this column is statistical analysis of offensive players, and so we're going to focus on that side of the ball in this space.

The Rams lead the league in several offensive categories this year, none of which you actually want to lead the league in: fewest points scored, fewest total yards, lowest yards per play, fewest first downs, most punts. (Thank goodness they have Johnny Hekker.) And that's not a one-year fluke. Since Fisher was hired in 2012, the Rams have the fewest offensive yards gained, and are also in the bottom five in points scored, yards per play, and most punts.

If we are going to be perfectly fair, we must admit that the Rams have actually been better under Fisher than they were under his predecessors. Remember when we said that the Rams lost 45 games in almost five years under Fisher? Well, they lost 65 games in the five years before that, the Scott Linehan/Steve Spagnuolo era. They were in the bottom three in offensive DVOA every year from 2007 to 2011. Steven Jackson did have some big rushing years for those Rams teams, but otherwise they were nearly devoid of fantasy talent -- in none of those five seasons did they have a quarterback in the top 25 in passing DYAR, nor a wide receiver in the top 60 in receiving DYAR. They produced only one top-20 tight end.

With that in mind, Fisher stepped in and brought immediate improvement, but that improvement was short-lived. The Rams have been steadily moving backwards ever since, and they have bottomed out this season.

So, clearly, the Rams offense has been terrible this year. No all-time records are in jeopardy, though, at least not on the team level. The Rams' total offense DVOA would be the worst since Arizona and Carolina in 2010, but not among the ten worst of all time. The passing offense, believe it or not, wouldn't even make the bottom 30, and Jacksonville was worse as recently as 2014. Surprisingly, just one year after drafting megaback Todd Gurley and a bundle of offensive linemen, it's running the ball where the Rams are struggling most. By DVOA, they would be among the ten worst run offenses of all time, and the worst since Baltimore and Jacksonville in 2013.

As for individual marks? Gurley, Kenny Britt, Brian Quick, and Lance Kendricks are all better than the very worst players at their positions this year, let alone of all time. Goff isn't going to get enough attempts to threaten the single-season passing DYAR record of minus-1,130, set by David "Derek Carr's Older Brother" Carr in 2002. Goff's passing DVOA of minus-68.3% is very bad, but still comfortably better than Alex Smith's mark of minus-88.6% in his rookie year of 2005. Tavon Austin's minus-140 DYAR is way ahead of Chris Chambers' minus-294 with Miami in 2006. Higbee would be the one to watch here -- he's within sight of Marcedes Lewis' minus-161 DYAR with Jacksonville in 2011.

Austin, though, is on the verge of something special. He is very likely to finish worst among wide receivers in receiving DYAR for the second year in a row, and as of this writing has minus-274 DYAR in his career, the second-worst mark on record. He's only 40 DYAR or so ahead of Dez White (minus-312). Austin has put together four games of minus-20 DYAR or worse this season, including a minus-70 game in Week 1. So White's career mark is in serious jeopardy.

(Note that we're only counting receiving DYAR here. Austin has had much more success as a runner than as a receiver in his career, as discussed in our Year in Review piece last year. That piece is also relevant, by the way, for its discussion of how many Rams players were terrible last year too.)

In the big picture, it's clear that the Rams have been desperately trying to improve the offense for half a decade now, but it just keeps getting worse. No matter how many quarterback trades they make or how many first-round picks they throw at the problem, the decline has just continued. Fisher's head will likely not be the last to fall -- Kevin Demoff, Rams executive vice president of football operations (and son of Fisher's agent, Marvin Demoff), said Monday that "it would be a mistake to say anybody in the building would be back next year."

Assuming Fisher's coaching career is over -- and really, nobody's going to hire him, are they? -- between his tenures with the Oilers/Titans and Rams, he will retire with a win-loss record of 173-165-1 (.512), tying Dan Reeves (190-165-2, .535) for the most losses as a head coach in league history. Will he be missed? Not by many. Rotoworld did a fine job explaining why this firing was well deserved, and Ryan Van Bibber of SB Nation also successfully showed how nothing bad that happened to the Rams was ever Fisher's fault.

If Fisher had an ugly habit of blaming his failures on others, his teams played an ugly style of football too. We've detailed the steady deterioration of his offense, but let's not overlook that since he was hired, the Rams lead the league in delay of game penalties. And while even Fisher would tell you he wished his offenses would have been able to just snap the ball on time, other penalty stats will tell you how dangerous his teams could be. Since he was hired, the Rams were called for 21 roughing the passer penalties, and 50 acts of unnecessary roughness. Only Houston committed more of the former, and only Baltimore was guilty of the latter more often. Fisher knew his own offense wasn't going to score many points, so it looked like he sent his men out to do whatever was necessary to ensure the other team didn't score, either.

So farewell, Jeff Fisher. You spent several years taking a job that could have gone to a younger, more deserving candidate in a field where opportunities are extremely limited. You wasted years of the careers of talented young men, careers that by their nature don't last very long in the first place. Your teams weren't very good, and they weren't very entertaining either. Wherever fate may take you after this, know that the NFL will be a better league without you.