INDIANAPOLIS -- Somewhere between the Greatest Show on Turf and last season's 6-10 turn, the St. Louis Rams offense went from historically prolific to finding occasional field goal opportunities on fourth-and-1 trailing by 14 points in the second half. The causes are numerous, the symptoms painful to experience. As for the treatment, the Rams are prescribing more of the same.
Fixing the Rams offense is like finding a cure for syphilis
The Rams general manager found a little inspiration for curing his team’s offensive struggles from the guy who found a way to treat a particularly nasty STD.
Brian Spurlock-USA TODAY Sports
“I think in the NFL continuity is extremely underrated,” Rams general manger Les Snead said Wednesday at the Combine.
The Rams recently promoted quarterbacks coach Frank Cignetti to replace offensive coordinator Brian Schottenheimer. Quarterback Sam Bradford, entering his sixth year as a pro, is once again the centerpiece of their offensive plans, in spite of the fact that he's missed 25 games over the last two seasons, tearing the same ACL twice.
Since Snead and head coach Jeff Fisher were hired in 2012 to drag the Rams to relevancy, the team maxed out its offensive production in 2013 with a total of 348 points, an average of 21.8 points per game and a big reason behind its 7-9 finish.
If anything, you might think the Rams would be looking to do something different after three seasons of doing the same thing. But that’s not the case. Snead compared the approach to finding a treatment for one of the most notorious sexually transmitted diseases: syphilis, the same one that got Al Capone in the end.
“I call it the ‘606 principle.’ A guy named Paul Ehrlich I think it took him 605 tries and on the 606th try he came up with a medication that cured syphilis at the time,” Snead said. “I don’t think anyone in the NFL is going to give us 605 chances. The moral of that story is you can evolve with continuity.
“Some of the people who have been in the building and lived through the growing pains know the strengths and weaknesses and what we need to correct. I think that’s what continuity can do.”
Snead was referring to Salvarsan, a arsenic-based compound that attacked the bacteria causing syphilis without killing the patient ... mostly. It wasn’t a perfect solution for curing skin lesions, deformities, brain damage and the other symptoms, but it was at least a way to treat a terrible disease.
By the 1940s, penicillin replaced the 606 compound as the primary method a treating syphilis. It was more effective and safer for patients. The antibiotic revolution had arrived! As for Ehrlich, his life ended on a note of continuity too. He died a year after signing a document in support of German militarism in World War I.
The Rams offense has averaged 20.2 points per game since 2012. It’s nothing in a league evolving with a decided advantage for offenses, but, like the 606 compound, it is better than the syphilitic 13.7 points per game the team average during the three years before Fisher and Snead were hired.
Their organizational commitment to continuity is admirable enough. Unfortunately, the NFL’s best teams have discovered antibiotics are a much better way to treat syphilitic offenses.
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