St. Louis Rams’ 2012 Opponents
ST. LOUIS – Here are the Rams’ transactions in 2012 so far. On January 2, RB Chase Reynolds, T Ryan McKee, WR John Chiles, TE DeMarco Cosby, CB Kendric Burney, DT Cornell Banks, C Tim Barnes and DT John Henderson were all signed. On January 9, P Tom Malone was signed and on January 20, K Garrett Lindholm was signed.
New head coach Jeff Fisher officially announced Monday that Brian Schottenheimer will be the new offensive coordinator and Gregg Williams will be the new defensive coordinator. Thanks to Stan Kroenke, the Rams will be playing one regular season home game in London at Wembley Stadium for the next three seasons.
Also thanks to the Rams having no dominant players last season, no Ram will be playing in the Pro Bowl next Sunday even with some players originally selected not playing due to injury, the Super Bowl or personal reasons. The rest of this article will talk about all of the teams the Rams will play in the regular season in 2012.
Of course, every St. Louis Rams fan should know that the Rams play a home and away game against the San Francisco 49ers, Seattle Seahawks and Arizona Cardinals. The 49ers (13-3) will be very tough because they were the #2 seed in the NFC in 2011 and were so close to making it to the Super Bowl by failing to win the NFC Championship. The Seahawks (7-9) and Cardinals (8-8) started out slow, but were very dominant in the second half of last season, making next year very difficult for the Rams to win any division games.
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The Rams’ home opponents are the Green Bay Packers, Washington Redskins, Minnesota Vikings, New England Patriots and New York Jets. The Packers (15-1) should be very good again considering they lost one game last season, but went one and done in the playoffs. The Redskins (5-11) and Vikings (3-13) are easy wins for the Rams next season; this will be the third year straight the Rams will play a home game against the Redskins. The Patriots (13-3) will be very good again considering they were the top seed in the AFC and are playing in the Super Bowl; this is the “home” game for the Rams in London, making it seem like an away game. The Jets (8-8) are a mess right now with the entire bad team atmosphere, but are still a very good team.
The Rams’ away opponents are the Chicago Bears, Detroit Lions, Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Buffalo Bills and Miami Dolphins. The Bears (8-8) were a playoff team until they lost their starting QB and HB for the season, so they will be tough to beat. The Lions (10-6) made the playoffs, so they are a very good team. The Buccaneers (4-12) were awful last season, in particular their last ten games, which they lost all of them due to numerous injuries like the Rams suffered. The Bills and Dolphins (6-10) are decent teams, with the Bills having an amazing first half and the Dolphins having an amazing second half of the season; the Dolphins were the team that failed to get Fisher and will have a new head coach, similar to St. Louis.
In conclusion, the schedule for 2012 looks no easier than last year’s hard schedule. For the Rams to have a chance, every starter needs to stay healthy, which is impossible for the Rams of all teams. The three main hires at head coach, offensive coordinator and defensive coordinator need to take an offensive and defensive unit that was near the bottom and get them near the top next season to have a chance. Finally, the Rams need to trade the #2 overall pick and end up with at least three picks in the top two rounds and a quality player from the team trading up in return.
By Trevor Roe
ProFootball-fans.com St. Louis Rams Correspondent