Bernie Miklasz is loved and hated in St Louis. Anyone who reads the preeminent St Louis sports guy picks one of two positions. We love him or hate him. But there’s no denying what he says is quoted the next day at the water cooler.

His column this Sunday, in that sense, is disappointing. With all of the excitement of the NFL season starting Thursday, his big Labor Day column is deserves the title of a bad Saturday Night Live sketch, “Lowered Expectations.”

Bernie says the Rams are young, Mike Martz is working out emotional details from empty nest syndrome, and the Rams should be expected to lose games early in the season because of youth.

That’s all fine and good, but one wonders if Bernie was just lacking a muse, or playing CNN in Baghdad with Ram’s executives. St Louis has experienced a Super-bowl or nothing mentality since their explosion onto the scene in the second half of 1999.

Regardless of the belief that salary cap expectations force rebuilding years in teams, St Louis is expected to perform at a high level because it has some of the best talent in the league. The defense may by young, thin, and beset by injuries in the secondary. They’re also supported by one of the best offenses in the league. If Martz would learn to coach a ball-control offense, he could keep that young defense on the field.

The Rams run a Cover-Two similar to the Bucs. It functions on a bend, not break mentality, and is geared to generate numerous turnovers. The Rams don’t have the Bucs veteran talent on defense, but they certainly have enough to make a legitimate post-season – especially when their young corners have had half the season to approve.

If the Rams are to go deep in the playoffs this year, it will depend on the regular NFL rules of few injuries and an easy schedule. What has killed the Rams in the last few years is offensive turnovers. The cure is not claiming the Rams need to take better care of the ball. The onus is not all on the players. If Maritz can learn to curb his excesses on offense, the Rams will see less turnovers. They’ll still score points, but it’s not hard to draw a correlation between scoring over 500 points and a lot of turnovers. Ask the Kansas City Chiefs, or, say, every Rams team since 1999.

I think the Rams will do well this year, and fall in the playoffs because Martz cannot manage a game. And you can take that to the bank.

On a brighter note –the Stl Post Dispatch does normally have a great sports section. The Tipsheet is hilarious.
Quoted from the Monday Post Dispatch E2, “Mike Bianchi, Orlando Sentinel,
“Deion Sanders will host the ‘The New American Sportsma,’ an ESPN outdoors show about hunting and fishing. Deion will no doubt do the fishing segments with light tackle.’

Heh.

And in Bucs news, I saw the NFL Films segment on the 1999 Buccaneers. It’s been many years since I saw the NFC Championship Game between the Rams and the Bucs. In St Louis, Sports Bars herald “’The Catch.” This was Ricky Proehl’s hip catch of a Kurt Warner catch over Brian Kelly to give the Rams am 11-6 win.

Bucs fans remember Bert Emmanuel’s ‘No-Catch.” Watching the game, and seeing him catch that ball, reminded me of how we were robbed.

Unlike the Tuck Rule, the No-Catch rule was changed the next season. That’s okay. I doubt we could have been Tennessee. And it’s okay now.