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	9.19.02 Much has been written about the St. Louis Rams' 0-2 start to this season.  The critics are salivating at the thought of finally getting to rip on the arrogant Mike Martz.  One such writer for ESPN.com even went so far as to say that Martz has been reduced to a coaching clown.  This is all fine and good.  The Rams were very arrogant over the last few years, and with good reason.  Many mocked them for openly stating that they were trying to play the perfect game and using a NASA term for that ideal perfect game (I forget what it was now, something to do with the letter Q I think).  Anyway, the writers have been giddy with the horrible start the Rams have had. Since I am a Rams fan, I am less than giddy.  I have not given up hope - they still have the best collection of offensive talent in the league - but it is obvious that something is wrong.  How could a team that went from a clinch to win the Super Bowl last January to a team that has now lost seven straight games, including the preseason?  Well, it actually started much earlier than that, in my opinion. In 1999 the Rams broke on the scene going 13-3 and suprising everyone on their way to a Super Bowl victory over Tennessee.  In 2000, people were more prepared for the Rams juggernaut and it started to show.  They didn't have as good of a season and were ousted in the first round of the playoffs (yes Clark, by the Saints).  In 2001, the Rams put their defense back together and again dominated the league all through the playoffs until the suprising Super Bowl loss to the Patriots.  Here is my theory on what happened: In 1999 no one believed the team could keep it up and were continually suprised by them.  In 2000 the league realized that the defense was suspect and that they could be beaten by a ball control offense that kept the Rams offense off the field.  No one tried to figure out how to stop the offense.  In 2001 the league still believed that the Rams defense was the weak link and so they still didn't really try and figure out how to stop the offense.  The problem was that the defense was much improved, which allowed the Rams to walk to the Super Bowl.  But if you were a Rams fan and you had watched all of the games from last season, you were nervous.  I was nervous.  There were too many games that the Rams found a way to pull out the victory.  They never looked as dominant as they should have.  In 1999 and the first six games of 2000 the Rams would come out fired up and score two touchdowns before the defense had any idea what had hit them.  In 2001, every game was scratched and clawed out.  The swagger wasn't the same, even though they kept winning.  The Rams biggest weapon had been the ability to go for the knockout punch in the first two quarters and then pile it on while the other team had to go to their desperation offense early in an attempt to counter-attack. Bill Belichek's gameplan (which has elevated him to the "genius-of-the-moment" status in the NFL, and rightly so) was a culmination of the previous two and a half years of the Rams weakening offense.   Belichek recognized that the Rams weren't laying people out early and that if a team could play mistake-free and desperation-free, the Rams could be beaten.  And so they were.  Even still, the Rams made the Super Bowl a close game, just as they had with many of the games during the season.  The difference was, the Patriots didn't feel the weight of an inevitable Rams offensive explosion.  They held the mystique at bay and won the game. Now, the Pandora's box is open and no one feels the inevitability of Rams dominance.  The Rams lived on the reputation they built in 1999 and the first six games of 2000 for quite some time without truly backing it up.  That time is over and they must rebuild that reputation.  The Rams offense works best when the other team is afraid of what might come next.  They need to come out and start knocking people out early to regain that respect.  It will be a very difficult task to accomplish, however, especially this week against a strong Tampa Bay defense. Granger
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