ESPN's latest Outside the Lines segment is a compelling look at a question that faces us not just as football fans, but as parents: is the game too violent for young kids? How old should you be before you strap on pads and helmets?

It's a question that Chris Long, one of the stars of the Rams and the son of a Hall of Famer, posed openly on Twitter this afternoon. You have only to get 23 seconds into the video to see why even a pro's pro might get squeamish...

CL7TWO
how bout yall, do yall let your kids play football?

The collection of responses he got show how complex the issue is for those of us who love the sport, love our kids, and try to reconcile the violence of the one with the positive impacts for the other.

"am struggling w/that subject right now; my son is almost 9 & is BEGGING 2 play; still not sure yet"

"Absolutely. He's 10 & played last 2 years. Played left DE & FB/TE last year. It's rough, but kids learn valuable life lessons. Teamwork, discipline, committment."

"I told my son he has to wait until 6th grade. He does play flag football though. He doesn't like though."

"I wasnt able to play till middle school...i was to big to play in any leagues before that"

"yea he LOVES it. He can't wait to start practicing again. Its the 1 thing that makes him forget video games."

"damm right we play footballl....we bring the noisee!!!!"

One of the RamsHerd faithful, @PikeBishop, sparked further discussion by asking "Do you think there is a benefit to early hitting vs just learning and playing the game to protect any brain/head development?"

CL7TWO
@pikebishop i think the injuries are totally inevitable with grown men. i am not as sure about how little kids handle the sport physically.

I am a patient man. I'll wait, I'll wait, I'll wait, I'll wait.

This man’s personal faith is ridiculously deep. 13 weeks into the miraculous 1999 Rams season, his car spun out of control off the highway at 70 miles per hour, his girlfriend in the passenger seat, life or death or dismemberment or at the very least a foreshortened career all flashing before him, and his response was to take his hands off the wheel and “trust God’s plan.”

So I’m just guessing that Isaac Bruce isn’t going to spend a moment worrying about this past weekend’s Hall of Fame vote. But perhaps he should. And as Rams fans, we certainly will.

Why? The same vote that enshrined his partner in the Greatest Show, Marshall Faulk, very ominously failed to vote in any of the three very deserving wide receiver candidates on the ballot: Cris Carter, Tim Brown, and Andre Reed. Wide receiver remains the least-represented position in the Hall, despite the fact that the NFL’s shift to a pass-dominant league is now 30 years in the making.

Here’s how Bruce’s stats line up with these three stars.

Receptions (All time rank in parentheses):

Carter - 1,101 (3rd)
Brown - 1,094 (4th)
Bruce - 1,024 (7th)
Reed - 951 (10th)

Receiving Yards:

Bruce - 15,208 (3rd)
Brown - 14,934 (4th)
Carter - 13,899 (8th)
Reed - 13,198 (11th)

TD Catches:

Carter - 130 (4th)
Brown - 100 (6th)
Bruce - 91 (9th)
Reed - 87 (12th)

Carter, Brown and Reed were voted into the Pro Bowl a combined 24 times by the fans, but after ten tries already none of the three has been voted into football’s Valhallah. (Reed has been eligible for the Hall since 2005, Carter since ‘07, Brown since ‘09.)

The point here is not to split hairs, comparing Bruce’s candidacy against the others; these elites all belong in the Hall. Isaac’s career production stands shoulder to shoulder with this group, a clear step down from uber-elite Jerry Rice, but a clear step above any other bronze bust who played the position. If Carter, Brown and Reed can’t get in, neither can Bruce.

And that’s the core of the problem -- if they are all such good candidates, how are voters expected to pick one over the other? Each siphons votes from the other.

Because he retired this year, Bruce won’t be eligible until 2015. So it’s possible, perhaps even likely, that this logjam will have cleared up by then. But other names will be added to the discussion soon -- names like Marvin Harrison, Terrell Owens, Randy Moss and even Bruce’s teammate Torry Holt. And that’s just the receivers. Other iconic players like Walter Jones, Orlando Pace, Kurt Warner, Michael Strahan and plenty more will be able to make great cases as well, with more added every year.

It’s imperative that the NFL’s 44 Hall of Fame voters break the WR logjam. It should have been done this year, with Cris Carter leading the way in. Now we have to wait until 2012, and hope that it will all work out according to Someone’s idea of a plan.

	2009	2010	Improvement
Points Scored	175	289	+114
Points Allowed	436	328	-108

The stats say the offense and defense both improved dramatically in 2010. So why does WPA favor the D?

2010 saw the Rams take a huge leap forward in respectability on both side of the ball, jumping from one win to seven and immediate contention in the weak NFC West. While rookie Sam Bradford won accolades (and endorsement deals) for revitalizing the franchise, several statistical measures of the Rams are telling us to look elsewhere for the source of the Rams' improvement.

The offense improved by 114 points with Bradford at the helm, and little else changed. The defense improved by 108 points after a reshuffling of the defensive line. Seemingly, both sides of the ball should be credited relatively equally in the improvement of the team's fortunes. However, Win Probability analysis by Brian Burke of Advanced NFL Stats says differently.

By his metrics, Bradford's exploits over 16 complete games started amounted to 0.09 win probability added, 25th among quarterbacks. 

Seem unbelievable? Consider the Football Outsiders' quarterback stats a form of corroboration, if not a complete explanation. By their measure, Sam Bradford rated 34th among NFL quarterbacks in their leading metric -- DYAR, or "defense-adjusted yards over replacement." (Dan at Falcoholic.com offers a nice explanation of DYAR, including its inherent weakness, understanding what constitutes a "replacement player.") 

The offense as a whole totaled only 1.19 WPA. The driving force behind the Rams' six-win improvement, according to Burke's WPA, was the defense. The players listed by the metric totaled 13.89 WPA.

Yes, I realize that 1.19 + 13.89 doesn't add up neatly to 7 wins. And no, I'm not sure why. But the important thing for us to notice is the staggering difference between the two units. Why is the defense getting so much credit in this stat? Because that's exactly the way Spagnuolo played it.

This game hardly needs introduction: it is as revered in Rams history as any single moment or achievement of the franchise's history. This game crowned the miraculous worst-to-first rise of the team colored royal blue and corn yellow, befitting its mix of world-class talent (Marshall Faulk, Isaac Bruce, Torry Holt, Orlando Pace) and products of more humble origins (Kurt Warner, London Fletcher, most of the offensive line).

Very few of the players on this tape are still playing today. Some, like Faulk, are long retired and already eligible for Hall of Fame induction, and others will follow soon. Others have fallen out of the game and have been all but forgotten. And one, the tragic case of Steve McNair, is no longer on this earth.

This time capsule also contains a good share of melancholy as we consider the dynasty that could have been, perhaps should have been, contained in the core of this team, but was frittered away by equal parts ego and incompetence.

Origins of the team:

Dick Vermeil was a protege of Sid Gilman's vertical passing offense -- the offensive system that influenced Don Coryell, Al Davis and Bill Walsh alike. When he arrived in St Louis, though, he didn't have anything close to the right fit of coaching and talent, inheriting Tony Banks and drafting Lawrence Phillips, and trying to lead them with a cadre of old men that included assistant coach Mike White, offensive coordinator Jerry Rhome, and offensive line coach Jim Hanifan. The hope was to bring an old-school toughness back to St Louis; the result was an old-school disaster.

After two years of failure, Vermeil was urged to start over, and he did by reaching back into the Redskins (where Rhome was plucked from) for a student of Norv Turner's branch of the Gilman offense: a little-known quarterbacks coach named Mike Martz.

A lot of little things that had gone so awfully wrong started to go right. Waiting for Martz was a third-string quarterback who barely made the roster over Will Furrer in 1998.

The Rams spent the offseason aggressively assembling talent: QB Trent Green was signed, RB Marshall Faulk was dealt for, WR Torry Holt was drafted. And Martz began drawing up a phone book of plays designed to stretch the mostly zone-based defenses of the time beyond their breaking points. The result -- though it was Warner and not Green who led it -- was known as the Greatest Show on Turf.

The Opponent:

Jeff Fisher's Titans had been emerging as a force in the AFC South, behind the steady Steve McNair and powerful rock of a running back, Eddie George, but the heart of the Titans' dominance lay in their ferocious defense, which had been taken to the next level by a "freak" defensive end, Florida's Jevon Kearse.

The Titans, like the Rams, were recent arrivals in their new digs; after two seasons spent playing in west Tennessee, '99 was the first year spent in their shiny new stadium in Nashville, and their home field advantage was every bit as raucous and imposing as that of the domed Rams. The crowd in Atlanta's Georgia Dome leaned strongly toward their brethren of the South.

This Super Bowl appearance stands as the only one of the franchise's history, and they came one yard short of perhaps turning it into a championship trophy.

For Mike Jones and the Rams, that one yard makes all the difference in the world.  

Apparently winning RamsHerd's first annual "Most Necessary Rookie Performance" award didn't exactly mean that Rodger Saffold would start getting the star treatment. According to a nicely revealing feature in the Cleveland Plain Dealer, Saffold is still plenty comfortable blending into the shadows.

The full article is a nice read on a player that is part of a wave of new NFC tackles -- including Seattle's Russell Okung, both of whom were pegged by ESPN's Mike Sando as potential Pro Bowlers for years to come.

What's really exciting for Rams fans to consider is if Saffold can take as big a leap forward in his second year with the team, working with offensive line guru Steve Loney, as his linemate Jason Smith did.

While some may be disappinted that Smith (a #2 overall pick) is still ensconced at right tackle, Loney and the Rams believe simply in putting the player in the best position to succeed, draft position be damned. For Smith, he was able to use his quick feet and powerful base more effectively on the right side, particularly as a run blocker, and in his second season started to show flashes of excellence, and enough game-to-game consistency to escape 2009's rotation with Adam Goldberg, and earn full-time playing status out of the gate.  

If Saffold shows the same quantum leap in performance -- particularly in his ability to seal off the interior gap -- from year one to year two, he could enter the Pro Bowl conversation a lot quicker than anyone anticipated.

With the help from Football Outsiders' Aaron Schatz, Hulu is reliving the ten greatest Super Bowls of all time. The Rams show up on this list three times. First up? Super Bowl XIV, Rams vs Steelers in Pasadena. You can enjoy a 22-minute flashback, courtesy of NFL films.

Full disclosure: I hated the 1979 Rams. I was six years old, and we crowded around a tiny black and white TV as Vince Ferragamo's Rams strangled my father's Buccaneers 9-0 in the NFC Conference Championship game, spoiling their first-ever winning season. Our quarterback, Doug Williams, completed only 2 of 13 passes before being pulled from the game, and with his loss all hope for a miraculous finish was gone.

It was an eminently flawed NFC field, obviously, if the Championship came down to these two historic underdogs; with two playoff wins, the 9-7 Rams became the losingest team ever to play in a Super Bowl, and they faced Terry Bradshaw and the three-time champion Steelers.

The Rams went to battle without any of the iconic names associated with the franchise. This was a "tweener" lineup past the era of Rosey Grier, Deacon Jones, Merlin Olsen, and Lamar Lundy -- the fearsome foursome -- and before the era of Eric Dickerson and coach John Robinson's one-back system that enabled his greatness. Their only Pro Bowlers, indeed their only players of note, were the two Youngbloods: linebacker Jim, and  hall of fame DE Jack. Their eventual starting quarterback, Vince Ferragamo, completed only 49% of his passes that season. Their running back, Wendell Tyler, was known more for his fumbling than his rushing.

This was a fractured team marked by bickering and dissent at the top of the franchise as Georgia Frontiere wrested the team away from the children of her late husband, Carroll Rosenbloom. They were galvanized by one thing -- winning.

They very nearly won this game too, holding a tenuous 19-17 lead at the start of the fourth quarter, and driving for the game-winning points down 24-19 with just a few minutes left in the game.

But the first Super Bowl win for the Rams would have to wait another twenty years...

James Hall and the Rams' rebuilt defensive line increased their sack total from 25 to 43 in one season. Mission accomplished? Or just beginning?

Despite a seemingly annual procession of high draft picks, the Rams' defensive line always played as less than the sum of its parts, until 2010. The transformation, led by coach Spagnuolo, started by letting go of one high draft pick (underperforming DT Adam Carriker) and not working very hard to entice its best pass rusher (DE Leonard Little) out of retirement. The only additions to the line were a 33-year-old defensive tackle (Fred Robbins) and a pair of third-day draft picks (Eugene Sims and George Selvie). However, these minimal changes had a hugely positive effect on the overall play of the line.

The Rams' defensive line improved radically from 2009 to 2010 by a number of measureable metrics, however, it failed to improve by one key stat:

• Sacks: 29th in the NFL (25 total) in 2009 .... 7th in the NFL (43 total) in 2010.

• Adjusted Sack Rate (sacks per pass attempt): 27th in the NFL (5.4%) in 2009 .... 8th in the NFL (7.1%) in 2010

• Opponent's passer rating: 31st in the NFL (96.9) in 2009 .... 9th in the NFL (80.4) in 2010

• Opponent's yards per rush: 20th in the NFL (4.4) in 2009 .... 22nd in the NFL (4.5) in 2010

While moving James Hall (right side) and Chris Long (left side) to their natural positions helped the team take a quantum leap against the pass, the weakness of their interior line couldn't generate any improvement versus the run. Moreover, while most teams utilize rotations with their defensive front four, the constant cycling of players in and out of the lineup at some spots suggests more desperation than plan.

To illustrate this, here is what the Rams' left side of the defense looked like, on a per-snap basis. (Stats via ProFootballFocus.com)