Football Sundays are back! Join us in reliving the Rams' 2010 season, week by week.

The predictions were coming in all preseason -- despite the buzz around Sam Bradford, the 2010 season was going to be another long mudslog through the worst division in football. SI's pundits, former NFL scouts and sophisticated prediction machines agreed: it would take another year and another top-five draft pick, maybe another coaching change, before the excitement returned to St Louis.

Bradford, Spagnuolo, and a cast of surprising players said to hell with all of that, we think we can win NOW!

As we get set to relive the 2010 season, using NFL.com's invaluable Game Rewind, let's re-set the table for that season by identifying three key themes from training camp that would carry over to the big rebound year. 

“Get in where you fit” and “Know your role,” both great lines and words that carry a lot of weight with the Ram’s crop of WR’s this offseason.  Something that stuck with before the 2010 NFL Draft was a comment by Rams GM Billy Devaney. He talked about the Ram’s need to improve talent wise across the board, at all positions. That even a slight upgrade at a spot will put the team in a better position to win and the need to turn the talent over in this fashion every year.  Don’t believe him...then you apparently did not pay attention to the Rams 2011 Draft…at all…and shame on you for that.

Tyson Langland from Pro Football Focus "Here's how I see it. Clayton, Avery, Amendola, DX, Pettis, Salas--6max"

Essentially Billy D came out and said “…unless your #8, consider yourself on notice.” Okay…no need to scour the papers he didn’t actually come out and say that, but his actions might as well have.  By taking Kendricks, Pettis & Salas he sent a message to Clayton, Avery, DX and the other Ram’s receivers and TE’s that the Rams no longer will settle for what they have but rather strive to attain what they do not.

Tevin Broner from Turf Show Times "here's mine, Amendola, Gibson, Clayton, DX, Gilyard, and 2 rookies. I think Rams ahve to keep 7"

Myself, I like it. I am a Mizzou grad and big DX fan. I thought Clayton showed a great connection with Bradford in their short time together last season. But if ya ain’t helping the team get better ya gots to go. As a kid I can remember how my Dad loved tell me any time I messed up, “you better be glad you’re the only one we got.”…for the Ram’s WR’s that is a luxury they do not have. I just hope Devaney doesn’t make ‘em cry, not that I cried, I’m just saying. You know what, whatever…don’t judge me…

Yours Truly from RamsHerd "I can see those 6+ a wildcard which could be Gilyard or an extra TE. McD likes those 2 TE sets. Gilyard's best shot is KR."

Here are some good links and conversation on who could be staying, who should be staying and who’s out the door.

WR's, TE's we got 'em....game changers? We'll see

Coming on strong like a hurricane...or a WR from Idaho

Should they stay or should they go now...if they stay it could be trouble...

Fire sale of WR in aisle 4, Rams load up

To keep Mark Clayton or to not keep Mark Clayton...that is the question

Quick, one minute...who should the Rams keep

Can two rookies help win the NFC West?

Will a TE force out a WR? Maybe one who can stretch the field

When all else fails...use the buddy system

One non-courtroom item in the PFT rumor mill today has the Rams potentially lining up for Randy Moss' services this season. Not that anyone has talked to anyone, or that any "agreements" (wink, wink) are in place, just that the Rams might be a fit.

Josh McDaniels' experience with Moss in New England is cited as the basis for the argument, but it ignores a couple of realities that we went through in depth last fall, while making the case for Moss, and the case against. While we had some pretty good speculative arguments on the plus side, I believe the pendulum has shifted significantly away from this possibility. Analysis after the break:

My memory is a little fuzzy, who is this guy again?

I am a patient boy, I'll wait I'll wait I'll wait I'll wait. But this waiting for something substantial to happen, for the business of football to get back to normal, is torturous. The mental pathways that were once devoted to the Rams, to the myriad possibilities of the draft, of free agency, and of the 2011 season, are barely firing now, fogged and occluded by this cloud of depression that hangs over the offseason now.

We are all together in the post-draft void, and I'm sitting at the epicenter of the big nothing, here in St Louis where the 8th district court is busy sleeping on the legal fate of the league. Theories and analyses abound, but the more I read the less informed I feel.

The latest legal salvo from the NFL touches on one of the few chords that resonates with fans: competitive balance. Lifting the lockout now in an uncapped environment, they say, would open the doors for teams like the Cowboys (yes, the same Cowboys crying most about their stadium debt) to play like the Yankees in baseball and sign all the best available free agents. And it would hurt the chances of small-market teams like the Rams of competing for those same players.

It's a good argument on paper, but falls apart quickly for anyone with a working memory longer than that of Guy Pearce in Memento. (And if you don't get that reference, go now to the local video store and grab this movie. One of the very best mind-bending movies of the last decade.)

After all, last year's league was uncapped, and teams spent remarkably less than in previous years. And if the lockout was lifted, the league could institute 2010 rules immediately and create as level a playing field as last year, when the very smallest of the small market teams -- the Green Bay Packers -- won the Super Bowl.

More worrisome are the rumblings, all from unofficial sources, that the league is considering a nuclear option of their own. If the players are willing to scuttle the rules of collective bargaining by walking away from their union, the owners, so the rumor goes, might consider shuttering their teams entirely.

Aaron Nagler at Cheesehead TV does a nice job of skewering the league's latest scare tactic. But the bigger problem is that we have to spend any time at all talking about this crap, when we could be talking about football.

Giving ourselves something to talk about

Here at RamsHerd, though, we plan on preserving some kind of sanity by reliving the 2010 season, week by week. Let the legal battle take its own course, but we won't be mining it for daily non-updates. That's what PFT is for.

Instead, each weekend we will rewatch and re-recap a game from Sam Bradford's debut season. While we know how it will all turn out, the exercise of rewatching will refresh our memories and give us a fresh perspective on the Rams' foundations for the coming season. Starting this Sunday with the season opener versus Arizona, we'll be wrapping up in late August.

Hopefully by then, we'll actually have something to talk about.

Using one fake Twitter account to vouch for another one? Brilliant. And disgusting.

Fool me once, shame on you. Fool Rams fans with your fake Twitter antics twice? There's a special circle of hell waiting for you, reserved for fame-chasing syncophants. 

It's pretty sickening, really. Twice already someone has registered RQuinn42 and tried to attach themselves to Robert Quinn's newfound celebrity and soak up the love of the newly ecstatic Rams fans wanting to welcome to his team. The same thing has happened to unwitting Cardinals fans and Patrick Peterson (PatPeterson7), and new accounts for Dallas' Tyron Smith (TySmith77) and San Francisco's Aldon Smith (A_Smitty85) are highly suspect as well.

This generation of fans has grown up with the internet -- and with the idea that people can be something very different from who they say they are. It's an accepted risk, and our inborn bs-detectors are relatively sophisticated. But what these people are doing is pernicious. Here's how they systematically break down our layers of distrust:

1. Set up an account and tweet something to the effect of "Finally got Twitter, help me figure this out lol"
2. Start tweeting to a bunch of known NFL players, including those on the team that just drafted you. Hope that one of them tweets you back so you can re-tweet it and build credibility. 
3. Tweet to as many media outlets as you can, explaining that your fake account "will be verified by Wednesday." Hope that they endorse your fakery to the fan base. (ESPN Radio's Brian Stull got suckered here, and the Arizona Republic's Kent Somers got hooked by the Pat Peterson account.)
4. Start fake twitter conversations between your multiple fake twitter accounts. Send out appeals like "Hey follow my boi @PatPeterson7 just texted me and said he only has 600 followers lol." Then, from your PatPeterson7 account, RT this and say something like "Follow @RQuinn42 he legit"
5. Make sure you heavily incorporate terms like "bruh" when tweeting to white fans.This term of post-racial brotherhood will have them swooning.
6. Hope that a very famous athlete starts following you, giving you their seal of approval.

Sadly, Steven Jackson and Larry Grant were both suckered in by the Quinn impersonator. And that's how I was eventually suckered in a second time, seeing their names in the "Followers" column.

Now there's a third Twitter account for Quinn, or "reserved for Quinn" by so-called family friends. It even has a facebook page set up with photos of a very happy Quinn posing with multiple people and smiling. Who's buying?

Grades for the draft are handed out like those for a test, A, B, C, well you get the point. However a rather larger difference exists between the two types of grades.

On a test for example there are right and wrong answers and for the most part a finite number of answers. One would not venture to tell their teacher or professor that, “though you gave me a D on my exam my answers were right because they fit the needs of what I was looking for coming in to this test.”

Also with a test there is one person grading it and their opinion alone is what matters. Not so with the draft; here everyone gets an opinion on what your grade should be.  At the Draft everyone takes the same test but each one has different questions with different answers. A team doesn’t get just one grade, you get many grades from many experts and those experts include anyone with a pen and a pad, microphone, TV camera or laptop.

Some draft grading tips from Gregg Rosenthal from ProFootballTalk.com and NBCSports.com:

• “Best tip for draft graders: If you've heard a lot of a team's picks, give them good grade. If not, bad grade.” 
• “Another draft grade tip: Anyone in Belichick family tree gets bumped up a grade or 3.”

Yet to me the most glaring difference between the two is that a team may not realize its true grade for years.  Take into consideration how more than often these experts are wrong…not to mention your grade can change after the draft; an A now can turn into a C five years later and the opposite is true as well. This is a big reason the grades mean about as much as a great fantasy season means to actual wins for a team.  

And still…in knowing all of this we anxiously await to see how our team will be graded coming out of draft weekend. So without further ado here is how the Rams were graded by The Hair, Bernie our very own Will and every other “professor” out there…

*disclaimer; take these with a grain of salt because they have no absolutely bearing what so ever on the season. Should the season take place the NFL will still require teams to play games to make it to the playoffs and not just compare draft grades*

If no letter grade was available I went ahead and used my best judgment on a pass/fail basis…deal with it.

And finally….The Grades

• The Hair has spoken…all hail the Hair:  Mel Kiper : Needs A-, Value B+;  “St. Louis got a lot done, and now unquestionably looks like a franchise ready to take that next step”

• I like the way you think Mike, save the best for last. Mike Sando ESPN.com
  

• Todd McShay ESPN, Passing:  Best move: Greg Salas at No. 112; “Salas could end up being one of the best overall picks in this draft. I think he'll become one of the best No. 3 receivers in the league with his reliable hands, competitiveness and toughness after the catch.”

• In the words of the immortal Sally Field, “you like me, you really like me”, FOX Sports Adam Caplan: B

• Lock & Load, NFL Columnist Vic Carucci: Passing  

• Not that we care what fans of other teams think but here it is anyway, NFL.com Poll: B  

• Hey yo Bernie, what you think, Bernie Miklasz; Passing 

• Will recaps the NFC West and the Rams new “Passing” approach. Will of RamsHerd.com: Passing (ha ha...get it)

• When you don’t have anything nice to say sometimes the best approach is to not say anything at all….OR you could put your comments in the paper, Jim Thomas: Incomplete  

• So what do you know about football?...”EVERYTHING,” Evan Silva of Rotoworld: C-

• The St. Louis Fans have spoken, and they have spoken with a B

*Others will be added as they become available