For one fleeting four-game stretch in 2013, Jeff Fisher offered hope he could turn the now-Los Angeles Rams into genuine playoff contenders.
It was the first four games of Fisher’s second season with the Rams, and after pulling them from the dregs of the NFL to a far more respectable 7-8-1, Fisher appeared willing to do something he’d never done in his head-coaching career: change and adapt.
As one of the staunchest supporters of smashmouth football, Fisher and his teams were generally only missing the leather helmets when it came to an offensive philosophy.
When Fisher took a year away in 2011, after he lost his job with the Tennessee Titans, the most pressing question was whether he had used that time to come to grips with the reality of an ever-evolving league.
Between his first and second seasons with the Rams, Fisher altered his old-school style and instructed then-offensive coordinator Brian Schottenheimer to open things up. The team traded up to No. 8 in the draft to select receiver/returner Tavon Austin, selected running back Zac Stacy and receiver Stedman Bailey and signed offensive tackle Jake Long and tight end Jared Cook.
Beyond that, Fisher and Schottenheimer sought quarterback Sam Bradford’s input on building the type of wide-open offense that could keep up with the rest of the league.
As it turned out, there was nothing particularly memorable about those first four games. The Rams went 1-3 and, after a particularly dreadful Thursday night showing against San Francisco, Fisher scrapped it all.
The wide-open philosophy wasn’t working but, perhaps more importantly, Fisher wasn’t comfortable with it. If nothing else, his ground-and-pound approach would at least keep him in his cocoon of mediocrity, allowing him to always offer the promise of turning the corner but never delivering.
So Fisher went back to what he knew. And he got the same old middling results. With Sunday’s loss to the Atlanta Falcons, Fisher guaranteed the Rams a 10th straight losing season. It put the stamp on six consecutive seasons below .500 for Fischer and tied him with Dan Reeves for the most head-coaching losses in league history.
It was enough to land him on the unemployment line Monday afternoon as the Rams announced they were firing him after four seasons and 13 games.
To his credit, Fisher was able to take the Rams from NFL laughingstock to middle of the pack. But so long as he remained stuck in the past offensively, he was never going to be able to take the Rams to the next level.
In 77 games as Rams coach, Fisher’s teams averaged 307.2 yards per game (last in the NFL), 5.1 yards per play (29th), 201.9 passing yards per game (30th) and 16.77 points per game (31st).
Other than an uptick in scoring from 2012 to 2013, the Rams’ average points scored has gone down every season since Fisher took over. At its current pace, this year’s Rams will be the second-lowest-scoring team in the past five years, and if they somehow manage to score fewer than 18 points, they will be the lowest-scoring team in that span.
Of the 160 individual teams to play in those four-plus seasons, none of Fisher’s offenses ranked better than the 2012 version, which was 116th at 329 yards per game. For frame of reference, the league average over that span is 349.3 yards per game.
Sure, teams like Seattle and Denver have won Super Bowls recently on the strength of their defenses and run games, but both relied on historically dominant defenses and had quarterbacks and coaches willing and capable of opening it up when necessary.
And even in those areas where Fisher's teams were supposed to excel, the Rams were generally nothing more than average or slightly below. His teams averaged 105.3 rushing yards per game and 4.12 yards per carry, 19th and 15th in the NFL in that span. Defensively, the Rams were 14th in yards allowed per game (349.9) and 13th in points allowed per game (22.08).
Some might view Fisher’s attempts to make changes at offensive coordinator as a willingness to alter his approach. But even when he went searching for new coordinators, he had trouble getting anyone of note to interview, let alone consider making the move.
The outside concern was an obvious fear that working for Fisher would mean being beholden to his outdated offense and ending up out of a job, perhaps even before Fisher himself.
It’s why Fisher ended up promoting the likes of quarterback coach Frank Cignetti and tight end coach Rob Boras to the job. It wasn’t so much that Fisher didn’t want to hire from outside as he was unable to land an attractive candidate who would be given the freedom to upgrade and update the offense.
There is no shortage of reasons a coach, including Fisher, gets fired. But when you sort through all the personnel and public relations missteps the Rams have made over the past five years, the one constant has been an offense unable to consistently produce even league-average numbers.
Ultimately, it was Fisher’s unwillingness to change that forced the Rams to make one.