The Rams firing Jeff Fisher wasn’t a good decision

The Los Angeles Rams have fired Jeff Fisher, and contrary to popular belief, maybe that wasn’t the best decision

The Los Angeles Rams announced Monday that they are firing longtime head coach Jeff Fisher during his fifth campaign with the organization. Prior to his tenure as Rams head coach, he had spent 17 years with the Tennessee Titans organization, formerly the Houston Oilers.

So far this season the Rams have only won four games, making this one of the worst seasons for Fisher in his career. While with the Titans organization, Fisher only suffered six losing seasons but he’s had five straight losing seasons with the Rams. While Fisher was able to put together good seasons for the Titans, he usually found himself falling short of Peyton Manning’s Indianapolis Colts. Many felt that Fisher’s career would finally see postseason success once he left the AFC South. Unfortunately, that never happened.

The Rams can’t place all of the blame on Fisher. After all, he came into the job with a proven track record running the Titans. While Fisher was racking up wins in Tennessee, the Rams were being buried by loss after loss. In the five years before Fisher, the Rams had a total of 15 wins — that’s an average of three wins per season. In the five years that Fisher has been with the Rams, they have won 31 games, over twice the amount of the five seasons before. One could argue here that Jeff Fisher did in fact turn the team around.

Fisher found the most success with the Rams on the defensive side of the ball. The defense has improved every year under Fisher, and for the past two seasons have been ranked within the top 10 defenses in the NFL. Fisher has struggled the most in molding the team’s offense, and he has especially never had the best of luck when it comes to quarterbacks. The Titans seemed to give him a string of quarterbacks with lots of flash, but not a lot of actual potential. The Rams have virtually been doing the same thing.

Too Many Changes

Over the past five seasons, Fisher has had four different starters under center. One was former No. 1 overall pick Sam Bradford, who missed a significant amount of playing time due to injury. The team has suffered the same problem at the running back position. In the past five seasons they have had four different leading rushers. Fisher started with an aging Stephen Jackson, who at the time was only a shadow of his former self.

The same story can be told at the receiver position. The team has drafted a few hopefuls, but no one solid one has stood out. Over the past three seasons, Kenny Britt has shown to be consistent, but he is actually one of Fisher’s guys who came over from Tennessee.

The fact here is that the Rams have major problems in their scouting and drafting departments. Those problems existed long before Jeff Fisher drove up to St. Louis. Fisher had a track record of winning in a tough division before the Rams hired him, and since they hired him he’s over doubled their winning production. Maybe instead of firing Fisher, the Rams should first look at the front office for improvement.

Eric Dickerson

There is also the Eric Dickerson problem. Dickerson is beloved by many long time Rams fans, and recently he has been extremely critical of coach Fisher. Dickerson even went so far as to boycott Rams games until Fisher was fired.

Most people probably were aware that Fisher was going to be on the hot seat at the end of the season — that’s the nature of this business. It is extremely unprofessional for a former player to call out a team to fire a head coach in the manner that Dickerson did.

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It is even more unprofessional for a team to seemingly cave to the demands of a former player. The Rams may not have fired Fisher as a result of Dickerson’s displays, but the timing doesn’t make them look good. It raises questions — such as why not wait until the end of the season?

The bottom line is that the Rams should not have allowed Dickerson to influence any of their personnel decisions. The team also should have made other changes before looking at Fisher as the root of the problem.

Whomever the team brings in next will likely have similar problems until the organization is willing to make the necessary changes in the front office to start.