Sam the St. Louis Ram Makes It a Win...in a Loss

Sam Bradford threw three interceptions and one touchdown against the Arizona Cardinals in his pro debut as a St. Louis Ram.

While Chris Long was spouting obscenities such as “I will eff you up” at the Cardinals’ offensive line and living up to his threats at the left end position, the rest of the Rams’ D also worked hard, but no matter what, Larry Fitzgerald is going to clown you at one point or another, and in the fourth quarter of Sunday’s game he caught a pass in the corner of the end zone to give Arizona a 17-13 lead over the usually hapless Rams.

But this blog is about the rookie quarterback whom the Rams handed over $72 million dolla-dolla-bill-y’alls to.

Sam Bradford played one hell of a football game. Sure, he wasn’t the star of the game (that a-hole of a safety Adrian Wilson was! He made me cuss like that Troy Sparks guy yesterday!), but he made plays that Rams fans haven’t seen from a quarterback in St. Louis since Marc Bulger was playing competent football in 2006.

Look at the stats, though. Fifty-five pass attempts, three interceptions, only one touchdown (to Laurent Robinson at the end of the first half on a fourth down play!), and a bevy of wildly thrown balls.

Take those into account (except the wildly thrown balls, which obviously won’t show up in Sam the Ram’s stats) without watching the game, you’d think Bradford played a poor game, but to use a famous cliche: the young man played with poise and passion.

With a couple of minutes left, as he led the Rams down the field, scrambling out of the pocket and throwing lasers down the field in ways that Marc Bulger never could, Bradford threw an interception to Kerry Rhodes in the red zone on a pass intended for tight end Billy Bajema.

S**t happens, y’know? Quarterbacks who are worth a damn throw touchdowns and interceptions (check out everybody’s favorite indecisive media whore: Brett Favre). Interceptions are definitely the downside of the growing pains of the NFL. It’s always how you get back up. Bradford got back up and kept throwin’.

Next week the Rams travel to Oakland to take on the Raiders.

Troy Sparks is a Jabberhead and an SJ contributing author. Read more of Troy at Troy's Thoughts on Sports .

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