How will the Rams offense perform in 2008?
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One of the most difficult questions to answer as the 2008 NFL season approaches is what will happen with the St. Louis Rams this season? The Rams ranked in the top half of the league in yards of offense for eight straight years until last year when they fell to 24th. Marc Bulger and Steven Jackson were amongst the biggest fantasy disappointments last season and based on average draft position, people are expecting Jackson to return to his old form but not Bulger. In this article we will try and explain what happened to the Rams last season and try and determine if Bulger, Jackson and Holt can return to fantasy stardom.

Offensive Line:
The Rams offensive line was total chaos in 2007 as they used 18 different combinations during the season. The Rams offensive line did suffer a lot of injuries but it may not have been the entire problem. Orlando Pace was injured in the first game last season and missed the entire year but he had also missed eight games in the 2006 season. In those eight games he missed, the Rams averaged 4.4 yards per carry as opposed to 4.2 with him and gave up 22 sacks as opposed to 27 with Pace. He still is an important piece of this offense but his health is still a concern and even if he does play, he will not fix this th entire line. If we compare the offensive lines from 2006 and 2007, the veterans Timmerman and Steussie were both starters in 2006; Timmerman was cut in the off-season last year while Steussie was expected to be a backup and missed most of the season with an injury but will not be back this year. Barron played all 16 games in both years which leaves Richie Incognito as the only lineman that played in 2006 but was injured in 2007 and will be back this year. Incognito played four games last season and in those four games the Rams averaged 3.5 yards per carry and gave up 14 sacks. The linemen playing in those games were Barron, Incognito, Romberg, Brown and McCollum (Gorin played one of those instead of Romberg). Barron, Incognito and Romberg are all expected to start this year while Brown and McCollum will be replaced by Jacob Bell and Orlando Pace. Jacob Bell is an upgrade over Milford Brown but Bell is not known for his run blocking abilities and will not improve the running game that much. Pace would be an upgrade but if he cannot play he will be replaced by Brandon Gorin, a career backup. Many expect this offense to return to where it was in 2006 but the offensive line in 2008 is completely different than the one in 2006 so injuries to the line were not the only problem last year.

Steven Jackson:
Steven Jackson had a difficult season and missed five games due to injuries. He was impressive when he came back as he had over 700 yards in the final eight games of the season on 160 carries (4.5 YPC) as well as 28 receptions for over 200 yards. However, if you look more closely at his statistics, you will notice that a lot of his yards came on long carries so his yards per carry average may not be very representative of how he performed. In those eight games, Jackson had six carries of over 30 yards for 276 yards. That means his yards per carry average on his other 154 carries was only 2.9. To give a point of comparison, LaDainian Tomlinson only had seven carries of over 30 yards in the entire season for 261 yards and his yards per carry average would still have been 4.1 without those long carries. In 2006, Jackson only had four carries of over 30 yards for a total of 162 yards and his yards per carry average would still have been 4.0 without those. This tells us that Steven Jackson was not particularly good play after play at the end of last season but he had a few very long carries where there was most likely a big hole to run through and it is unlikely that he will have as many of those in 2008 Jackson will probably average about 20 carries a game once again but the offensive line is still pretty bad and you cannot get fooled by the 4.5 YPC in those last eight games as explained above. Our best guess is that Jackson would have at most 4.0 yards per carry but could be less depending on Orlando Pace. Jackson will probably have close to four catches per game as he did in the second half of last season and his touchdowns are likely to increase with a better offense around him. Put all that together and Jackson should get around 290 points in point per reception leagues and 230 in non point per reception leagues but he is a risky pick because of the injuries and the lack of depth on the offensive line.