Looking back over the Los Angeles Rams’ edition of HBO’s Hard Knocks, I can say now that Eric Kush and Austin Hill are probably the lucky ones. They escaped the 2016-17 Jeff Fisher dumpster fire and will happily go into the winter months with none of his despicable stink on them. The rest of the team is not so fortunate.
The latest bed-crapping display is the absolute worst of the Fisher era with the Rams. Monday night’s 28-0 loss to the San Francisco 49ers was laughably bad. A joke whose punchline should actually be a physical punch aimed right at Fisher’s mustache. In a league with Mike McCoy, Jim Caldwell, Chip Kelly, Rex Ryan and Mike Mularkey, Fisher has secured his spot as the worst head coach in the NFL.
It's a testament to how great Steve McNair was that his star couldn't be diminished by playing for Jeff Fisher.
— Joel D. Anderson (@byjoelanderson) September 13, 2016
His shittiness is on historic levels. If Fisher doesn’t get fired before the season is over (and there’s no reason to believe he will since his contract expires anyway), he has a chance to be the losingest head coach in the history of the NFL. At present Fisher is No. 3 all time with 157 lost games and he’s hit that mark in record time. It took Don Shula 490 games to notch his 156th loss. Fisher has managed one more in 163 fewer games. The current NFL record holder for losses is former Denver Broncos and Atlanta Falcons head coach Dan Reeves with 165. It took Reeves 357 games to hit that mark because along the way he rebuilt the Broncos to a perennial power and even managed to take the Falcons to the Super Bowl.
just remember no matter how badly you think you do at work today, jeff fisher has done far worse far longer & still has a job
— megan YELI MVP brown (@thatgirlondeck) September 13, 2016
In fact, Reeves took four teams to the Super Bowl losing all of them facing vastly superior opponents. The fact that Reeves got the Falcons and three undermanned Broncos teams to the final game of the season was a coaching feat in itself. Truth be told, Reeves has an eight-game lead over Fisher in the all-time rankings right now and nine of his losses came in the playoffs. Playoffs that a Fisher-coached team hasn’t even sniffed since 2008.
It took Dan Reeves 23 years with nine playoff runs to hit 165 defeats. Jeff Fisher is going to manage it in 22 without any extra padding from multiple playoff seasons.
We've reached the nadir of the Jeff Fisher era, folks.
— Dan Hanzus (@DanHanzus) September 13, 2016
The fear for me this season was that Fisher would somehow pull out one of his miracle 12-4/13-3 seasons he managed with the Titans every five years or so and fall into an extension with the Rams. All the tools were there. As has been the case for the last three seasons, the Rams have the most talented roster they’ve fielded since 2003. Any coach, it seems, could take this group and win at least 10 games. It shouldn’t be that hard. But for Fisher, it’s impossible.
On that first episode of Hard Knocks Jeff Fisher coined the phrase of the year when he stated that, basically, he wasn’t going to put up with “7-and-9 bullshit.”
Jeff Fisher is the Jeff Fisher of getting away with being Jeff Fisher.
— Benjamin Allbright (@AllbrightNFL) September 13, 2016
We all had a nice laugh at that. Fisher is the personification of 7-and-9 bullshit, if such a thing every existed, and all of us in the media had fun predicting a 7-9 finish for the Rams in Fisher’s final season. But the joke is on us. Because there is no way this team wins even seven games under Fisher and the most inept coaching staff in the NFL.
Los Angeles is rightly up in arms over what they saw Monday night. Meanwhile in St. Louis I can imagine there were quite a few satisfied nods. They don’t have to be associated with that kind of failure anymore. Lucky them.
Jeff Fisher after last nights game.. pic.twitter.com/lzut1SKXy2
— Kev (@561_Kev) September 13, 2016
The worst part of the debacle this season will become is there’s no draft pick haul at the end of the trash-strewn tunnel. Fisher and GM Les Snead saw to that by trading away their next two drafts on Jared Goff, a quarterback that Monday night wasn’t even good enough to put on a helmet. The next Rams head coach will have to fill in this team’s holes with free agency and later-round picks. Good thing for him it’s already loaded with talent. Talent that Fisher and his coaches have no clue how to use.
For Jeff, now, the sites need to be set on eternity. Fisher should wrap up his final head coaching job in the NFL by putting an indelible stamp on the league he’s managed to float through like a rogue turd in a public swimming pool. He could go 6-10 and take the record, but if I know Jeff Fisher, 5-11 is on the table. He then can secure, by a good two games, his rightful place as the NFL’s All-Time loser. He’s definitely earned it.
