St. Louis Rams: Jeff Fisher's Approach A Breath Of Fresh Air In St. Louis - Missouri Sports Magazine

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ST. LOUIS, MO (Shane Gray, MSM Sports Media) - The St. Louis Rams nearly pulled off the upset in their season opener at Detroit after entering the game as a heavy underdog. Under the most recent former regimes at Rams Park, a close loss under similar conditions often led to statements by the head coach that made many fans feel as if the Gateway City was expected to throw the team a parade upon its’ return to the city. However, with Jeff Fisher, close losses won’t be counted as victories. They will be counted for what they are: defeats.

At the Continuity X Training Center Monday, Fisher was asked if there was a positive feel despite the loss to the Lions.

“We lost the ball game,” Fisher emphasized. “As we told the team, I’m getting text and emails from everybody across the country saying great job. Well, what do you mean great job? We lost by four points.”

Fisher, contrary to some other Rams coaches of late, does not seem satisfied with superficial moral victories, close losses and supposed progress week after week following season after season of loss after loss. Fisher does not have the mindset to celebrate defeats, regardless of how tough the game might have been or how big of an underdog his team truly was. No, Fisher is here for one reason: to win.

In Fisher’s mind, the Rams enter every game with the expectation of winning, not merely competing, as he said during the offseason.

“There’s no reason why we can’t have the same expectations that everyone else has,” Fisher said. “If I were to say we’ll go 10-6, what do I tell the players about the six games we’re going to lose? That’s not fair to them. I’m coming out and saying it’s okay to lose six games? No, I’m not going to say that.”

Fisher is not going to express contentment or satisfaction over a close loss. Thus, his players will not either. Fisher knows the team will take on his attitude, and Fisher expects the Rams to not only want to win, but to expect to win. There is, after all, a big difference in the two mentalities.

“No, not hungry to win, they expect to win,” Fisher said this summer. “Everybody does. The past is the past but we are looking forward with that expectation to win football games.”

If any player has the Fisher mindset established into his own thinking, it would be free agent addition Cortland Finnegan, who played for Fisher in Tennessee for five seasons. It is not surprising, then, to hear Finnegan sound like an echo of his long-time head coach.

“We’re not rebuilding by any stretch,” Finnegan said in the offseason. “We’re going to start to put it together, push each other and win football games.”

As one can quickly perceive, Fisher nor his players are willing to concede anything. Even though the Rams are coming off the worst five year stretch in NFL history and a 2-14 season, the Rams have the mentality that they can and should win.

With all that said, the Rams and Fisher did end up with the defeat on Sunday. They now must forget the aforementioned loss and begin preparing for Sunday’s home opener.

“We put that behind us and we move on,” Fisher explained Monday. “The key is improving. As we went through the offseason and went through training camp we said, we’re going to do everything we possibly can do to get ready for the start of the regular season. We didn’t put all our eggs in the opener basket because one of two things happen in the opener. So you just have to continue to get better and I think we showed some improvement. I think there were a lot of people, no one in this room as far as players and coaches, that didn’t know how this team was going to respond. I think this team put forth a worthy effort, but still we lost.”

Yes, even when acknowledging his team’s strong effort, Fisher did not even finish the sentence without pointing out the bottom line and bigger point: “but still we lost.”

Under Fisher, this team will have one overriding focus, trumping the worthy goals of improving individually, growing as a team, producing an elite defense and any other sound objective one could list. Above all, they will remain laser-focused on one thing: winning.

After too many years where close victories almost felt acceptable to former coaches, that is exactly what the Rams and Rams Nation needed to hear.

Photos by Michael Thomas, Copyright MSM Images