Cold, Hard Football Facts.com: A cautionary tale

By Jonathan Comey

Cold, Hard Football Facts walker down memory lane

Heading into Week 8 of the 2000 NFL season, there were two questions on the minds of fans and media alike:

Would the Rams go undefeated?

And, by how many points would they shatter the all-time scoring record?

The Rams were coming off their first Super Bowl win, and followed it up with a remarkable start to the 2000 season.

They kicked off with 500+ yards and 41 points against a good Broncos team that would finish 10-6. Then they put up 37, 41 and 41 against the 49ers, Falcons and Seahawks before hosting the 0-4 Chargers in St. Louis.

That was the big one, a 57-31 win that made San Diego look like a CFL team. The Rams led 47-17 after three quarters, and Kurt Warner finished the day with a perfect 158.3 rating.

Sound like a certain Patriots-Dolphins game to anyone else?

After a Week 6 bye, the Rams came back in Week 7 to beat Atlanta 45-29 and further reinforce their status as the best offense of all time.

The numbers:

They had 262 points in six games (43.6 per), on pace for 699.
Marshall Faulk was on pace for 2,888 total yards from scrimmage, 1,656 on the ground 1232 in the air.
Kurt Warner had 20 TDs in six games, and was averaging 376.7 yards per – on pace for a record-shattering 6,026.
Isaac Bruce was on pace for 1,845 yards and 14 TDs.
Torry Holt was on pace for 1,525 yards. The Rams were beating opponents by an average of 14.7 points a game.

Yes, the Rams were a totally unstoppable juggernaut … except for the fact that they finished 10-6, barely made the playoffs, and lost in the first round.

So, what happened?

Kurt Warner started playing poorly, then got hurt. Warner had eight INTs in those first six games, nothing to worry about when you’re producing huge numbers. But in the next five weeks, he threw 10 more INTs, to only four TDs, then went down with an injury vs. New Orleans. Trent Green played well the rest of the way, but the Rams “only” scored 27.8 points a game over their final 10.
The schedule got much tougher. The Rams played five of their last 10 against playoff teams, and the other five teams on the schedule were at least mediocre.
The defense never improved. St. Louis was allowing 29.5 points a game in that six-game run, but it was assumed that those numbers were skewed by the Rams’ big leads. Nope. They allowed 29.7 a game the rest of the way in going 4-6.

Will any of these problems befall the Patriots? They’ve certainly played better on defense than the Rams, and mistakes of any kind have been pretty hard to come by. A 10-6 record isn't in their future.

But the scoring record they’re chasing seems like a longshot as well. Like the 2000 Rams, they have five Quality Opponents left on the schedule, and it’s just not as easy to keep the numbers up when the opposition is putting up a bit of a fight.

At the very least, New England coach Bill Belichick can use the 2000 Rams as another slice of Humble Pie to serve his team.