Southeast Missourian Sunday Audibles

Our Take

Will the St. Louis Rams make the playoffs this season?

Jeff Breer, sportswriter

YES

Let me start by saying 1999-2000.

For those not familiar with Rams history, that's the season we learned there really is a Super Bowl fairy.

It doesn't matter if your team is coming off a 4-12 season and is resorting to a former grocery store stockboy (Kurt Warner) as the starting quarterback.

So with that as the backdrop, let me say the 2013 Rams are playoff bound.

Sure they haven't had a winning season in 10 years (same as 1999 -- eerie), but last year's 7-8-1 record included a 4-2 finish. The team went 4-1-1 in the tough NFC West that produced Super Bowl runner-up San Francisco and wild-card Seattle. That feat was accomplished by a team with the youngest average age in the NFL.

St. Louis not only had to deal with inexperience, but it also had to play a home game against the Patriots on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean.

The Rams had a formidable defense in coach Jeff Fisher's first season, leading the NFL in sacks.

I'm a believer in fourth-year quarterback Sam Bradford, the overall No. 1 pick in 2010, who has been showing up at NFL gun fights his first three seasons with a switchblade. He's yet to have a breakout season but is playing for the first time in the NFL under a returning offensive coordinator and with an upgraded receiver corps. With the addition of tight end Jared Cook and West Virginia speedsters Tavon Austin and Stedman Bailey, the team has an excitement factor that has been missing.

I like the upgraded offensive line with Jake Long, another No. 1 overall pick, on Bradford's blind side.

I think the team could also benefit from the departure of Steven Jackson. While I admired his determined running style, he was not the prototypical feature back that teams often employ these days. I prefer the low gravity, quick, shifty type. And while this team does not have a Marshall Faulk-type player on its roster, it does have quicker, more elusive targets.

Because the Rams are still the youngest team in the NFL, there is a large upside to their potential. This is a team that's going to improve as the season progresses, and it's important they not dig an early hole. If they're 4-4 at midseason, look out.

Beating Arizona in Week 1 was a must for this playoff-bound team.

Marty Mishow, sportswriter

NO

The Rams are definitely a team on the rise, and I believe they'll continue to make solid progress this season under second-year coach Jeff Fisher.

But, for a variety of reasons, I don't see the Rams earning a playoff berth.

For starters, there is still way to much youth and inexperience on the roster, especially at so many key positions.

St. Louis certainly didn't get a break with its schedule, which on paper looks like one of the NFL's toughest. The Rams have to face, among others, anticipated top playoff contenders San Francisco, Seattle. Atlanta, Houston, Indianapolis and New Orleans.

And the Rams have the unenviable task of competing in such a tough division -- something you couldn't say just a few years ago -- headed by the aforementioned 49ers and Seahawks, who St. Louis plays twice each.

The Rams fared extremely well against fellow NFC West opponents last year, going 5-0-1, including a 3-0-1 mark against the 49ers and Seahawks.

But I don't think the Rams will be able to pull off that somewhat miraculous feat again this season. And not only are the 49ers and Seahawks among the NFL's elite squads but the Cardinals appear much improved, although St. Louis already beat Arizona in the season opener.

I expect the Rams to go somewhere in the neighborhood of 8-8, perhaps even 9-7, but that won't be good enough to make the playoffs.

Next year, however, look out. I believe good things are in store for the Rams in the not-too-distant future.

Your Take

We asked you if the Rams would make the playoffs. Here are the replies from @semoball Twitter followers.

@ThatKid_Rmoses: I think they miss it by a few games given the strength of the nfc west. But they will be in realistic contention in week 16.

@ncmaynard: won't make it. NFC West got real good real quick. Not enough wildcard slots. Seahawks will take one. Lions probably get the other

@DFremsGoTitans: Rams won't make Playoffs even though they have new explosive offensive weapons in Austin and Cook 7-9.

@Dee_Nunn: The Rams will make the playoffs this year because of there strong defensive line and veteran coach Jeff Fisher.

@Csizzy_22: they won't make it, because there defense is shaky and they can not stop Collin Kaepernick... BEASTTTTTT

High 5

Ranking the best in sports.

What are the top five concerns for the St. Louis Cardinals during the postseason?

1. Allen Craig's health: This is the most obvious and important key to the Cardinals' postseason prospects. While Matt Adams is an admirable fill in, the Cardinals need their RBI machine if they're going to make a World Series run. The good news is the team hasn't sputtered since Craig's foot injury.

2. Jon Jay, David Freese's production: There are some players, like Matt Holliday, Matt Carpenter and Carlos Beltran that you expect to produce as usual. There are some players, like Pete Kozma and Daniel Descalso, you can't count on to get hot in the playoffs. It's the in between players, like Jay and Freese, that can make the difference between a first-round exit and a World Series ring.

3. Shelby Miller: It may be optimistic, but I'm going to count Adam Wainwright and Joe Kelly as two Cards starters to count on. Wainwright's been there before and Kelly been good lately and hasn't been racking up innings all season since he spent time in the bullpen. It looks like rookie Shelby Miller will need to be the No. 3 starter, but he is untested.

4. Edward Mujica's durability: The Cardinals' closer has been good, but he's also missed some games with fatigue. The question is if manager Mike Matheny will be able to call on Mujica on back-to-back nights on a regular basis if needed.

5. Yadier Molina's knee: There are plenty of statistics to back up what common sense already tells you -- the Cardinals need Yadier Molina in the lineup. Any reoccurrence of the knee injury that forced him to the disable list would be disastrous.

Disagree with Rachel? Submit your list here and your comments may appear in print.

Say What?!

Man down!

LOGAN, Utah -- If it weren't for a home run during a recreational softball playoff game in northern Utah, a man who fell into an irrigation ditch might have drowned.

Bart Griffiths was fetching a ball that was hit over a fence at the Willow Park Sports Complex in Logan on Wednesday when he saw something out of the corner of his eye.

"I was picking it up and walking back in, and I glanced over toward the swamp, and I thought I saw something gray," Griffiths told The Herald Journal. "What it was, was the tire of the wheelchair sticking up. And I thought, `Why is somebody dumping something in the swamp?"'

But then he spotted a 62-year-old man nearby, face-down in about 6 inches of water. Griffiths thought the man was dead.

"When I lifted him up I said, 'Can you hear me?' And he said, 'I'm dying,"' Griffiths said. "And I thought to myself, 'Oh, that's a good sign (he's talking)."

Griffiths called 911 on his cellphone, and paramedics transported the man to the hospital. First responders said the man, who had propped himself up on his elbows to breathe, had probably been in the ditch for 15 to 30 minutes and was starting to show signs of hypothermia.

Rodman vists N. Korea...again

NEW YORK -- Dennis Rodman is going back to North Korea, and bringing a team of former NBA players with him.

Days after returning from his second trip to visit Kim Jong Un -- in which he said he became the first foreigner to hold the leader's newborn daughter -- Rodman announced plans Monday to stage two exhibition games in North Korea in January.

The first will be Jan. 8 -- Kim's birthday -- with another to follow two days later.

Rodman's friendship with the autocratic leader has been criticized -- and led to a couple of testy exchanges during his Manhattan news conference. But Rodman insists Kim is a good person, wants to have better relations with the United States and that he's the one who can help make it happen with his plan for "basketball diplomacy."

"Why North Korea? It'll open doors," Rodman said.

Touting his friendship with Kim and taunting President Barack Obama for not talking to him, Rodman said he will go back to North Korea for a week in December to help select local players for the game. He hopes to have stars such as former Chicago teammate Scottie Pippen and Karl Malone.

"Michael Jordan, he won't do it, because he's Michael Jordan," Rodman said.

Rodman, holding a cigar and wearing the shirt of a vodka company and a hat of a betting company that is funding the event, said Kim has asked him to train his players to compete in the 2016 Olympics and offered to allow the Hall of Famer to write a book about him.

Though looking like a billboard, Rodman said he's not doing the event for money. He said the Irish betting company Paddy Power would put up $3.5 million. Power later said finances hadn't been determined.

And Rodman, who joked that he hadn't drawn such a crowd in New York since he wore a wedding dress to a book signing, was adamant that this venture was serious -- "groundbreaking," in Rodman's words.

"People think this is a gimmick. I would love to make this a gimmick ... but it's not about the money," he said.

He rarely referred to Kim by name, frequently calling him "the marshal." Rodman first met Kim, a basketball fan, when traveling to North Korea in February for a film project.

Though saying he didn't want to discuss politics, Rodman raised his voice when answering a questioner about Kim's human rights record and portrayed himself as the person who could make outsiders see the young leader as different than his father and grandfather.

"He has to do his job but he's a very good guy," Rodman said.

"If he wanted to bomb anybody in the world, he would have done it."