In the first episode of HBO's Hard Knocks, Rams coach Jeff Fisher stood before his team prior to training camp and explained the rules: Be on time and no visitors in the dorm rooms.
Smash cut to wide receiver Deon Long sitting in Fisher's office trying to explain why he had a woman in his room after curfew.
The explanation didn't fly.
"We're going to cut you," Fisher told Long, before adding: "What part of the rules, what part of 'no female guests in the room,' did you not understand?" The coach added: "Sorry, but this is our world, man. We have rules and we have to abide by them. Not the first time I've done this for this particular violation, but I thought I made myself really clear."
At another point in the episode, Fisher told his players that mediocrity was unacceptable.
"I'm not f---ing going 7-9 or 8-8 or 9-7 ... we have too much talent here for that. We had some 7-9 s--t this morning and we can't have that. Deon is gone. That is 7-9 bulls--t and we don't need it."
Fun fact: Fisher is 27-36-1 since joining the Rams in 2012. In addition to four straight losing seasons and not sniffing the playoffs, Fisher's teams have a .430 winning percentage, 26th in the league since 2012. Just as depressing: The Rams' point differential from 2012-2015 is -145 (it's been negative each season), and that ranks 25th in the league.
But Fisher said in May that he hopes the Rams are the latest team to be featured on Hard Knocks that makes the playoffs. Sam Farmer of the Los Angeles Times wrote at the time, "The last six Hard Knocks teams have matched or improved their win-loss record from the previous season, and the Cincinnati Bengals (2009, 2013), New York Jets (2010) and Houston Texans (2015) all made the playoffs in the season they were featured."
So look out for that.
In the meantime, Long, who went undrafted in 2015, wasn't out of work long; he signed with the Eagles last week.
