Judging Jeff Fisher on His Record is "totally unfair" According to Rams' COO

Yes! Despite Jeff Fisher’s Rams falling to 4-7, after a 3-1 start that had him talking smack to Bruce Arians, he might not be in trouble after all. Sure, this is Fisher’s fifth season with the Rams and they haven’t even gone 8-8 yet, but he’s been dealing with a lot.

Here are some quotes from Rams’ COO Kevin Demoff on Fisher:

"“Everybody will want to judge Jeff through the prism of just the record, but that’s totally unfair when you look at the set of circumstances he was handed this year,” Demoff said to NFL.com. “It was different than any team in the NFL.” *** “He’s a terrific leader of men,” Demoff said about Fisher. “Players, coaches and staff—he has their complete respect in the way he runs the franchise. It’s easy to talk about the record, but you have to take a snapshot of everything this year and give him the credit that he’s due.” "

Demoff cited the move from St. Louis to Los Angeles this year as the different circumstances that Fisher has had to deal with. The last time a team moved to Los Angeles? The Raiders were 7-9 the year before, and went 8-1 in the strike-shortened season of 1982.

This is Fisher’s fifth season with the Rams. It looks like they are on the way to the fifth losing season, with a game at New England this week that would require them to win out if they lose to the Patriots, to avoid that fate.

Here is a list of every coach in NFL history going back to 1920, besides Fisher, to have at least 4 straight losing seasons with the same franchise.

Jeff Fisher would match three other coaches with five straight losing seasons if he is still in charge during the finale and the Rams don’t go on a run. None happened in the Super Bowl era (and Tom Landry took over a really tough situation, a thrown-together expansion franchise in Dallas to compete with Lamar Hunt’s AFL team). Gus Bradley can join this list if he makes it through the season as coach.

At this point, I’m rooting for Jeff Fisher’s tenure to continue indefinitely, as he is the true Life Champion.