Report: Rams, Jeff Fisher are discussing a contract extension
Despite a poor record, the Rams want to keep Fisher around.
By
Jared Dubin
•
1 min read
Most coaches that go four years without a playoff appearance wind up looking for a new job. Jeff Fisher of the Los Angeles Rams might get to keep his for a good, long while longer. According to a report from ESPN.com, the Rams and Fisher are engaged in negotiations on a contract extension that would keep him in L.A. beyond the one year left on his current deal.
In Fisher's four seasons in St. Louis, the Rams did not finish with a winning season even once and missed the playoffs all four years. Fisher put together a 27-36-1 record in that time. That's good for a .430 winning percentage, 26th in the league since 2012. The Rams' point differential -- typically considered a more reliable indicator of team success than actual wins and losses -- was not much better over that time, as their -145 scoring margin was 25th in the league.
Fisher's lousy St. Louis record comes on the heels of his tenure in Houston and Tennessee with the Oilers/Titans where his squad had only six winning seasons in 17 years. They won the first three playoff games of his tenure there as they made the Super Bowl after the 1999 season (Fisher's sixth year with the team; they'd finished 1-5, 7-9, 8-8, 8-8, 8-8 in the previous 4-plus years he was at the helm), but lost six of the next eight and never made it past the divisional round after that.
He was eventually let go after a 6-10 season in 2010, after which he took a year off before joining the Rams in St. Louis. Fisher has experience coaching a team that moves cities, having worked with the Oilers before and after their move from Houston to Tennessee, and he has experience in L.A. as well, having grown up there and played at USC. He's got all that working in his favor. It's just not all that clear that he's a high-level coach anymore, if he ever was.
