I’m not concerned.
First, Kromer has an eye for finding and developing OL talent. In fact his hit rate for picking linemen is phenomenal–and this goes way back.
Second, you cannot take what is happening in pre-season games as any indication of what the Rams have in terms of OL depth.
Here’s why.
First, no young lineman is going to look good if you line him up with exclusively OTHER young linemen in pre-season games. They do not have the experience or cohesion as a unit and as a direct result of that, pretty much each individual lineman is not going to look good. That’s just inescapable.
Second, they ask them to move around and play different positions on top of it. That just compounds the entire thing–they are REALLY not going to look good as a result.
Third, Kromer insists on them using new techniques he has taught them but which they have not mastered yet (and are in the process of mastering). Because of that, he doesn’t care if they don’t look that good at first. In fact he says so. This is from an article which is the August 23, 2019 at 10:04 pm post in this thread: http://theramshuddle.com/topic/ol-talk-august/#post-104226. Kromer tells the young guys,
“You’re going to stink for a couple of months. You’re not going to be good,” Kromer said when asked to explain his initial message to his young linemen to The Athletic. “But don’t worry about getting beat. Just worry about trying the technique. Work the technique. Work the play. Understand the play. And do that more than worrying about how many you won or lost right now because that’s not what it’s all about. It’s about getting better.”
That is–they use the pre-season games to coach these guys up with the aim being longterm gain in spite of short term growing pains.
What about during the season?
During the season no new lineman is going to line up with 4 other new linemen and then switch positions while mastering new techniques. They’re going to be added to an established and cohesive line, set at one position, and with experience behind them getting up to speed on Rams techniques (which is how the Rams use pre-season games…live reps, gaining experience, investing in the Rams way with longterm not shortterm goals).
So whoever their keepers are among the young linemen, they will have been coached up under fire.
You just cannot judge them by how they look in the pre-season. The way it’s set up for them, there is NO WAY they CAN look good in the pre-season. But they gain from it.
On top of it, in spite of all the growing pains, one player is way ahead–Edwards. And THAT is just golden. It means that the Rams found 2 LOT prospects in 2 years, both lower than the 2nd round. Do you know what the odds are of a team doing that? They’re not very good odds…and the Rams (so far anyway) seem to be defying those odds.
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