Nick Foles’ transition to Rams’ offense an important piece of OTAs
By Nick Wagoner
http://espn.go.com/blog/st-louis-rams/post/_/id/18890/nick-foles-transition-to-rams-offense-an-important-piece-of-otas
EARTH CITY, Mo. — At the news conference introducing new St. Louis Rams quarterback Nick Foles back in March, coach Jeff Fisher lamented the fact that he couldn’t simply get Foles in the building and up to speed on the team’s offense right away.
Under the terms of the Collective Bargaining Agreement, there are rules on when players can be in their training facilities, who they can meet with and what they can do when they’re there. For his part, Foles was eager to get started after the Philadelphia Eagles traded him and a 2016 second-round pick to the Rams for Sam Bradford. But he had to wait.
Now that waiting is over and as the Rams began organized team activities on Tuesday, Foles can set about getting to know an offense that figures to be quite different from the one he ran under Chip Kelly with the Eagles.
In Kelly’s wide-open, spread based system, Foles was asked to do a lot of things that he probably won’t in St. Louis. Despite not qualifying as a running quarterback, the Eagles still asked Foles to run read-option out of the shotgun the majority of the time. Over the past two seasons, Foles lined up in the shotgun on 645 drop-backs and was under center for just 42 snaps in 21 games. As a team, the Eagles had their quarterbacks drop back out of shotgun formation 1,188 times, the most in the league and clear of second-place San Diego by 38 snaps.
By comparison, the Rams have had 756 drop backs out of the shotgun over the past two seasons, which is second-fewest in the league. So not only will Foles be adjusting to a new power run-heavy scheme, he will even be adjusting to taking snaps under center on a regular basis.
One thing that won’t be new for Foles in St. Louis is throwing play-action passes, long ones.
The Rams didn’t use play-action as much as they’d like last season, opting for such calls on 97 dropbacks for the season (tied with the Jets and Falcons for 22nd in the NFL). But that easily could be a product of not having an offensive line capable of protecting the quarterback or a running game operating at a high level on a consistent basis.
Fisher has repeatedly said he’d like his offense to be centered on the run with a successful run game setting up play-action opportunities down the field.
On play-action, Rams quarterbacks were 63-of-90 for 732 yards with seven touchdowns and three interceptions for a passer rating of 108.7, which ranked seventh best in the league on such plays in 2014. Given that success, it’s something they would like to do more of in 2015.
That could be a good fit for Foles, who in two seasons as the starter in Philadelphia averaged 9.1 yards per attempt with 21 touchdowns and three interceptions on play-action passes.
Foles still has plenty of time to learn the new scheme, and it will be just as important for him to develop rapport with his new teammates over the next few weeks. Fisher is generally OK with using OTAs and the offseason program as a way to get his players up to speed, but when training camp comes, there’s no time to wait and see.
During these OTAs, Foles’ progress might be the most important item on the agenda.
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Agamemnon
