Havenstein hasn’t been ruled out for Thurs

Rams starting RT Rob Havenstein, who had been on PUP list w/foot injury, passes physical, returns to active roster. On course for opener.

— Jim Thomas (@jthom1) August 26, 2016

Practice Report 8/29: Havenstein Returns to Practice

Myles Simmons

http://www.therams.com/news-and-events/article-1/Practice-Report-829-Havenstein-Returns-to-Practice/485cd731-7ffc-40db-b2e7-d0cf100870cb

Training camp and the preseason are winding down, but at long last, Monday marked the first practice for one of the Rams’ starting offensive linemen.

Right tackle Rob Havenstein was taken off the Physically Unable to Perform list on Friday, and went through pregame warm-ups with his teammates prior to Saturday’s contest in Denver. Now he’s officially returned to the practice field, ready to put his foot injury behind him.

“It felt good — good to go out there and get a little sweat, play some real football,” Havenstein said. “Got to get out there with the guys. It gets pretty lonely over there watching. So it was definitely good to be back.”

“We got him out there, he had a couple reps in each period,” head coach Jeff Fisher said. “Better than me seeing him out there, it was better for him getting out there for the first time.”

While sitting out can be tough on an individual accustomed to participating, Havenstein appeared to be even-keel about it all.

“I mean, the only thing that changes is that you’re not wearing shoulder pads when you come out to practice,” Havenstein said.

The Wisconsin product said he has been staying as active as possible in the meeting room, and in the weight room with head strength and conditioning coach Rock Gullickson.

“You can attack the weight room probably a little harder just because you’re not getting the stress of practice,” Havenstein said. “So I got with Rock and his staff and definitely tried to make some gains there.

“But anything else, meetings, are very similar — go in taking notes for the right tackle position,” Havenstein continued. “And if I can help out any way with guys asking questions, try to give them an answer that’s not [totally made up].”

With any player coming back from injury, there’s always a balance to strike between wanting to get back as soon as possible and making sure there’s no undue stress to cause a setback. Havenstein said he feels good about the way that process has gone.

“I think we had a pretty good plan with our medical staff. Between the communication between me and the coaches and the medical staff, obviously we want what’s best for me,” Havenstein said. “We don’t want to go out there and jeopardize something or be too cautious and miss time that I didn’t need to miss, or anything like that.”

The next step for Havenstein is to shake some of the cobwebs off before the regular season begins. He said he felt a bit rusty at times during Monday’s session — understandable given how long it’s been since he’s taken live reps.

“There’s obviously some technique things I need to clean up,” Havenstein said. “As I was especially taking pass sets I was kind of thinking to myself, ‘Ahh, this is a bad position to be in.’ But it just kind of comes with shaking the rust off. And I’m looking forward to getting as many reps as possible within the rules we kind of set for me.”

While it appears unlikely, there’s a chance Havenstein could get some playing time against Minnesota on Thursday.

“We’ll see how he does over the next couple of days,” Fisher said. “I haven’t ruled him out for the game.”

Whether he does or not, Havenstein’s goal at this point is to get better every day with an eye toward being healthy in the regular season.

“All I’m looking forward to is tomorrow — putting in a good practice out there,” Havenstein said. “We’re going to take it one day at a time. I’ve got to be open with everyone with how I’m feeling and everything like that. So it just goes on to keeping the good line of communication open.”

InvaderRam wrote:

i read around that some people are worried after the denver game, but that is a helluva defense. not too many times they go against a defense like that.

That makes no sense to me, that people would worry about that.

When the Rams 1s on offense were in against the Denver 1s on defense, they were winning the field position war and scored on them in the 1st quarter.

They ran on them in spite of how tough that was, and Keeneum was 8 of 12 in spite of how tough THAT was.

There was some pressure on Keenum but he also completed some nice passes.

zn wrote:

Based on pass-protection rate (the percentage of plays in which the offense controls the line of scrimmage on dropbacks from the quarterback), the Rams ranked 23rd out of 32 teams last season. Their adjusted sack rate (sacks per pass attempt, adjusted for down, distance and opponent) ranked 24th. And, heading into 2016, Pro Football Focus ranked their unit — basically unchanged over the offseason — second-worst in the NFL.

It’s hard to watch Mr. Gonzalez, Wagoner’s replacement, learn about the team. Most well-informed fans know more than he does at this point.

So, last year, one of the most inexperienced OLs any of us have ever watched in the NFL also got clobbered by a mid-season injury epidemic. A total of 10 OL played last season, and 5 of those got injured.

That combination of elements might explain the problems they had.

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RT Rob Havenstein said he felt really good after his first preseason action, especially getting to go out with his teammates for first time.

— Myles Simmons (@MylesASimmons) September 2, 2016