articles on the Chargers game

Rams rest most of their starters in preseason loss to Chargers

Alden Gonzalez

http://www.espn.com/blog/los-angeles-rams/post/_/id/35019/rams-rest-most-of-their-starters-in-preseason-loss-to-chargers

LOS ANGELES — Turns out the “Fight For L.A.” wasn’t nearly as important as the fight for good health.

The Los Angeles Rams sat the majority of their starters in their highly anticipated matchup against the neighboring Los Angeles Chargers on Saturday night, for a third preseason game that is traditionally treated as a regular-season dress rehearsal.

Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum hosted an announced crowd of 58,561, though a rough guess at the number who actually showed up was probably somewhere in the neighborhood of 30,000. And the Rams suffered their first preseason loss by a 21-19 score. Backup kicker Travis Coons, who earlier made a 53-yard field goal, missed what would’ve been the go-ahead 33-yard field goal, and Dan Orlovsky, the third-string quarterback, couldn’t stage a winning drive while backed up deep in Rams territory.

Below is a look at what stood out.

QB depth chart: Jared Goff made a couple of key mistakes and thus ended his preseason on a sour note. On his first drive, Goff — trying to build on a very encouraging performance seven days earlier in Oakland — was stripped by Joey Bosa at the Chargers’ 24-yard line, allowing Melvin Ingram to scoop up the football and return it 76 yards for a touchdown. On his second pass after that play, he threw his first preseason interception while seemingly underthrowing Robert Woods by a wide margin. Goff finished 5-of-8 for 56 yards. He made some impressive plays early, making a 16-yard connection with Woods and showing great pocket awareness to find an open Malcolm Brown for what became a 22-yard gain. But Goff wasn’t consistent, and that’s what the Rams’ coaches need to see from him. Backup Sean Mannion had another solid game, going 16-of-29 for 214 yards and a touchdown.

When it was starters vs. starters, the Rams looked …: Sluggish. But very few of their starters actually suited up, particularly on defense. The only solidified defensive starters on the field were cornerback Trumaine Johnson and defensive back Lamarcus Joyner. On the Chargers’ first series, the Rams allowed Travis Benjamin to beat them badly over the top for a 45-yard touchdown. On the Chargers’ second offensive series, after Goff’s interception, they gained 54 yards on nine plays, finishing their drive with a 2-yard touchdown run by Melvin Gordon. Woods had the best day for the Rams’ first-team offense, with a couple of catches for 23 yards. The offensive line allowed a lot of pressure on Goff, but veterans Andrew Whitworth, Rodger Saffold and John Sullivan played only the first two series.

One reason to be concerned: First-year Rams coach Sean McVay chose to sit most of his starters, and now you have to wonder if they’ve built enough continuity for when games start to count. Nine starters were kept out, including running back Todd Gurley, slot receiver Cooper Kupp, nose tackle Michael Brockers, cornerback Kayvon Webster, strong safety Maurice Alexander and all four of the starting linebackers: Robert Quinn, Mark Barron, Alec Ogletree and Connor Barwin. If you include Aaron Donald, who continues to hold out, 10 of the Rams’ 21 solidified starters will have not played in a game in at least 22 days by the time the regular-season opener rolls around Sept. 10 (assuming no starters play in the preseason finale Thursday). Donald, Quinn, Barron, Webster and receiver Tavon Austin will finish the preseason without playing in any games.

Rookie watch: Josh Reynolds, a fourth-round pick out of Texas A&M, impressed late in training camp and put on a show in one of the Rams’ final drives of the third quarter. Reynolds caught a 16-yard pass across the middle and somehow held on after absorbing a vicious hit by Chargers safety Dexter McCoil, who drew an unnecessary-roughness flag. Three plays later, Reynolds beat Randall Evans over the top for a 38-yard touchdown catch.

Watkins watch: Receiver Sammy Watkins suited up and was one of the last starters who remained on the field, but did not catch a pass and wasn’t really even targeted. Watkins caught two passes for 8 yards in his Rams debut last week.

Injury updates: Tight end Temarrick Hemingway got rolled up on a running play and had to be carted off the field early in the second quarter. Hemingway projects as the third tight end on the Rams’ depth chart, behind Tyler Higbee and Gerald Everett. If his injury is significant, it could open up a spot on the 53-man roster for a veteran like Cory Harkey.

What we observed from Rams’ loss to Chargers

VINCENT BONSIGNORE

link: http://www.ocregister.com/2017/08/27/bonsignore-what-we-observed-from-rams-loss-to-chargers/

Preseason NFL football game can often be a tricky thing. There’s not real game planning going on. The starting lineup is a mishmash of first stringers and backups that soon gives way exclusively to second, third and fringe players. And sometimes, as was the case Saturday when the Rams hosted the Chargers at the Coliseum, there’s more defensive name value on the sideline than the actual field.

All of which conspires against trying to get a true handle on what to take seriously and what to discard as mostly meaningless from the Rams 21-19 loss to the Chargers.

But we’ll give it a try anyway.

THE RIGHT SIDE OF THE RAMS OFFENSIVE LINE LOOKED SHAKY

Rams right tackle Rob Havenstein likely woke up Sunday morning breathing a sigh relief he won’t be seeing Chargers defensive end Joey Bosa anytime soon again. Havenstein has locked horns with the Chargers rising star during two days of joint practices and most of the first quarter Saturday at the Coliseum. Enough is enough, Havenstein must be thinking.

Look, you’re being foolish if you think even the best tackle in the league is going to cleanly handle a beast like Bosa play in and play out. As big, fast, strong and dynamic as Bosa is, it’s only a matter of time before he wins a battle or two.

So we won’t make too much of Bosa blowing around Havenstein on his way to plowing into Jared Goff to force the fumble Melvin Ingram eventually took 76 yards to the house for a touchdown.

Bosa is simply going to get his from time to time, and it probably didn’t help Goff held onto the ball a tick too long than he did a poor job sensing pressure that was coming from his front rather than back.

Nevertheless, the play shined a spotlight on an area the Rams can’t feel comfortable about right now. Between Havenstein and guard Jamon Brown, the right side of the Rams offensive line elicits anything but confidence. Too often the duo losses one-on-one battles at the point of attack, resulting in clogged running lanes or, in Saturday’s case, too much pass rush pressure on Goff.

Unfortunately with no readymade in-house candidates offering guaranteed improvements, at this point the Rams can only hope for the best.

JOSH REYNOLDS KEEPS FORCING HIMSELF ONTO RADAR

The Rams overhauled the wide receiver position from last year, adding veteran Robert Woods, drafting Eastern Washington’s Cooper Kupp and acquiring home run threat Sammy Watkins via a trade. Along with holdovers Tavon Austin and second-year receiver Pharoh Cooper, all of a sudden a mediocre group a year ago looks explosive, versatile and dependable.

But don’t sleep on rookie fourth-round pick Josh Reynolds nudging his way into a rotational role, as he continues to shine after returning from a leg issue midway through training camp.

Reynolds hauled in a touchdown catch for the second straight week, blowing past Chargers’ cornerback Randall Evans to corral a 38-yard scoring pass from Sean Mannion.

The 6-foot-3, 200 pounder provides a big, lanky target for quarterbacks but also has long arms and enough vertical leap to create an expansive catch radius. And as he showed by holding onto a catch in the middle of the field after absorbing a vicious hit from 6-foot-4 Chargers safety Dexter McCoil, he’s got toughness to him.

“It says a lot about Josh because I think there was a couple plays at the end of the first half that he’d like to have back,” Coach Sean McVay said. “But to Josh’s credit, he came back, he made a great catch on the crossing route off of the play action where the safety came downhill and he didn’t flinch, held on to the football and then he comes back and responds by finishing it off with a great route.”

At this point, it’s hard not to imagine McVay at least coming up with a specialized package designed to take advantage of Reynolds’ skill set.

And more and more, he’s settling in.

“Yeah, just being able to kind of play the game like I used to in college – just at a more, like higher tempo,” Reynolds said. “So, I’m much more comfortable out there.”

NOT A GOOD NIGHT FOR GOFF

As McVay pointed out after Saturday’s game, under normal regular-season game conditions, Goff would have had ample time to make up for the two mistakes he made to help spot the Chargers a 21-0 first-quarter lead.

But with McVay exercising prudence over pride, he wisely pulled Goff early in the second quarter so as not to put his starting quarterback in any more harm’s way in a meaningless preseason game.

That means the likely final image of Goff before the season opener Sept. 10 against the Indianapolis Colts is him coughing up a fumble that went 76 yards for a touchdown and badly overthrowing Sammy Watkins for an easy interception by Jason Verrett.

While some of the blame for the fumble goes to Havenstein for getting eaten up by Bosa, Goff shares some responsibility for holding onto the ball. As far as the interception, at initial glance there was some question whether Goff made a bad throw or Watkins ran a bad route, but Goff squashed any confusion by owning the interception as all his fault.

“I can’t do that. I can’t make that throw,” Goff said. “Just a bad throw.”

On a short night, it was glaring. But balanced against what’s mostly been a positive training camp and preseason, McVay isn’t reading too much into it.

“My take is, is I think he’s done a lot of good things,” McVay said. “I think he’s improved a lot. I think the sample size is the thing that I’ll continue to go back with. He got a chance to play 35 snaps against Oakland where you can really get into a real rhythm. Even after the turnover with the interception, we ran the football a lot on that drive, had a couple throws. But I think when you get a chance to kind of really fight your way back from some adversity that you’ve faced throughout the course of a game, those are where you get the best indicators of how a guy responds.

“I thought his demeanor, the way that he handled it was good and we’re going to continue to grow every single day. Just like I was saying, it’s going to be very important for us to maximize practice if that’s the direction where we go where he doesn’t play against Green Bay next week.”