Rams claim to have seen good things on defense Monday, but it’s time for that unit to fulfill its reputation

http://www.dailynews.com/sports/20160916/los-angeles-rams-claim-to-have-seen-good-things-on-defense-monday-but-its-time-for-that-unit-to-fulfill-its-reputation

By THOUSAND OAKS >> The Rams will have a great defense someday.

That, of course, can be a promise without end.

Greg Norman was going to win the Masters someday. Healthy bacon was going to come along someday. Heck, pro football was coming back someday. The Rams fixed that, but they have brought it back to a notably impatient place.

The defense was one thing we knew about this unfamiliar team with the familiar name that returned to our lives Jan. 12. If nothing else, the Rams could stop you. They had four first-round picks on defense and, in some eyes, the best player in the NFL in Aaron Donald.

During those years, they also had to carry around the Rams’ offense like a box of anchors.

Then came Monday night: San Francisco 28, L.A. 0.

“We played very strong in that ballgame,” said defensive coordinator Gregg Williams Friday, indicating that the strain of keeping that promise might be getting to him.

But he elaborated.

“We have to do a better job in the red zone,” he said. “That’s something we’ve always done well in the past. We extended some of their drives with penalties. And we got our hands on three balls that legitimately hit us in the hands and should have been interceptions, and two of them would have gone for touchdowns. Our guys know that and they’ll come back. And I was very pleased with the way they responded at halftime.”

The Rams were second in the league last year in preventing red zone touchdowns, at 41.3 percent, and fourth in 2014.

“The worst part was giving 28 points, and it doesn’t matter how the offense did if you are going to give up points,” linebacker Alec Ogletree said. “We had some missed reads in the red zone, some missed tackles. Things happened really fast.”

San Francisco scored four touchdowns in four red zone trips and the Rams lost a net 92 yards in penalties. The 49ers had three touchdown drives that took 10, 10 and 11 plays. Etc.

“We had a couple of short fields,” Williams said. “We’re usually good on sudden change, making people kick field goals. One of those drives we had a second-and-15 and we had pass interference, and another time we had second-and-13 and the guy (Blaine Gabbert) threw it right in there. … What I liked was that before I could say anything, the guys were coming up to me and they were bringing it up. That’s when you know things are going well, when they take ownership.

“They extended some plays with their quarterbacks, and that’s when you don’t want to be reading my lips on the sideline. But otherwise we held their running game down pretty well.”

Still, the Rams are holding onto someday a little too long.

In 2015 the Rams ranked 12th in the 32-team NFL in yards allowed per play. They were sixth on third-down defense, seventh in passing TDs allowed, 13th in touchdowns allowed. The year before they were 24th in yards-per-play defense, and 18th the year before that.

That is good but not dominant, and their ambition is dominance. A glimpse came in Week 16 last year, when William Hayes sacked Russell Wilson three times (for 24 1/2 yards) and the Rams won in Seattle, 23-17. Three of Seattle’s 10 losses in 2014-15 have come to the Rams, and one of them came with Nick Foles posting a quarterback rating of 115.8.

Now Wilson drags a bad ankle into the Coliseum Sunday.

“We’re preparing as if he’s going to be 100 percent,” Williams said. “We know how tough he is. He’s one of the few players who could come over and play defense. He does things on instinct, does things you can’t coach. He’s the best quarterback there is when it comes to extending plays.”

The Rams allowed Wilson to run 15 times for 51 yards in those two games, with one gain of 20. They can live with that, provided they can find a way to squeeze Todd Gurley through Seattle’s front seven. “We might have to throw it deep to do that,” coach Jeff Fisher said, which invites its own problems.

“We’ve been preaching the same thing for three years,” Ogletree said. “as far as becoming the best defense. We’re looking forward to this year and spreading our reputation around the league. We’re not looking to wait until next year to do that, because things change. What better time than now?”

Sure beats someday.

Rams HC Fisher – September 15, 2016

(Opening remarks)

“A good day at practice, we got some guys back. We’re really excited. We have to finish up tomorrow strong and we’ll fine tune things on Saturday and then head down to the hotel and give it a shot. They’re a good football team, but we’ve had success against them and we have great respect for them, like I said. I’m pleased with where we are right now.”

(On if he has decided if QB Jared Goff will be active on Sunday)

“I haven’t decided yet, no. We’ll probably let you know tomorrow or Saturday or Sunday.”

(On if this game is as big of a Week 2 game as he can remember)

“Every week is big and there’s storylines behind everything. This is special because this is the first one that counts at the Coliseum, the first one that counts here at home. It’s special and we couldn’t think of a better opponent to open against. All the stuff with (Seahawks Head Coach) Pete (Carroll) coming back to the Coliseum for the first time, the little rivalry that we’ve established here over the last couple of years, I think it’s going to be special.”

(On if the injuries to WR Nelson Spruce and WR Pharoh Cooper handcuff the offense)

“You have to play through injures, that’s your philosophy. Who knows what would happen had they both been available – we don’t know. But we’ll find out when they come back. Other guys have to step up.”

(On if Spruce and Cooper are close to playing)

“They’re getting closer, yeah. They both did not practice today.”

(On DT Michael Brockers’ contract extension and keeping the defensive line together)

“Yeah, something about ‘Brock’ – I’m really excited about that. I appreciate (Owner/Chairman) Stan (Kroenke) and his willingness to allow us to go ahead and do that. We’ve been talking for quite some time about it. It’s important to keep our playmakers and people that we’ve drafted. We got a good deal for both sides and Michael is happy about it and so are we.”

(On what Brockers brings to the defense)

“He’s a big man inside and you have to have that nowadays for two reasons – one, for your ability to stop the inside run and two, to put pressure on the quarterback and collapse the pocket. He creates opportunities for everybody else and every so often he makes a big play himself. He’s been consistent week-in, week-out, he’s changed his body since his arrival, overcame some early career injuries and has just been one of those guys you can count on.”

(On QB Case Keenum saying he needs trust himself more and if there is anything, going into the second game, that RB Todd Gurley needs to adjust)

“No, I think we just need to be in a position where we can keep feeding him. The two are tied together – Case makes a good decision, converts a third down, then we get another opportunity to hand the ball off to Todd. It’s all tied together. Nothing really goes right when you struggle offensively on third down, you just don’t get the plays, you don’t get the shots. It just kind of debilitates your entire offense. We’d like to stay out of third downs – 15 last week was way too many – have anywhere (from) 10-to-12 max, that means you’re making chunks on first and second down and you’re moving the football.”

(On what it means to the organization to be the team that comes back to the Los Angeles market)

“It means a lot. Since the discussion started, all those things fall into place. It means a lot to us. Yeah, we’ve had a generation that’s been without it here. We want to, from a marketing standpoint and from a football standpoint, from a winning standpoint, attract their attention and get them behind us because that’s what storied franchises are all about and we expect this to last for a long time.”

(On if he has any memories of the Rams wearing their royal blue and yellow throwback uniforms that they will be wearing on Sunday)

“Well I have one in particular, but that didn’t work out very well for me (laughs). The players love them, they love the colors, they love the colors. I don’t know what our record is – you look at it – but they like playing in those uniforms. I think it’s a great way to open up.”

(On how he thought T.J. McDonald responded after what he went through in the summer)

“I’m really proud of T.J., what he overcame and the commitment that he made to conditioning prior to camp and the camp that he had and then the way he played in the opener. I’m really proud of him. He’s back. He’s back and he’s much better than he was.”

(On if he was worried about McDonald at any point during the summer)

“No, we were concerned with respect to the issues he was working through. But we stood behind him the whole time knowing that he would come back.”

(On if the team can build off the success it has had against the Seahawks knowing that both teams are different this year)

“No, as Pete told you guys yesterday, the past is the past. We’re starting over again. I can’t stand up in front of this team and say ‘Hey, we beat them twice last year.’ We did, but last year has no bearing on what we’re going to do this Sunday. We have to find a way to do it again.”

(On the rumors of him signing a contract extension)

“I never talk about my personal stuff or my extensions or non-extensions or anything. That’s between me and the organization.”

(On how their preparation changes with Seahawks QB Russell Wilson having a high ankle sprain)

“We’re preparing for a 100 percent healthy Russell. You have to do that or you sell yourself short. I thought their offensive staff, when he was injured, did a tremendous job adjusting the play-calling to allow him to find a way to win that game without using his legs. I thought they did a great job. We have to approach this, from a player standpoint and assume that he’s going to be 100 percent.”

(On if coaches or uses the emotion in big games like on Sunday and if it’s realistic to say the team can channel the emotion in a positive way)

“I think you have to be careful with emotions, especially as they relate to the start of games because you can lose your composure, you can lose track of your focus – those kind of things. Again, it was like last week (when) we talked about the only thing better than the season opener is a playoff game. The season opener itself is an emotional issue that players deal with. So you calm them down, then you add the Monday night thing, and you have to calm them down. Because we calmed them down, it wasn’t directly related to the way we played, but I think it’s important that you go out and use the crowd, use the emotion, but you have to use it wisely. I think that’s going to be a topic of discussion as we move through the weekend. The players, the defense has to understand that it’s going to be really difficult to communicate because it’s going to be extremely loud and that’s a good thing for us. Seattle has learned how to win at home with that, we have to learn how to win at home an extremely loud crowd.”

***

Rams RB Todd Gurley – September 15, 2016

(On if having a short week is better in regards to the team’s preparation for the next game)

“Not really. We’re going to get a win this week, for sure. Not really, obviously, you want to have that extra day to prepare, but I just feel like after a loss like that, you’re just so ready to get back at it. We’re definitely ready to play Sunday.”

(On the biggest takeaway from last week’s loss, that he can carry into this week)

“Obviously, it can’t get much worse than zero points, so, no going back. It was a lot of good things, but obviously everybody has to be on the same page. Whether it’s me missing a blitz, or somebody coming through free. We just all have to be on the same page, do what the coaches tell us, and go out there and execute.”

(On if there’s anything he needs to do different this weekend that he didn’t do last game)

“Just stay with it, be patient. I felt like some of the runs got busted up a little early. I feel like I was trying to do too much, or wasn’t patient enough in my reads. I just got to stick to the game plan, and just know that everything is going to be fine, and we’re going to break one.”

(On if he feels Seattle’s defense is game planned around stopping him)

“They run a pretty simple defense. They’re going to run what they run, and they’re going to try and stop you. They’re going to have (S Kam) Chancellor down in the box. You have to respect a great player like himself. Just stick to my reads, stick to the game plan, know my assignments, and just go from there.”

(On if he notices any changes in Seattle’s defense this year in comparison to last season)

“Yeah definitely, definitely have a few more looks this year. But like I said, from the previous film of us playing them the past couple of years, they play what they play, and they’re just going to try to stop you.”

(On his thought regarding the anticipation leading up to the home opener)

“Obviously, we’re playing at the Coliseum; great tradition. I kind of treat it like college again; just glad that we’re back. A lot of people are excited for us to be back. There’s over millions of people in the city, so I’m pretty sure somebody wants to come watch football. Like I said, it’s just going to feel like college; that game day atmosphere, the love, football is back in L.A. Hopefully we can just get this win for the city.”

(On if seeing himself on billboards around the city is a surreal moment for him)

“Yeah, it’s still mind blowing that we’re here, but we can’t let that be our focus. Just try to execute, stay to the game plan, stay focused on football, and just try to go out there and win. Obviously, being in the media capital of the world, you see stuff like that. It’s definitely a good look for us, and for the Rams.”

(On what it means for him to represent the new generation of L.A. fans who never got a taste of the Rams)

“It’s cool man. It’s a blessing just to be in this league. Whether you’re on the Rams or not, I feel like NFL players appreciate that. For fans that buy our jerseys, and come support us, we’re just excited to be here, play in this league, and play for this team, and this city.”

Police-involved injuries of civilians rise nearly 50%, Harvard researchers say
Study looked at emergency visits over 14-year period and also found black men were more likely to be injured by police and security guards than white men

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/sep/09/police-involved-injuries-civilian-harvard-study

The rate of serious injuries caused by police and private security increased nearly 50% from 2001 to 2014, according to a new study from Harvard public health researchers that looked at emergency room visits.

An article published this week reviewed hospital emergency room data to analyze non-fatal injuries following “legal intervention” – defined in this study as a wound inflicted by police officers or private security guards. In the 14-year period examined, the rate of these injuries per 100,000 people increased by 47.4%. The analysis is one of few that can provide a longitudinal study of police use of force over time, according to lead author Justin Feldman.

The article also concluded that black civilians, and particularly black men, are significantly more likely to be injured by police than their white counterparts, a trend carried over in numerous analyses of police killings and fatal shootings. Black people were injured and sought treatment at a rate 4.9 times higher than whites, according to the research.

In the 14-year period studied, the majority of injuries – 64% – were categorized as “struck by/against”, and stemmed from a physical interaction with officers. Non-fatal firearm injuries caused just 1% of the estimated 683,033 injuries.

Feldman, a doctoral candidate at Harvard, and his co-authors are part of a body of public health researchers increasingly analyzing injuries and deaths caused by police as a public health issue.

The Harvard researchers looked at trips to emergency rooms by persons aged 15 to 34, who accounted for the majority of legal intervention injuries during the time period studied.

Epidemiologist Nancy Krieger, one of the article’s co-authors, said the study analyzes a new source of data and adds to the knowledge about non-lethal police violence, which can be harder to track.

Of the steady increase in the rate of hospital admissions following force by officers, Krieger said because there is little historical data on police force, it’s “hard to know is that smaller or bigger an increase than one would expect”.

“I think the point is not necessarily how much it’s increased but the fact that it looks like the trend is going up,” Krieger said. “This is not the kind of thing that you want to see going up.”

The federal government does not track killings by police, although the Department of Justice aims to do so in a new pilot program that began last year. There is no complete set of data to indicate how police use of force has changed in recent history.

The research, published in the Journal of Urban Health, uses data from a frequently overlooked source of criminal justice knowledge: a survey initially meant to track injuries caused by consumer products. The US consumer product safety commission has long tracked data on patients with injuries related to products, and in 2000 began tracking a wider array of injury data from a representative sample of 66 hospitals across the country.

Feldman said when he began studying police use of force, he was looking for reliable sources.

“In terms of nationally representative data, this is the one,” he said, explaining that because this data is collected specifically for research purposes, it’s more reliable that data that comes from hospital records.

The article’s conclusions were limited because race data was missing for many patients, so the authors were unable to draw reliable conclusions on how likely non-black people of color were to suffer non-fatal injury compared to whites. In addition, Feldman explained, differences in how frequently racial groups seek medical treatment could affect the data.

Because the data doesn’t differentiate injuries from sworn police officers and private security guards, the group behind the increase is unknown. Feldman said he believes that police officers are responsible for the majority of these legal intervention injuries and for the increase, but can’t know for sure because so little is known about when security guards use force on the job.

Mahesh Nalla, a professor at the school of criminal justice at Michigan State University, said there was no data he knew of tracking lethal or non-lethal force used by security guards.

“I’m not familiar with any data that spells out the nonfatal injuries caused by security guards,” he said.

Rams Head Coach Jeff Fisher – September 8, 2016

(Opening Remarks):
“Good first day. Actually, because of the schedule and the Monday night (game day), we got two solid days in prior to today, which is officially the first gameplan day. You’re typically on a three-day week from a gameplan standpoint. Today’s Thursday, we kind of look at it as a Wednesday. Got a good session tomorrow, start backing down a little bit, Saturday, then travel Sunday. But we’re in good shape health-wise, and guys were eager this morning. We’re starting to settle down in the building and all their focus is on our opponent—that’s a week-to-week deal. There weren’t any speeches about what we’re going to do this year or anything—it was let’s get to the practice, lets get to the walk-thru, lets get to the first meeting, and then just take one thing at a time. If you do that right, then it gives you a chance to win.

(On whether emotions are heighted because it’s the first game of the 2016 season)
“No, no they’re focused on their work. You have to kind of redirect the younger players — we had all of those players who haven’t played in a regular season NFL game stand up in the meeting room today and there were quite a few of them. You have to explain to them how you get there, and you get there just one day at a time as you push through the week.”

(On preparing for the 49ers changes since their last meeting in the final game of the 2015 season)
“We’re watching a lot of stuff right, now, as I imagine they are as well. But that’s part of the intrigue of the first game — people hold things back through camp, through preseason and they have a lot of things that they like that they put in the first game. So yeah, we’re looking at Cleveland’s defense and Philly’s (Philadelphia) offense — that’s what the coaches are here for — to turn over every stone.”

(On expectations of QB Case Keenum)
“We knew (QB) Case (Keenum), we saw what he can do, we saw how he finished the year (2015), we traded for Case — people forget that because of his ability. He’s done a great job this offseason, Preseason games, not exhibition games, preseason games — he’s ready to go.”

(On QB Case Keenum’s emotions going into Week 1 of the 2016 season—whether he has “any jitters” for his first regular season start in the NFL)
“No, not at all his personality is such that, no, he’s fine. He’s going to be different Monday night than he was in Seattle, or when he had his first start with us — no different”

(On QB Case Keenum’s growth since the end of the 2015 season)
“Every week seeing just more and more command of the offense, which is comforting. He’s going to get up there and make the right decision. The position itself is hard to play, but he’s going to give us a chance with checking in and out of run stuff, changing protections, getting the ball down the field, making plays, extending plays with his legs.”

(On linebacker depth chart)
“We like the young guys, the young guys are coming on, both of them. It’s just a matter of time before they’ll see live defensive snaps. In the meantime, as you know, we face a lot of three wide receiver offenses, so it’s two linebackers and five DBs or six DBs. Teams aren’t normally starting with that group. What teams like to do us, is spread us out and get rid of the football. But we’re happy with both the young guys, both (LB) Josh (Forrest) and (LB) Cory (Littleton).

(On the evolution of offensive coordinator Rob Boras)
“Put him in a really difficult position last year, because he hadn’t called plays. But we all thought he did a really great job. He’s had that experience, not only last year, but throughout the offseason program, at camp and preseason games. We put the coaches in stressful situations on purpose on the practice field, and he’s handles them very well.”

(On the effect of the transition from St. Louis to Los Angeles and looking back at the 2015 season opener versus 2016)
“A year ago we were getting ready to play the Seahawks and we had success in that game. We had a productive preseason and we were able to win that game. It’s just a matter of communicating to your players and to the staff for that matter, what the goals are, and where you need to focus your attention. That’s what they’ve done. I had a conversation with one of the assistants, ‘can you imagine what we’ve gone through since we had the first meeting in Manhattan Beach with the players in March and how many times we’ve moved and how many places we’ve gone’, and they’ve just done a great job with it – it’s nice to finally be settled.”

(On conversations with the rookies regarding their first NFL game)
“Those conversations take place throughout the week with them, probably settle them down a little bit. Monday afternoon, in the meetings before kickoff. But they’re going to be excited, and, to me that’s the biggest challenge when you play in the ‘spotlight,’ if you will, of Monday Night Football, to keep everybody calm and relaxed and keep their pose – they adjust real quickly.”

(On the team’s response to the gameplan following the preseason camp)
“They’ve done a great job, I mean we’ve practiced these things, like everybody else has. Like you’ll see tonight (Broncos vs. Panthers), everybody practices things they just don’t use them in the regular season. Now it’s just a matter of carrying over what we’ve practiced in to the game. On a weekly basis there’s new concepts that go in as you gameplan. This is not an unusual process for us to put things in for the first time.”

(On QB Jared Goff’s role moving forward)
“One of the challenges for the younger players this week, as I told all of them this morning, is to prepare yourself to play without getting (practice) reps. They all come in here from college programs where they got all the reps and now they’ve found themselves in the positions, where they don’t get reps. It’s harder to backup than it is to start. That’s the nature of the National Football League. But Jared has good feel for where we’re at. He wants to play, and I want him to play, but we’re not there yet.”

(On the history of the San Francisco 49ers, Los Angeles Rams rivalry and what it means to him)
“I’ve been on both sides of it. 1991, here (Los Angeles) playing the 49ers, they were than we were at that time. The following year I was on the other side (49ers) playing the Rams, so I’ve seen both sides of it. As I mentioned to them, (49ers) earlier today on the conference call, the 49ers and the Rams are chasing the Cardinals and the Seahawks right now. It’s a great rivalry. We’ll rekindle it from our fans standpoint, but until we get to that point, which we hope personally that it’s very soon. We have some work to do. But both fanbases, I think the older fanbases, understand the rich tradition and the history with respect to both organizations.”

***

Rams QB Case Keenum– September 8, 2016

(On his first career Week 1 start)

“It’s exciting, it’s Monday Night Football. It’s a divisional opponent. First time for it to be my show starting out and not just taking over like, ‘Oh crap, send out Case now.’ It’s been something we’ve been prepared for for a long time. I’m excited, I really am. The first time putting on a jersey with ‘Los Angeles’ on the front of it. I get to represent our city and our team. It’s going to be great. It’s going to be a lot of fun.”

(On what the difference is being the starter throughout the entire offseason)

“There’s a lot of differences. When I go to talk to receivers now it’s like ‘Hey, this is how we should do this.
This is how I want it, how do you want it?’ Instead of, ‘Let me go ask somebody else and we’ll see how they want it.’ So it’s good. I think communication is good, chemistry is good. We had a good day at practice today, and I’m going to go watch it and look forward to another day tomorrow.”

(On the challenges they face preparing for the 49ers considering their new coaching staff)

“It is different. It’s a different team than the two games we played against them last year. A lot of the same players, but different schemes. So, that does make it a little bit of a challenge – to go back and maybe watch a different coordinators, defense. You don’t look at personnel, but you maybe look at schemes and what they’re trying to do defensively. It’s like any first game, they can throw anything at you. We’re going to trust on our rules and preparation and go out and play.”

(On if he has to do anything to calm his nerves and not get too excited prior to this game)

“I’m going to get excited no matter what. That’s who I am. Honestly, the first time I get hit is a good time to (say) ‘Okay, here we go.’ I’m not planning on getting hit, and my big guys are not planning on me getting hit (laughs). Maybe I’ll just let them slap me or something.”

(On if he understands the magnitude of rekindling the San Francisco-Los Angeles rivalry)

“I don’t know if I do. I’m new to the area. I don’t have the, I don’t know what you call it, the ‘southern state’ pride that a lot of people have. I think I’ll grow into it and learn. For me, I want to represent the city. The other day, we went up and looked at the Hollywood sign, that’s the first time I’ve been there. I haven’t done a lot of stuff around the city. I have to admit, I haven’t been to Roscoe’s yet and had chicken and waffles. I know, it’s terrible of me. I’m going to have to do that. I’m going to have to grow into being a Los Angelino – I had to learn that, too. It’s been fun.”

(On if he has been to Tito’s Tacos or Tommy’s restaurants yet)

“I haven’t. I’ve stayed out here and been in Irvine. We’ve been working a little bit.”

(On if they’ll rely heavily on the run against San Francisco considering the 49ers run defense last season)

“(RB) Todd (Gurley) is obviously a special weapon to have. I know it’s a different day, different team than last year. They do a great job, they’ve got a great front – they’ve got some new guys up there and some guys that are veteran guys, (49ers LB NaVorro) Bowman, (49ers LB Ahmad) Brooks that are game-wreckers, that we call them, and we’ve got to know where they’re at at all times.”

(On if there’s been any discussion on the National Anthem prior to this game)

“No, we haven’t talked about that at all.”

(On what they key was for him to deal with all the questions he receives about QB Jared Goff)

“I’m still batting 1.000 – every interview I’ve ever done, somebody has asked. So congratulations to you (laughs). It is what it is. I compartmentalize it, the interviews and stuff, people are going to ask what they want to ask. He’s the first pick of the draft, obviously some attention there. I’m just coming out and doing my job and my job is to be the quarterback of this team and get the ball in the right people’s hands and convert on third downs and score points. That’s my job. I’m going to come in every day and work on doing that.”

(On if he’s excited about having the potential to change the Rams’ offense overall by elevating play at the quarterback position)

“I think if you look at any team and, and as the quarterback goes, the team goes. That’s why I love playing quarterback. I love having the ball in my hands. I’ve prided myself in working hard and knowing that I’ve put everything I can into it. If it doesn’t work out, it’s something I did, and I can go back and work on it, fix it and do it better next time. That’s my mindset. That’s why I play quarterback, I love the ball in my hands.”

***

Rams QB Jared Goff – September 8, 2016

(On his thoughts about not being active this week against San Francisco)

“It’s something that we talked about. There’s a multitude of reasons for it. I don’t know if it’s for one thing in particular, but it’s just what they decided to do this week. I’m just going to be patient, wait until my number is called, and continue to get ready out on the field, and continue to practice as hard as I can. When my number is called, be ready.”

(On how difficult it is to know he won’t be taking reps with the starters)

“I’ve never done that, yeah. So, it is different. My whole life, I’ve been the starter. So I’m used to taking those reps. But at the same time, through OTAs and through training camp, I’ve learned to take mental reps and watch (QB) Case (Keenum) and (QB) Sean (Mannion), and see what they do well, and try to replicate that.”

(On how he gets positive reps without starting)

“Just continue to learn and take mental reps. I’ve never done it before, so I am learning how to do that as well. Just trying to try to learn from what they do well, and then learn from their mistakes. Case has been in the league form for a long time now. I just pick his brain and ask him as much as I can, and get to know as much as I can before my number is called, so I can be ready.”

(On how he maintains a positive attitude)

“I know there’s plan in place, and I know this is all a part of it. And there’s a process. You just going to trust the process, and know that it’s all going to work out. Just continue to work hard and just do the best I can every day, and continue to learn. Like I said, just be ready when my number is called, is the best thing I can do.”

(On if Jeff Fisher has mention that sitting out, not starting, and learning is the best way to develop as a quarterback; similar to what he did with QB Steve McNair in Tennessee)

“I don’t know, not particularly. I have talked to him, back in April when we went on my visit. I kind of had an idea that they were going to take me. He talked about if that was the case, there will be no rushing. Whenever it’s time, it’s time. If it needs to happen early, it happens early. If it needs to happen a little bit later, it happens later. I’m just going to continue to him and to trust the process, and know that they have a really well thought-out plan in place, and I’m still a part of it.”

(On if he can get reps after practice if he’s no getting enough during practice)

“Oh yeah, you can always stay after and grab some receivers to throw or continue to get mental reps during practice.”

(On what he can get from scout team reps)

“There’s a lot of stuff that we’ll do in scout team that is similar to stuff we run. We get out there and go, ‘Okay, this is like this,’ and that way, you can get reps as well. It’s been a good experience.”

(On if it was any disappointing to know he’s not going to dress for a game in his hometown)

“I’ll play in San Francisco more than once, so no, I’ll be okay.”

(On if he’s been in contact with Eagles QB Carson Wentz at all)

“No, I haven’t. We have the same agent, so we talked about it and I’m excited for him, excited to see what he can do.”

The NFL Has an Age Problem

https://theringer.com/the-nfl-has-an-age-problem-7068825845e4#.dz6mp4chf

And you’re seeing the effects on the field. The players are younger than ever, the football is worse than ever, and the causes aren’t going away.

If you’re worried about the level of play in the NFL, you have an unlikely ally: coaches and executives. “Everything from defensive linemen not knowing where their eyes should be looking, not knowing where blocks are coming from,” said Baltimore Ravens head coach John Harbaugh.

“Defensive backs not recognizing routes, not knowing how to burst, stop, start, and change direction so they don’t tear their ACLs. Offensive linemen not knowing where blitzers are coming from. Just not a lot of technique anywhere.”

It’s rare for NFL coaches and executives to agree en masse on anything, but these days, nearly all of them seem to be fretting about a new and game-changing trend: The NFL is getting dangerously young due to changes at both ends of the age spectrum, with record numbers of less experienced rookies entering the league and veterans getting the boot.

“This is a real serious concern,” Harbaugh said. “Not just for the quality of the game, but for the well-being of these young guys coming into the NFL.”

Football Outsiders tracks a statistic called “Snap-Weighted Age” that averages the age of the players on the field based on snaps. In 2015, the league-wide average age hit its lowest mark since the site started keeping track a decade ago. In 2006, the average age of the players on the field was 27.2; in 2015, it was 26.6. On offenses alone, the average age of players on the field dipped almost a full year, from 27.6 in 2006 to 26.8 last year.
That’s partially because teams are now less inclined to keep aging players around. Despite medical and nutritional advancements, NFL careers are ending earlier for anyone who isn’t a quarterback or a special teams cog. In every year since the NFL/AFL merger in 1970, a 36-year-old offensive lineman had appeared in a game — until last season, when there were no 35-year-olds, either. Last year, the number of offensive linemen age 28 or over who appeared in a game dropped nearly 20 percent compared to 2011, while the number of players age 31 or older at any position fell 20 percent from a decade ago.

It’s also because rookies are flooding the league. This year’s draft featured 107 early entrants, easily a record. Last season, 25 players age 21 or younger appeared in an NFL game, five times as many as in 2000 and more than double the total in 2012, a year after the league’s latest collective bargaining agreement was struck.

In February, The Wall Street Journal reported that the average career length for NFL players has shrunk by two and a half years since 2008, and that shift is a source of great anxiety for coaches. “Let’s be honest, the younger the league, the less experienced the league is and with that, the quality of play doesn’t start off at the same level,” said Packers head coach Mike McCarthy. “I think what you see, particularly in the early part of the season, is a reflection of that.”

McCarthy is particularly concerned about the end of veteran lines, which were staples of the league when he entered as an assistant in 1993. His Packers didn’t play an offensive lineman older than 29 last year — and that 29-year-old was Josh Sitton, who the team released last weekend.

Despite coaches’ concerns, though, a collision of forces has made the age trend too fierce to counteract. The short version: In the past five years, NFL teams have committed heavily to cost-effective rookies, reserving lucrative second contracts for the game’s biggest stars. At the same time, the number of third-year juniors leaving college has swelled due in part to what Steelers general manager Kevin Colbert said is accelerated physical development and in part to a desire to get to the second, big-money contract sooner despite the low odds of most players actually cashing in. And though many of those early entry players are great talents, they face a steep learning curve when they enter the NFL. Because of strict roster limits on the number of players a team can carry and an uptick in the number of packages that rely on extra personnel, it’s now far harder to hide a less prepared draft pick on a roster — and that creates problems on the field. Further complicating matters, coaches and executives think rookies are less prepared than ever, but the new CBA restricts padded practices and offseason contact between players and coaches, limiting learning opportunities. Looming over all of that is teams’ reliance on the rookie salary scale, which since the 2011 CBA has guaranteed teams access to cheap players for four years and created a world in which older players have to break out in a big way to stick around after their first deal expires. And yes, that’s really the short version.

“It’s just a fact, you have to continue to load your team with younger players, in hopes they are ready to go and ready to play productive football,” Bengals head coach Marvin Lewis said. “And yet, they are staying less in college, the rules are prohibitive, and [college] coaches are spending less time with players in college. The process from the bottom-up is shrunk, and you have to try to move them forward as quickly as you can.”
Of course, moving quickly may be the problem.

“We’ve got a list,” said Buffalo Bills general manager Doug Whaley, “of six positions we’re going to pay.” The positions: quarterback, left tackle, and a playmaker on offense; a cornerback, a pass rusher, and a playmaker on defense. There are 22 starters on a football field, and the Bills’ strategy calls for paying big money to six of them. The team has more than six significant veteran contracts on the books at the moment because it stockpiled assets while long avoiding paying a franchise quarterback, but “When Tyrod [Taylor’s contract] hits,” Whaley said, “we won’t be able to have extra guys. The rest is up for us to draft well to replenish the rest of the roster, or find free agents who are very, very cost effective. Because you just can’t pay everyone.”

Many teams around the league share the Bills’ general vision for paying big money to only a handful of veterans, and that’s a major reason the league has gotten so young. When the CBA ushered in the rookie salary scale in 2011, few understood the roster-building consequences. Previously, high draft picks had received richer contracts than basically anyone else in the league despite never playing a down, but teams wanted rookie contracts to be cost-controlled so that they could save the big money for veterans. When the old system was erased, rookie salaries plummeted.
How NFL Teams Spend Their Money

Sam Bradford, the top pick in 2010, signed for a guaranteed $50 million. Six years later, top pick Jared Goff signed a deal worth $27.5 million. After the new CBA, the rookie bargains became so extreme that a new strategy was born: Collect as many good rookie contracts as possible and use the spare cap space to splurge on a handful of second contracts. In today’s NFL, a second contract usually means a massive jump in money. Broncos superstar pass rusher Von Miller made salaries of $1.3 million and $1.5 million in 2012 and 2013 due to the constructs of the standard rookie deal he signed. His new contract, signed this year, will pay him $114.5 million over six years. Colts receiver T.Y. Hilton, meanwhile, made $1.45 million in his first three years in the league, a steal for a player who became a Pro Bowler. His second contract called for a $10 million signing bonus and $65 million overall. Teams are using their cap space on these deals selectively and leaning on cheaper, younger players for the rest of their roster, leaving the oldies vulnerable and bringing down the average age of the bulk of NFL teams.

“The way the CBA is structured now, it’s really no different from any other workforce in that you want to find the healthiest, youngest, least-expensive talent and infuse it into your corporation,” said Titans general manager Jon Robinson. “We’re the same model.”

And so the churn rate for older NFL players gets faster. If draftees don’t adjust to the pro game quickly, their NFL careers can be over in short order. The reality, Whaley said, is that less college experience means a longer adjustment to the NFL game, but players are due for extensions after four seasons (except first-round picks, who have team options for a fifth year), often before things have really clicked. “These guys coming in now may not be ready until Year 3,” he said. “And you’ve got to pay him and you have no idea what to do with him.”

Sometimes, teams figure, it’s easier to let those guys go.

“Look at Josh Norman,” Carolina Panthers coach Ron Rivera said. “He was young. He fought the system, he was a maverick, did things his own way.”
Norman entered the league in 2012 as a fifth-round pick from Coastal Carolina. He was a late bloomer who never attracted much attention from big colleges and flashed athletic ability but little more in his first two seasons in the league. “But [secondary coach Steve] Wilks was patient,” Rivera said. “[Defensive coordinator] Sean McDermott was patient. We kept fighting with him and in 2014, he buys in all of the sudden. All of that athletic ability came together with what he was learning and you finally saw the skill.”

Rivera details this particular case because Norman developed into one of the best cornerbacks in the NFL during his age-27 season and a year later was a key piece for the Panthers during their run to the Super Bowl. He is also, Rivera observed, the type of project that NFL teams increasingly have little time for. “A lot of guys we get are tremendous athletes but their skill set hasn’t been fixed,” he said. “There’s no patience.”

Panthers general manager Dave Gettleman said that the sport has changed dramatically because of the combination of less developed player skill sets and a lack of patience from teams. He cited Bill Walsh’s seminal book, Finding the Winning Edge, which stated that from the moment a player (or coach or employee) enters the building, he has two years to prove his worth. This has long been established conventional wisdom throughout the league, but suddenly, it’s become problematic.

“Now, because the players are not coming as ready to use, you have to give him the third year,” Gettleman said. “But there’s no patience.”
No team has had more success with young players in recent years than the Panthers, as Cam Newton, Kelvin Benjamin, Luke Kuechly, Kony Ealy, and Devin Funchess all jumped to the league early and helped build one of the NFL’s best squads. Yet despite their success, the Panthers still worry about the vast youth movement spreading through the league.

Rivera cited footwork as a specific concern for today’s rookies. He’s troubled that young cornerbacks tend to backpedal with their bodies half open instead of facing the receiver and that new linebackers throw their bodies into plays to recklessly tackle, often leading to a missed tackle or an injury. He’s worried that the new breed of receiver runs limited routes in college.

To account for this, Rivera has a two-pronged approach for young players: For the freak athletes who have the talent to play right away or those who are forced to play right away due to a lack of positional depth, he uses training camp to immerse them immediately, even pairing them with a veteran in their position group to create a culture of staying after practice, something he said has been crucial in the post-2011 CBA era of limited practice. For raw talents, he eases them in slowly while still stressing that all young players get reps with the first team so that coaches can better gauge their development. He uses Andrew Norwell, now one of the league’s best guards, as an example of a player he opted to bring along slowly, but still gave the occasional look at first-team guard before he was really ready.

“Everyone’s skipping certain elements of development,” said Rivera, who expects to see more draft busts as teams base player selection off what he calls “one-year-wonder” juniors. “There’s so much of this going on that you do wonder where these guys are being developed.”

On March 18, 23-year-old Ravens cornerback Tray Walker died from injuries suffered in a motorbike accident in Miami one day prior. Eight days later, at the funeral in a Baptist church in south Florida, Harbaugh approached the head of the NFL Players Association, DeMaurice Smith. “I said the rules have to be adjusted for first-, second-, third-year guys,” Harbaugh said, referring to rules that limit offseason contact between players and coaches. “The rules are built for guys who have families and need time off.”

Smith said the interaction was brief. “One, we were at a funeral,” he said. “Two, we don’t negotiate with coaches. If he has any issues he has an owner right upstairs. The owner reports to the management committee and they approach us about changes.” Smith said that over the life of the now five-year-old CBA, owners have not made a proposal about changing offseason procedures.

“We’d always be open to changes or discussing it if coaches abided by the rules we already had,” said Smith. The Ravens were forced to cancel one week of offseason activities for not following those rules, putting rookies in pads during a period when doing so was prohibited.
The NFL’s Brewing Information War

Harbaugh is concerned about what a younger NFL means for the on-field product, but also for the sport’s ability to deal with players off the field. He thinks the influx of youth has created an atmosphere in which there’s a greater need to keep players in the building in the offseason in an effort to make sure they’re behaving smartly. He said he’s currently “vetting the CBA” to figure out if he can send team employees to work out with players at their homes.

“I think about it all the time,” Harbaugh said of Walker’s death. “Maybe one of our guys goes into the garage, maybe we see the motorbike. We say ‘What’s this all about? Is this really safe?’”

When it comes to strictly football matters, Harbaugh thinks the league and the union are failing younger players. “If you want to become a great piano player you’ve gotta play piano. If you want to be a great golfer you’ve got to play every day. But if you want to be a great football player, it’s ‘Oh, we aren’t allowed to play football for three months,’ and I don’t even mean play football, I mean we can’t do a drill. It doesn’t make sense.”

The modern NFL rookie is a paradox, said Phil Savage, executive director of the Senior Bowl and a longtime NFL executive. “The résumé of a college player used to be much thicker. The height, the weight, the speed, and the skill ability has far surpassed what it used to be. But the technique of playing the sport is probably lacking.”

Due to his position at the Senior Bowl, the premier college scouting game held annually in Mobile, Alabama, Savage watches college players closely throughout the season. He said that while plenty of the rawness incoming players carry can be traced to the 1991 NCAA rule that limited practice to 20 hours a week per team, the dip has worsened in the past few years. There’s the spread offense, of course, which has been well-documented as a thorn in NFL coaches’ sides. Whaley expressed frustration at college offenses that lack huddles and playbooks. “The college quarterback is a joystick, and the coach is playing the joystick,” he said before going on to echo Savage: “A lot of these guys are taught scheme and not technique.”

There’s also the matter of teams taking it easier during spring practice, limiting tackling or two-a-days in order to keep players fresher, and Savage believes that change has cost young players. “Look at edge pass rushers, outside linebackers,” Savage said. “A lot of them are one-trick ponies in college. They rely on speed, then they go to the NFL and get locked up and they don’t have a counter move. They can’t get reps at full speed, you can’t replicate this stuff in practice, and then when it’s a real game it’s very difficult.”

Vikings general manager Rick Spielman said one trend that exacerbates that rawness is the tendency for coaches to switch players’ positions during their college careers. Increasingly, slower but physical safeties are becoming linebackers, bigger and slower linebackers are becoming defensive linemen, and less-athletic defensive linemen are becoming offensive linemen. This creates a challenge in scouting and development, Spielman said; however, he said that college coaches can occasionally be vindicated, like in the case of second-year Vikings offensive tackle T.J. Clemmings, a fourth-round pick and defensive end-turned-OT, whom the Vikings were able to quickly turn from a raw product into a productive member of the team.

Whether coaches or executives can point to a similar success story, they’ve all arrived at the same conclusion: This trend isn’t stopping, meaning NFL teams need to learn to live with a league full of 21-year-olds and light on those on the wrong side of 30.

“All of the underclassmen, that number is ever-growing and it’s not slowing down,” Robinson said. “Some of them are prepared for the National Football League, some of them are not. We have to figure that out quickly.”

Cracking the code: Kevin Demoff helps Rams find their way back to L.A.

Sam Farmer

http://www.latimes.com/sports/rams/la-sp-rams-kevin-demoff-20160904-snap-story.html

All Kevin Demoff wanted to do was get on with the basketball game. But everyone else on the court was frozen in place, transfixed by the familiar, hulking man in the stands. It was Miami Dolphins quarterback Dan Marino, who had slipped into the gymnasium of the small school in Brentwood to watch Kevin, the fourth-grade son of his agent, try his hand at point guard.

“The other nine kids on the court were just staring at Dan,” Demoff recalled. “And I’m like, ‘Hey, we’ve got a game to win here.’ I didn’t even think about it.”

As the football world would learn decades later, Demoff is unruffled by the big stage. The Rams’ top executive, whose childhood was steeped in pro football, was an integral figure in untangling the most confounding knot in professional sports. Demoff, 39, was key in bringing the NFL back to Los Angeles for the first time in 22 years.

It was Rams owner Stan Kroenke who had resources and vision for a transformational stadium project at Hollywood Park, but Demoff was the point guard when it came to selling that Inglewood concept to the rest of the league.

“I’m fortunate to have the tutelage of Stan, who has really pioneered how you combine resources and sports in a way that has never been done before,” said Demoff, the Rams’ executive vice president of football operations and chief operating officer. “I’m grateful for his mentorship. He pushes our team for greatness and challenges us to envision the impossible.”

In January, what once was impossible became a reality. By a 30-2 vote, NFL owners chose the Inglewood project over a competing plan in Carson jointly backed by the San Diego Chargers and Oakland Raiders.

“In my 45 years in the movie business, I’ve heard some very exciting pitches for movies,” said Steve Tisch, co-owner of the New York Giants and an Oscar-winning film producer. “Kevin’s pitch for the Rams’ new stadium at Hollywood Park was just as powerful. He was passionate, informative, prepared and dynamic. … It was like watching a great trailer for a movie.”

The rail-thin Demoff, who seemed to grow grayer by the day, was under intense pressure in recent years as he fought the stadium battles in St. Louis and navigated a new path in Los Angeles, where so many others had tried and failed to get football venues built.

Many Rams fans in St. Louis revile Demoff, accusing him of being an architect of a deception. They argue Kroenke was determined to relocate the team to Los Angeles, and only paid lip service, by way of Demoff, to staying in St. Louis.

Demoff said suspicions surfaced even before arbitrators ruled in favor of the Rams in early 2013, paving the way for the team to get out of its lease two years later.

“When you work at a team, your job is to build an emotional connection with the fan base,” Demoff said. “The [St. Louis] stadium situation always gave reason for fans to not completely commit to you. Because in the back, deep part of their minds, there were stadium issues that were unresolved. And even worse, it was a city that had lost a team before.”

In the summer of 2014, when Kroenke took control of the 300 acres at Hollywood Park, the prospect of a move back to Southern California became more real.

“Now you had a site that the NFL had long coveted, an owner with the expertise and resources to do it the way the NFL had always wanted to do it, and a team that had the right to relocate,” Demoff said.

“Even then, the best project and opportunity in Los Angeles never guaranteed success. No one had figured out this Rubik’s Cube for so long.”

Problem-solving is in Demoff’s DNA. His father, a former public defender, soared to the top of the sports-representation business by finding creative ways to structure contracts when other agents might fall back on boilerplate solutions.

“He’s creative, he’s patient, he’s fair,” Kevin said of his father. “Ultimately, he just listens, reasons, comes up with solutions. He was always trying to look for a win-win.”

Marvin and Patti Demoff still live in the same Benedict Canyon home where they raised their two children, Kevin and Allison. Before the age of cellphones, the family had four land lines and a fax line, as Marvin liked to be home for dinner and would work there into the night.

Sometimes, Kevin would quietly pick up a phone and eavesdrop on his dad’s negotiations. Other times, he’d sit near his dad and try to imagine what was being said on the other end of the line.

“You’re a kid; you’re always thinking about how you can get one over on your parents,” he said. “That’s your job in life. So I spent a lot of time thinking about how I could negotiate against my father. What would I say? That’s what I basically spent a lot of my childhood doing.”

Marvin, 73, had an all-world stable of clients that included Marino, John Elway, Shannon Sharpe, Junior Seau, Jonathan Ogden and Tim Brown, and Rams such as Jack Youngblood and Jim Everett.

Years ago, the NFL draft started on a Thursday at 5 a.m. on the West Coast and lasted into the night. That was like a holiday in the Demoff household.

“What I loved about the draft was I got to skip that morning of school,” Kevin said. “I had to go to school when the first round was over. So I would always hope for the really long first round with lots of trades. We used to bring in bagels and donuts at 4:30 in the morning, sit in the den in our pajamas and watch.”

Kevin was 6 in 1983, when his dad represented both No. 1 pick Elway and No. 27 Marino. That was the best draft ever for quarterbacks. But what Kevin remembers is another of his father’s clients, running back Curt Warner, watching on TV from their house. After being selected third overall by the Seahawks, he and Kevin spent the rest of the morning shooting baskets.

Although Kevin religiously followed lots of sports, he was partial to football. At 10, he’d spend hours reading football magazines and devising mock drafts. He and his dad were in an early fantasy football league, too, with teams printed on big spreadsheets and scored by hand. They played against lawyers at his dad’s firm, and ran circles around them. One season, he was a ball boy for the Chargers, a club he would later go head-to-head against in the acrimonious stadium derby.

“I became fascinated with the elements of managing a team and how it worked,” he said.

When he went to college at Dartmouth, however, he did not envision working for a team or being an agent. He wanted to be a sportswriter. He was sports editor at the school’s paper, and called games on the college radio station.

Upon graduating, he went to work for a start-up Internet company that eventually got into the business of designing websites for teams. One of his pitches was to the Oakland Raiders, where he met team executive Bruce Allen.

Around that time, Casey Wasserman was starting the Arena Football League’s Los Angeles Avengers, and needed someone to run the personnel side. He called Allen for staffing advice, and Allen suggested he reach out to Demoff, who was 23 at the time. Wasserman, then 24, wound up hiring him.

“What Kevin and I realized is that, if you go and work for an NFL team, you don’t really have a massive impact as a young kid,” Wasserman said. “You only learn what they want you to learn. In the Arena League, we were all in, all responsible for all of it. That was our PhD in sports.”

Demoff said that was his opportunity to learn the team side of the business “and make a ton of mistakes without anybody ever seeing them.”

After four years, he was ready to take the next step.

“Ultimately, I decided I didn’t want my life decided on whether a ball bounced off a net or a post, or went into the stands, and that it was time to grow a skill set,” he said.

Demoff decided to return to business school at Dartmouth, but not before Allen offered him a front-office job with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, where he had rejoined former Raiders coach Jon Gruden.

Demoff considered going to the NFL, but eventually opted for graduate school. “Why don’t you do both?” Allen said, and brought him on as an unpaid intern. He would send projects to Demoff at Dartmouth, then bring him down for the Senior Bowl, scouting combine and training camp.

“Kevin grew up the same way as I did,” said Allen, son of Hall of Fame coach George Allen. “It was from a slightly different perspective, but he had the same understanding of the game, the league, the players and the coaches, because of not only Marvin’s presence in the league but his domination of the league.”

The day after Demoff graduated, he was with the Buccaneers as a full-time employee, and he and his wife, Jenn, set up shop in Tampa. While living there, they would have their daughter, Claire.

A few years later, they would move to St. Louis, where Kevin took a job with the Rams, and Jenn had their son, Owen. Demoff was in his early 30s and running an NFL franchise.

“I’m not naive,” he said. “I got a lot of opportunities in my life and football because of my last name, and I’m grateful for that. I didn’t deserve the Avengers job when I got it. I didn’t deserve the Rams job when I got it. Both were taking leaps of faith on me based on my father and what he’d done, and somewhat based on my career. You hope from there you can go earn it.”

In January, at a Houston hotel, Demoff delivered his final presentation of Kroenke’s vision to the rest of the NFL owners. After a series of votes, Inglewood beat Carson in a landslide, and the Rams were given the green light to return to Los Angeles. Since, the Rams moved, traded up for the No. 1 pick and helped secure a Super Bowl for Inglewood at the end of the 2020 season.

“It’s surreal,” said Patti Demoff, a college counselor. “They’re here, but it almost feels like an out-of-body experience. I have to keep reminding myself the Rams aren’t just here visiting.”

Both of his parents point to the fact that Demoff was a history major at Dartmouth, with an emphasis in art history. They said his creative side allows him to look at problems from many different angles, and to see solutions others might miss.

“What it allowed him to do is really get Stan’s vision and be able to explain it to others,” Marvin said. “When he showed you a picture of what Inglewood is going to look like, he could see the art form, the vision, and be passionate about that vision the way people would be passionate about a piece of art.”

Of course, with the Demoffs, it all comes down to the art of the deal. Father and son will be on the opposite sides of the table in the coming days as they hammer out details of an expected contract extension for Rams Coach Jeff Fisher, represented by Marvin.

“It’s like playing chess or checkers against yourself,” Kevin said. “Our styles are so similar, you focus on the same things. So you always wind up in a draw or stalemate. I can always tell when we’ve reached the logical conclusion of a negotiation, because I’ll say, ‘Do you have any other solutions?’ and he says, ‘No . . . but I raised you better than this.’”

Marvin has a picture on his desk from Patti’s 40th birthday party in 1987. It’s of the family, grouped together at the Hollywood Park finish line. A great memory. Kevin has already planned an updated shot to go with it: the family, much larger now, standing at midfield of the new stadium when it opens in 2019 — a different kind of finish line.

• This topic was modified 10 years, 1 month ago by zn.

Fisher: Goff likely to open season as No. 3 quarterback

Fisher: Goff likely to open season as No. 3 quarterback
Posted by Zac Jackson on September 2, 2016, 12:33 AM EDT

Rams rookie quarterback Jared Goff, the No. 1 overall pick in the 2016 draft, started Thursday night’s preseason finale.

After the game, Rams coach Jeff Fisher praised Goff’s work and the progress he made through the preseason but Fisher said Goff, who’s just 21, is not yet ready for real game action. Asked if he was confident Goff could be the primary backup to starter Case Keenum in the regular season, Fisher said Goff would likely start the season as the team’s No. 3 quarterback, which means he could be inactive on game days early in the season.

“I think it’s going to take a bit more time,” Fisher told reporters. “That’s not to say he can’t be a No. 2 or start, but if we were starting right now, I’d probably have Sean [Mannion] as the No. 2. Because it’s all about being patient with [Goff].

“He’s not frustrated or anything. He took some hits. He got hit pretty hard last week, and Sunday was a tough day for him, which you guys didn’t see. But he did everything he needed to do.”

In another press conference give-and-take Fisher said Goff “is not ready, but he’s really made significant progress.”

The Rams gave Goff some reps with the starters throughout training camp, but the plan since the spring has been to start Keenum.

Mainstream Media: Defeat Trump by Attacking His Supporters

First they come after you, then they target your family and business relationships

By Ken Kurson • 09/01/16 8:00am

It is no secret that the mainstream media has decided that the threat presented by a possible Donald Trump presidency is so grave that it has suspended even the illusion of objectivity. Writing in The New York Times, media columnist Jim Rutenberg granted permission to his fellow journalists “to throw out the textbook American journalism has been using for the better part of the past half-century, if not longer, and approach it in a way you’ve never approached anything in your career.”

The Observer and others have detailed the ways in which traditional media companies and even tech companies have colluded to maximize negative coverage of Trump and minimize negative coverage of his opponent, Hillary Clinton. But it doesn’t end there. As Rutenberg described, many journalists feel the need to “move closer than you’ve ever been to being oppositional.”

That opposition has extended into new and uncharted territory. In the coordinated effort to stop a dangerous candidate from obtaining, to use Rutenberg’s breathless description of the stakes, “control of the United States nuclear codes,” the mainstream media has taken not just to bashing Trump but to extracting a price even from those who support him.

There are a hundred examples, but here are just a few headlines that tell the story:

Daily Beast: “Trump’s Doctor ‘Overmedicated’ Patients Who Died in His Care”
Washington Post: “The contractor that designs Ivanka Trump’s clothes does not offer a single day of paid maternity leave”
New York Times: “Peter Thiel’s Embrace of Trump Has Silicon Valley Squirming”
Let’s look at each of these. While I don’t doubt that self-identified right-wing sites would look into the record of Hillary Clinton’s doctors, it’s much harder to imagine a site like Daily Beast, which fancies itself a centrist outlet (and is even edited by my old Rudy Giuliani speechwriting buddy, John Avlon), expending that kind of investigative energy on Hillary’s non-political professionals. The message is clear: If you associate with Trump, we will rummage through your past.

The attacks on Trump supporters extend even beyond Trump relatives to include, bizarrely, the relatives of supporters.

As for The Washington Post story, the message was equally clear. While children of presidential candidates have long been considered off limits by the mainstream media, the Post clearly smelled danger in the crossover appeal of a successful, presentable working mother. Ivanka Trump (who, for the thousandth time, is married to the Observer’s publisher) runs a company that is not only among the 10 percent to provide paid maternity leave, but also offers unlimited vacation and sick days and flexible work schedules. So the Post attacked a company that Ivanka’s company does business with, only they implied that Ivanka was responsible for that company’s business practices. The Post later attached an editor’s note and clarified the story to “indicate that Ivanka Trump has no direct managerial role in G-III Apparel Group,” but the damage had been done and the misleading headline remains to this day. Plus, there’s the original URL of the story—which is important in search engine optimization. It has not been corrected and still gives the false implication that Ivanka herself is not providing paid maternity leave.

Then there’s the Peter Thiel story. His actions in supporting Trump supposedly have his industry peers “squirming,” according to The New York Times. Yet Clinton supporters who represent industries in which she is unpopular are portrayed as principled and loyal Democrats. Consider that Politico reported “Clinton haunted by coal country comment.” Clinton said, “We’re going to put a lot of coal miners and coal companies out of business.” Local officials sent a letter to Sen. Joe Manchin saying, “Bill and Hillary Clinton are simply not welcome in our town.” So how come not a single supporter of hers, including Sen. Manchin and Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin, is said to be making West Virginia “squirm”?

Where are the mainstream investigations of Hillary’s doctors? Or the business practices of Chelsea Clinton? How is it that none of Hillary’s supporters has any industry “squirming”?

The attacks on Trump supporters extend even beyond Trump relatives to include, bizarrely, the relatives of supporters. Buzzfeed did a whole story on whether Josh Kushner’s business would be hurt by the fact that—can you follow this?—his brother’s wife’s father is the presidential candidate. Is that the standard? Has there been a single article anywhere about the business prospects of Marc Mezvinsky’s siblings? The writer of the Buzzfeed story—the talented reporter Nitasha Tiku, who worked at the Observer and was happy to cash checks signed by Jared Kushner when she did—contacted several colleagues of Josh Kushner to determine whether they’d still be comfortable doing business with Kushner’s investment firm, Thrive Capital. The Trump-opposing tech investor Chris Sacca is characterized by Tiku as saying, “The Trump connection might have affected Thrive directly.” The message from the MSM is clear: Support Donald Trump, and you—and maybe even your family—will be ridiculed, investigated and ignored.

The Observer itself provides another good example. Our traffic and users have grown more than five times since January 2013, from 1.3 million unique users reading 3 million pages a month to 6 million unique users reading 17 million pages a month. This information is easily available. And yet, from the time this contentious, ornery campaign took shape, our documented-to-death Trump connection has been revealed in the way the Observer itself has been covered.

Politico wrote about us, “The paper’s editorials, which had largely ceased having influence…” I showed the reporter data proving that many more people read our editorials today than read them five years ago and I asked him to explain how he reached the conclusion that they had “largely ceased having influence.” He told me, “My editor wrote that line.” He said he’d get back to me if he got an answer. He never did. Esquire‘s hit piece on Jared Kushner called the Observer “a once venerable newspaper” without even pretending to offer an explanation of what made it venerable in the past or why it’s no longer so, despite the increased revenue, readership, staff, investment in journalism or other facts I would have been happy to provide had anyone asked.

The Daily Beast wrote that, “Kushner and the paper’s editor in chief, Ken Kurson, were the object of controversy and staff protests and resignations.” Got that? Staff resignations with an s, as in plural. Actually it’s been one staff resignation, a writer who was not the “top reporter” (he was No. 2 on a three-person team) that CNN crowed about in its headline. Given the constant turnover throughout the Observer’s history, long before Trump ran for president, it’s striking that CNN would devote a headline to this boring-as-hell non-event.

There’s another tactic employed by the mainstream media that’s inversely related to punishing Trump supporters—rewarding Hillary supporters.

Then there’s just the general anti-Observer snark. It’s been a fact of life, especially since our beloved longtime editor Peter Kaplan left the paper in 2009, but has been dialed to 11 since Trump began his unlikely ascent in American politics. A telling example involves a trifling story we ran, in which New York Times editor-in-chief Dean Baquet said “Fuck You” to a reporter he thought had used racist language. To me, it was the exact kind of funny and revealing little insider story that Kaplan would have loved (and I don’t claim to speak for him, despite the generous way he fed me advice even though I didn’t start here till four years after he left). Nonetheless, some media types, eager for any opportunity to celebrate the Observer’s demise, pounced. The Times‘ own Willy Staley, for example, tweeted out the story and insightfully commented, “The Observer has become so fucking weird!” Staley did not know at the time that Baquet himself praised the story, calling it “Perfectly fair.” It has been fun to watch the media simultaneously declare the Observer totally irrelevant but also responsible for electing the president of the United States.

At least Gawker was less circumspect in its disapproval of what takes place here. In lambasting our paper’s endorsement of Trump in the Republican primary (we also endorsed Hillary Clinton in the Democratic primary, which understandably generated far less coverage), Hamilton Nolan wrote “The New York Observer, which was once a good newspaper, is endorsing the owner’s wife’s dad for president.” That’s at least funny, and it acknowledges by stating as a fact that the Observer was once good that the idea that Observer is no longer a “good newspaper” is Nolan’s opinion, rather than trying to hide behind fact-ish-sounding writing like “once venerable” or “largely ceased having influence.”

There’s another tactic employed by the mainstream media that’s inversely related to punishing Trump supporters—rewarding Hillary supporters. Not just any Hillary supporters, but those brave Republicans who are putting country ahead of party by supporting Clinton.

Search for “Republicans back Hillary” in Google and you get “There are now dozens of big-name Republicans supporting Hillary” (Washington Post), “The Republicans Who Support Hillary Clinton Over Donald Trump” (The Atlantic), “Which Republicans Are Against Donald Trump? A Cheat Sheet (also The Atlantic), “At Least 110 Republican Leaders Won’t Vote for Donald Trump. Here’s When They Reached Their Breaking Point.” (New York Times), “Here are the Republicans Voting for Hillary Clinton Over Donald” (Time), and “The Biggest GOP Names Backing Hillary Clinton—So Far (The Daily Beast).

Enter “Democrats back Trump” and you get a story from The Hill from January and a Toledo Blade story.

The simple explanation would be that tons of Republicans back Hillary while few Democrats back Trump. But that narrative defies the reality of a Republican primary that drew record numbers of new GOP registrants and set a new record for votes cast, unlike the Democratic contest. And with the candidates roughly tied in the polls (the LA Times, for example, has Trump up by three points), there’s no way a “wave” of Republican Trump rejecters cannot be equaled by roughly the same number of Democrat Hillary rejecters. Unless the polling is drastically undercounting Hillary supporters (most think it’s more likely to be undercounting Trump voters, who have been shamed out of telling a pollster they support such a “dangerous” candidate), there have to be at least as many Trump Democrats as there are Hillary Republicans. But the media isn’t interested in finding them.

What’s even more surprising than the media suddenly cheering someone like former Bush aide Paul Wolfowitz, who was universally loathed by the MSM up until the moment he announced his support for Hillary, has been the way the press issues valentines to Republicans no one has never heard of. How did Maria Comella, a press aide to Chris Christie, merit 1,200 words and a “First on CNN” feature on air simply by declaring her support for Hillary?

Republican candidates have long complained about the bias in American media. Most of the time it’s nonsense. John McCain courted the favorable opinion of The New York Times so aggressively and for so long that it was almost fun to see him crying about how tough it was to run against a media darling like Barack Obama in 2008. Mitt Romney, who really did suffer from poor coverage, mostly had himself to blame—secret tapes about 47 percent freeloaders may have been reported by Mother Jones, but they weren’t manufactured by Mother Jones. And the alleged bias can sometimes work to a Republican’s advantage. When George W. Bush called New York Times reporter Adam Clymer a “major league asshole,” probably as many people admired the future president’s authenticity as chastised him for his uncouth remarks.

What’s different here is the dropping of even the pretense of objectivity. In unilaterally determining that Donald Trump is unfit even to be covered objectively—to the point that he must be disqualified by any means necessary—the mainstream media has set a dangerous precedent.

Mainstream Media: Defeat Trump by Attacking His Supporters

OCRamRe

Just got back from practice. It was my 11th practice this year. It was the most spirited one to date. Here’s a couple of highlights:

After individual position drills the team did some 11 on 11. You could here the players taking jabs at each other. The defense took some liberties with some extra contact that you don’t normally see in intra squad practices. Specifically, Terrance Magee helmet was knocked of on a run play. It was the 3’s vs 3’s, but there was a lot of talking going on. Once the period was over, they continued the 11 vs 11 on a different part of the field. After a few plays Cooper caught a ball over the middle and was hit high by Mo Alexander. Cooper was immediately checked by the medical staff and was definitely woozy. He went to the locker room and didn’t return. The offense wasn’t happy. The intensity continued and really started to come to a head when Benny Cunningham caught a ball in the flat and was hit but didn’t go down. He continued to run looking back at the defender saying something when out nowhere came Alec Ogletree who then laid him out. Pushing and shoving began. There was a big scrum which was broken up. On the very next play Gurley took the handoff and was met by a trio of defenders, one being Alec Ogletree, who then threw him to the ground. Gurley was on the bottom of a huge pile of players. The whole team ran to the scrum. Tavon Austin was throwing hay makers at guys with helmets on (not very smart btw). Jeff Fisher wasn’t happy. He started yelling at the entire team. He made everyone sit on the ground. Told everyone to shut the F*** up. They stretched for several minutes. He then brought the team together. Said a few words, then they continued practice.

I don’t think Alec Ogletree watched last nights episode of Hard Knocks or at least the part about no one touches #30. He seemed especially focused today. I don’t know if the pressure of being the new leader is getting to him or he’s just trying to set the tone for the defense, but he was locked in today. I don’t think he’s happy with the way the defense has played so far.

The offense today consisted of a lot of running plays in the early part of practice, then a lot of short yardage passing game and check downs. It must have been the script for practice, because every throw was 5-10 yards or a check down.

For those who believe Jared Goff is the #3 QB you may want to go to practice sometime. He took half his reps with the 1’s today including all the reps during a walk through period.Sean Mannion maybe got 5 live reps today. As was the case the last two practices I attended.

One other thing on Goff. He’s light years ahead of where he was practice #1. He has made steady progress!!!. Maybe not fast enough for some, but progress non the less. You see the flashes everyday. We just need to be patient. He’ll get there. Let’s see what happens Saturday.

Coples is running with the 3’s on a consistent basis. I don’t think he’s going to make this team. Just my gut feeling!

Higbee is good. He’s been good all camp. Trying not to get too excited about this guy, but he catches everything thrown his way. He even makes contested catches unlike our former tight end who now plays in Green Bay. He caught a TD today in the red zone. He has a knack for getting open there.

Havenstein did individual drills today. He worked off to the side while practice was taking place. He looks to be making progress.

Aaron Donald is a beast. He gets consistent pressure. There are times where its hard for the Offense to practice the plays because he’s in the backfield constantly.

Gaines is our 2nd best corner. We NEED him to stay healthy. Joyner isn’t an outside guy. Needs to play in the slot.

McDonald wasn’t very good early in camp. He seems to be playing much better now.

Barron was back at it today. Looked to be fine.

There’s plenty more to talk about… I’ll save it for another post, another day!!

Goff? Needs work with the ones?

Keenum? Be patient with Goff.

Mannion? Mr. Good Problem to Have looked good against Dallas, see what you have in him.

My own view is you stick with the plan. That means either Goff or Keenum. I can see an argument either way for either one.

Fisher on Troy Hill: (On CB Troy Hill’s performace)

“He did a nice job, not only on defense, but also on special teams. He’s a talented young man who can really run.”

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from the wiki

College career

As a senior in Oregon, Hill finished seventh on the team in tackles with 71. Hill was awarded with a second-team Pac-12 all-conference choice and 14-game starter ranked second in the league (1.46 avg.) in passes defended and 11th nationally. Hill was arrested on December 16, 2013 and suspended from the team after he pleaded guilty to menacing; he was later reinstated to the team.

Professional career

Cincinnati Bengals
On May 8, 2015, the Cincinnati Bengals signed Hill as an undrafted free agent. On September 5, 2015, Hill was waived. The next day on September 6, 2015, Hill was signed to the practice squad. On December 5, 2015, Hill was promoted from the Bengals’ practice squad. On December 24, 2015, Hill was waived.

New England Patriots
On December 25, 2015, the New England Patriots claimed Hill off waivers from the Cincinnati Bengals. On December 30, 2015, Hill was waived.

St. Louis / Los Angeles Rams
On December 31, 2015, the St. Louis Rams claimed Hill off waivers from the New England Patriots.

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http://www.nfl.com/draft/2015/profiles/troy-hill?id=2552693

TROY HILL
5’10”
182LBS.

PRO DAY RESULTS

40-yard dash: 4.55 and 4.52 seconds
Vertical jump: 34 inches
Broad jump: 10 feet, 2 inches
Three-cone drill: 6.92 seconds
20-yard short shuttle: 4.18 seconds

ANALYSIS

STRENGTHS

Ultra-competitive, quick-twitch athlete. Stays low and smooth in backpedal and can throw his hips open quickly from retreat to turn and run. Gobbles up combo routes from zone coverage without busting. Plays with improved instincts and readiness. Reads quarterback’s eyes and is eager to make a play on the ball. Can overlap and make plays outside his area. Was third in nation in 2014 in passes defensed with 19. Takes good angles on the throw and gets hand and arm into framework of the receiver at point of catch to knock throw away. Transitions quickly from coverage into tackler against loose wideout or runner. Has adequate play speed and is an explosive leaper. Will come up and hit with as much force as he can muster.

WEAKNESSES

Skinny, lanky body that could take pounding in trying to tackle NFL running backs. Shows slight stutter step when transitioning from backpedal into change-of-direction mode. Reads receiver’s eyes, but needs to improve with turning to find ball and finish with interceptions. Feisty, but lacking play strength to consistently disengage from big blockers on perimeter. Has to hit low or he needs help to bring down big receivers and running backs as a tackler. Took on 160 yards worth of penalties over last two seasons. Suspended at end of 2013 for violating unspecified team rules and missed bowl game that season following arrest for domestic incident in which he punched a wall and yelled during a dispute with a girlfriend. Plead down to misdemeanor menacing and was sentenced to three years probation. Was also ordered to complete anger treatment program at sentencing. Character must be combed through.

DRAFT PROJECTION

Round 5 or 6

SOURCES TELL US

“When you go back in his history, you find out that he’s always had a chip on his shoulder and that is what fuels him. He uses it to be a better football player. There are some maturity issues with him that concern me, though.” — NFC director of scouting

NFL COMPARISON

Jayron Hosley

BOTTOM LINE

Improved by leaps and bounds from 2013 to 2014 after becoming a full-time starter. Plays with competitive toughness and improving confidence in coverage. Hill has the athleticism and ball skills to be an NFL cornerback, but his slight frame is a substantial concern. Concerns surrounding his off-field character could hurt his draft stock.

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http://www.cbssports.com/nfl/draft/players/1737362/troy-hill

PLAYER OVERVIEW

A three-star cornerback recruit out of high school, Hill committed to Oregon over offers from Washington and Boise State, redshirting in 2010. He saw the field as a redshirt freshman (six starts) and recorded 43 tackles, seven passes defended and one interception. Hill was a reserve corner in 2012 and 2013 and didn’t start any games, but combined for 55 tackles, nine passes defended and one interception off the bench. He returned to the starting line-up as a senior and started 14 games, leading the team in passes defended (19), adding 71 tackles and one interception, earning Second Team All-Pac 12 honors.

Hill earned an invitation to the 2015 NFLPA Collegiate Bowl.

STRENGTHS:

Fluid body type with loose hips and agile feet…flexible lower body to smoothly change directions and shadow receivers…plays with good-enough speed and multiple gears, including initial burst…alert and aggressive play style with sink-and-drive closing quickness…stays nose-over-toes in press with patient feet…will break down in space with disciplined eyes and vision in run support and as a blitzer. Tough-willed tackler, staying low and striking through his target…plays fearless and not afraid to take chances…improved timing and ballskills in 2014, leading the Pac-12 in passes defended (19) – made the most of his opportunity to start as a senior…spirited competitor who hates to lose and works hard between games.

WEAKNESSES:

Lacks ideal size dimensions with below average height and lean body structure…out-muscled by receivers and lacks the growth potential to add much more bulk, lacking core power…grabby and attracts penalties – improved timing in 2014, but still has room for improvement…ankle-biter at times and launches too low on tackle attempts with poor finishing power…can be taken out of plays easily by blockers.

Lacks a great feel with his back to the ball and needs to better read receivers and get his head turned to locate the ball…route anticipation is rusty, guessing (and guessing wrong) too often…off-field maturity needs vetted – suspended for 2013 bowl game after arrested (Dec. 2013) on misdemeanor charges of menacing and fourth-degree assault during a domestic incident; also served a one-game suspension for a violation of team rules (Nov. 2013).

IN OUR VIEW:

A native of Youngstown, Ohio, Hill ran with the wrong crowd growing up and moved to California as a teenager to focus on football and education. He stayed out of trouble until the 2013 season when he was arrested and off-field decision making became more of a concern for future-type of prospect who flirts with trouble, but is not married to it.

Hill rebounded from his issues on and off the field as a junior, earning a starting role and holding his own – was tested often opposite Ifo Ekpre-Olomu. He has the short-area quickness and long-speed to mirror with the fearless, feisty attitude to match, but lacks the size and strength to compete with every type of receiver – NFL talent is there to stick as a nickel or dime corner if he stays committed to his craft and out of trouble.

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from Who is CB Troy Hill and How Did the Patriots Just Steal a Stud?

http://www.patspulpit.com/2015/12/25/10666018/who-is-cb-troy-hill-and-how-did-the-patriots-just-steal-a-stud

Hill was rated as a top five cornerback in the draft, was a stout tackler, and was always in position to deter passes in an offensively explosive conference.

The 5’10, 180 lbs Oregon graduate ran a 6.65 three cone at his Pro Day, along with a fantastic 10’2 broad jump and a 34″ vertical. Hill was undrafted partially because he ran an unimpressive 4.55 40 yard dash, but mostly because of a domestic violence charge.

Hill pleaded guilty to “menacing” after punching a wall in a dispute with his girlfriend. He has since gone through anger management and is on probation for one more year. If he has grown from his errors and education, then he offers the Patriots some fantastic depth at cornerback.

Jeff Fisher –– August 21, 2016

(Opening remarks)

“We spent, as we always do the day after the game, looking at things with the staff – both sides and special teams. There’s a lot of good things that happened in this game, and obviously there’s a lot of things that need to be corrected. The positive things, one thing that’s encouraging from an offensive stand-point, is that, from a team stand-point, is that we’ve had seven drives that have gone into the red zone, and we’ve come away with seven touchdowns. That’s a significant improvement over where we were last year. Being realistic, it’s still preseason, but we’re accomplishing what we want to accomplish as we go into the games. I’m pleased with the run game. I was especially pleased with the second-half offense, the offensive line, the backup offensive linemen; they’re making a difference in there. I can see improvement there.

“It was fun to watch (QB) Case (Keenum) operate. It was fun to see (RB) Todd (Gurley) work, in his one and only series. We’ve been waiting to get (TE) (Temarrick) Hemingway back in the game. He made some significant plays for us, not only in the passing game, but in the run game. Overall, offensively, we’re progressing. We’re not where we need to be. I was pleased with Case. Once (QB) Jared (Goff) settled down a little bit, you can see things change. He got on a roll, and in a rhythm and we had the run game helping him. He made some big throws. Disappointed that we didn’t get (QB) Sean (Mannion) in the game, but we hope to get him some reps this coming week at Denver.

“On the defensive side, the defense has not given up any points in the second half the last two games. Is the glass half full, or is it half empty? I’d rather see no points given up in the first half than I would the second half, because your starters are playing the first half. But then again, we’re not game planning, per say. But, too many big plays, too many explosive plays, not enough plays on third down, not enough turnovers by our standards. And of course, the game itself was framed by time of possession. The defense was on the field almost 37 minutes. So, therein lies the problem with getting your offense some reps. We’re a little disappointed we didn’t get more offensive reps, but we made the most of them.

“Special teams, rough start last week on the first play, as we talked about. The Kansas City Chiefs are, not only very well coached, but they have a talented group of special teams players. There are three or four of their players that have been there for a number of years that we got to match up with. And when you talk about individual matchups on special teams, it was really good work for us. We learned some things; some of our younger players learned some things, because they were competing against some of their starting core group of special teams players. (P) Johnny (Hekker) didn’t have the best day yesterday. We’ll work this week. We didn’t necessarily get the ball placed where we wanted to get it placed, but we got a lot of quality work out of our special teams group, especially in the second half. Keep in mind, when you take a player that’s in a 10 or 12 play drive on defense, a linebacker for example, and then he’s got to line up and block on a punt return, or cover a kickoff, or those kinds of things, or a player participates on kickoff return, it puts stress on them. We evaluate based on that. We’ve got some younger players that can play in this league on special teams. Overall, probably the most encouraging thing about the night last night was the fans. The players were talking about it well after the game, how hard it was to hear there at the end. I got word back from (Chiefs QB) Alex Smith, that this is a preseason game, and this place is louder than some of the toughest places that he’s played. The fan participation, and support, and energy was great. We obviously know that’s only going to improve as we hit the regular season.”

(On the level of concern regarding the secondary)

“We need to get better. ‘Mo’ (S Maurice Alexander) didn’t play in the game yesterday. I hope that we’ll get him back in this week. (S) Cody (Davis) stepped in, and Cody did a nice job at the safety position. (S) T.J. (McDonald) is coming on. He’s missed some offseason, but T.J. is coming on. ‘Tru’ (CB Trumaine Johnson) doesn’t like giving up balls, nor do we like to see balls given up on third-and-2 in press coverage for big plays. But he still made some plays there. The corner position still is up in the air on the other side. Be it Lamarcus (Joyner), be it Coty (Sensabaugh), or E.J. (Gaines). Now E.J.’s first time back, I was really pleased with what we saw out of E.J. He sprained an ankle out here in practice a couple days ago. Didn’t know if he was going to able to go, fought through it, went out and made some really big-time tackles. Just kind of reminiscent of the E.J. we had a couple years ago. That’s encouraging. We’ll continue to increase his reps, not only in practice, but also in the final two preseason games.”

(On when a player is out for as long as CB E.J. Gaines was, and what hurdles they have to overcome to get comfortable again)

“It’s the concern that you focus so heavily on rehabbing the injury, that how is the rest of the body going to respond once you get back to full speed. It wasn’t unexpected; you didn’t want it to happen. But he had a hamstring issue that set him back. The ankle sprain last week was just a freak thing that happened in practice. For all intents and purposes, he’s back now. The reps that he got, they’re live reps, they’re contact reps, they’re put your foot in the ground, plant, drive, and go make a tackle. Those are good things to see out of him.”

(On the performance of the defense line against the Chiefs)

“They made some big plays, what do you think the first thing we’re going to talk about is, and that’s going to be the defensive offsides. Those things completely overshadow the big plays that you make up front. Now we got some hits, we got some sacks, we got some hurries, some pressures, and made some tackles for losses. But, the defensive offsides just can’t be a part of what you’re doing. We’re glad it happened. We know why it happened. (Chiefs QB) Nick Foles is really good at it, at the hard count. Nick knows, he’s been here, he’s seen these guys. He’s pulled them offsides all through last year, through the OTAs, and training camp. He knows they’ve got a hair trigger, and he took advantage of it. It’s a good learning experience for our guys. We’ve got to emphasize it in practice. It’s a fine line too, because you can stand there and not get off the ball, and not get to the quarterback, or you can anticipate the snap and get a jump on an offensive lineman and get to the quarterback. You’re going have some, but yesterday, in my estimation, it got out of hand and it got frustrating.”

(On if there is an update on WR Bradley Marquez and DL Ethan Westbrooks)

“Ethan’s fine, he’ll be fine. He should practice this week. I suspected a little worse last night, but got really good news with respect to Marquez. Bradley may miss a week of practice, may miss a game, but considering where we were last might when we left the Coliseum, there was some concern, but today was a good day. It’s nice to get good news from the medical staff, the doctors and the trainers. Hopefully he’ll have a chance to come back this week, if not; it’s not going to be an extended period of time.”

(On if he will keep the same rotation with the quarterbacks in the third preseason game)

“We’ll talk about it later in the week; we haven’t talked as a staff yet. Traditionally, your 1s play a little bit longer, sometimes in years past; we have gone through the halftime experience and come back out. For some of the guys, that’s a first time thing. If you get used to just coming out and playing a quarter and sitting around, once the season starts, that doesn’t happen – you have to go through the halftime experience. Some of the guys will go through the halftime experience – I don’t know, at this point, how many of them will – but you’re going to see more reps from the starters. Our expectations are that (DE) Rob Quinn is going to play for us this week, which will be good. I know he’s excited about it. There will be some selected guys that we’ll keep their reps down, for whatever reason. You’re going to see them play a little bit longer. From a scheme standpoint, Denver – obviously they’re the world champs, they’re very well-coached, they can rush the passer, they can run the football, they play good defense – we may spend a little extra time giving the guys a chance just to be successful. Most important going into this thing is we want to continue to protect our quarterback.”

(On if QB Jared Goff has shown enough to prove that he can be the opening day starter)

“What I’ve been saying since day one is we’re going to be patient with him. (QB) Case (Keenum) is our starter. He’s progressing, he’s getting better. As he said, he’s learning from his mistakes, he doesn’t dwell on them. The fumble in the backfield yesterday was – he switched sides, he had an opportunity to convert the first down, he didn’t, he stayed to the left and then got tripped up. He’ll learns from it. Case is our starter right now and, again, patience is the word – you can put it in quotes – but we’re going to be patient with him.”

(On how DE Quinton Coples is coming along)

“What we’ve done is, Quinton has primarily been a left-side defensive player. Either a stand-up two-point rusher or a defensive end, we’ve moved him inside to defensive tackle. Now, that’s quite an adjustment considering where and how long he’s played. It’s new for him. He had some tough times last week against Dallas, a significant improvement last week on some of the contact drills and I thought he played much better for us last night.”

(On if he’s putting WR Pharoh Cooper on punt returner just to test things out or if he’s looking at him as the guy to return punts)

“(WR) Tavon’s (Austin) going to return punts for us. Tavon has done it before and he doesn’t necessarily need to do it. We also need to have a backup, at times, we may have two back there to create some problems. We need to be comfortable with the backup returner, so that’s why we’ve given him some reps there. Very impressed with his decision-making, his suddenness and he commits – when he commits he goes. He’s done it in college; he’s done the kickoff thing. I think we have one of the better kickoff returners over the last few years in the league, and that’s (RB) Benny (Cunningham). It’s nice to have a backup to go to. That’s why he’s getting those reps.”

(On how many more improvements he’s seen from the first team offensive line)

“They’re playing better. From Week 1, I thought (T) Greg (Robinson) played well again last night. They’re playing better together. If you pay attention in the second half, we’ve got guys all over the place. We’ve got Eric Kush playing center, then he’s playing left guard, (T) Andrew Donnal is playing right tackle, right guard. We’re moving people around just so we can be comfortable and they can have the reps. That basically is the case with, not necessarily the starters, but the backups. We need to give them reps, because as we go to the regular season, you have a limited number of players and you might have two or three backup offensive linemen. So if somebody goes down, someone needs to be prepared to play. The starting line, right now, I think, has done a pretty good job. You’ve got some big, solid, talented defensive players on that (Chiefs) defense. I thought (C) Tim (Barnes) did a nice job on (Chiefs DT Dontari Poe) holding his own, that’s a big man, a big run-stopper and he got on edges a couple times and (RB) Todd (Gurley) got some creases.”

(On how LB Alec Ogletree did at MLB and how the wide receiver group is progressing)

“First off, I thought Alec played well, he made plays. He understood, he probably got off on his own and studied that offense because we didn’t do a lot with him in preparation for them. He had a good feel of what was going on. I thought he was a little frustrated at not being able to get off the field because his job, as the middle linebacker and the leader of this defense, is to get on and off the field and get the ball back for the offense. I think he was a little frustrated there, but he’s progressing, he’s doing well. And the receivers, you saw production out of (WR) Kenny (Britt), Kenny made some big plays for us. ‘Coop’ (Pharoh Cooper) had the big catch for the touchdown. Tavon didn’t get much, just because the way the game went, we didn’t have snaps and we took him out of the game. (WR) Brian (Quick) needs to catch the football, your receivers have to catch it, not drop it. He’s had too many drops, so he’s going to have to focus on that. And then the younger guys, we just didn’t get a whole lot of reps with them just because of the number of snaps. We’re seeing progression and improvement outside on the practice field.”

(On if he puts any stock into guys making plays to win the game even though it’s a preseason game)

“Yeah, a lot has to do with – and I’ll flip over to special teams – because we have young guys on the sideline that realize how important it is and they’re asking to go in. they want to go in and make a play even though they’re tired. They want to win the matchup. And then, of course, there are things that take place in the end of games, from a game management standpoint, that you just can’t predict – and they’re fun, that’s what makes the preseason fun, because it’s a learning experience for all of us, me included. When you’ve got guys like (RB) Malcolm (Brown) that are just out there making plays and keeping drives alive, it’s fun to watch. Malcolm’s night last night out of the backfield was great. There’s a sense of urgency, it’s different, the roles will become reversed during the regular season because, right now, the starters and the veterans are rooting for the young guys. The young guys are going to be on the sideline now rooting for the starters (in the regular season).”

(On if he’s satisfied with the reps that Todd Gurley is getting and if he’ll increase them for the upcoming games)

“We’ll talk about that later in the week, but I was more than satisfied with his drive. That first drive was great, those were his first live reps since Week 15 last year, but he’s getting them on the practice field. There’s a play, it was a Kenny Britt play, Todd had a check-down to the right of our offense, Kenny Britt makes the catch on the short sideline route and runs down the field, Todd is one of the first guys that shows up when Kenny is tackled out of bounds. He’s in great shape, he’s running, he’s enthusiastic. I can understand him wanting to play more, but we’re going to be smart about the rest of the preseason with him.”

(On what Malcolm Brown is doing well and what the guys up front are doing well to lead to his success)

“The group of offensive linemen that he’s running behind are talented and they’re pushing piles, they understand the schemes and he’s getting a crease. When he doesn’t get a crease, he creates space. One of the ways you evaluate young running backs – and all running backs, for that matter – is the yards after contact, we call them the violent yards. What happens after the first hit? You can see what’s happening with him, extending plays. You turn around and look and it’s second-and-one or it’s a first down, he’s running, breaking tackles, he’s got great balance, he’s a heavy runner. It’s not something that we didn’t expect, we saw a little bit out of him last year in the preseason. He’s worked hard and he’s deserving of the success that he’s had.”

(On if there’s anything he can do specifically to address the penalty situation from last night and if DB Lamarcus Joyner’s ejection was a result of a point of emphasis for the officials or was it a situation where he would have been ejected regardless)

“The penalties, yeah, we’re going to address them with the team tomorrow, each and every one of them. The defensive offsides, they’re obvious – you go when that little brown thing moves, you don’t go before that. We’ve got these penalties scattered throughout the game, some of them shouldn’t have been called, there were a few more that weren’t called that should have been called. It’s technique-type things that we have to improve upon. Speaking of Lamarcus, the ball went incomplete, he got pushed in the back, he turned around and then he got kind of punched in the face and then he retaliated and then there was a retaliation and they threw them both out. All I saw was the push in the back and then the Kansas City player hit him in the facemask and that’s when the tape goes off, so there’s nothing there. I’m okay with it because it is a point of emphasis, considering some of the unfortunate things that have happened in regular season games and in the Super Bowl two years ago. There’s no place for that stuff, sportsmanship is an issue and the league is addressing it. Hopefully everybody on our squad will learn from that, you just have to walk away.”

(On what he saw on Kansas City WR Jeremy Maclin’s touchdown reception)

“It was a good throw and good catch. Are you asking what happened specifically in the coverage?”

(On if there was a mix-up in zone coverage)

“When you get to know me, I’m never going to go there. They made the play, we didn’t.”

(On if he expects WR Nelson Spruce to practice this week)

“He’ll be out there, he’s got a chance to do some running, but I don’t think he’s going to practice this week.”

Case Keenum is preparing like he’s the long-range starter for the Rams

Vincent Bonsignore, Los Angeles Daily News

http://www.dailynews.com/sports/20160819/bonsignore-case-keenum-is-preparing-like-hes-the-long-range-starter-for-the-rams

IRVINE >> With Hollywood as the backdrop and a juicy quarterback competition as the plot, Case Keenum arrived on set to discover the script he’s working off is decidedly different than the one everyone else is following.

We’ll soon find out what sort of rewrites are in order, but the script in Keenum’s possession doesn’t include Jared Goff winning the Rams’ starting quarterback job immediately after the opening credits.

Or in acts one, two or three for that matter.

As far as Keenum is concerned, the starting job he worked so hard for is his in the present, interim and future. And while everyone is assuming Goff will soon be handed the reins to the Rams, Keenum has the major say in the matter. “Soon” can mean a lot of things, depending on how Keenum plays.

“I’m preparing like I’ll be playing for 20 weeks, that’s what I’m getting ready for,” Keenum said. “I’m getting ready for the 49ers on (opening) night.”

As the Rams head to the Coliseum on Saturday to host the Kansas City Chiefs in their second preseason game, Keenum seems to have tightened his grip on the job he won upon guiding the Rams to a 3-1 finish to end last season after going 4-8 with Nick Foles as the starter the previous 12 weeks.

The fifth-year quarterback from Houston has been the superior quarterback to Goff thus far in camp, and while Goff has three weeks to change that narrative, you have to wonder why the Rams would risk sending him out against the 49ers on opening night and then the Seattle Seahawks the following week when Keenum gives them the best chance to win.

Rams head coach Jeff Fisher hasn’t declared who will start against the 49ers on Sept. 12, but he may have tipped his hand a bit when he indicated the organization will be deliberate in deciding when they’ll hand Goff the keys.

“We have a plan and the plan is basically, it’s all around being patient,” Fisher said. “You have to be patient with it.”

And if that means rolling with Keenum to start the season — or even longer — so be it. The concepts of fielding a competitive team and developing the future face of your franchise aren’t mutually exclusive. If the Rams believe they can simultaneously win games with Keenum as the starter while gradually transitioning Goff to the NFL behind the scenes, doesn’t that sound better than Goff learning on the job and the Rams taking their lumps as a result?

No one knows better than the Rams about trying to force the issue at quarterback when gut instincts say to do otherwise.

Looking back, financial implications and optics meant sticking with Sam Bradford longer than his play merited. And there are some in the organization who are kicking themselves for not pulling the plug on Foles earlier last year and making the switch to Keenum.

Keenum brought a swagger and fire missing from the laid-back Foles, and with his teammates following his lead they rallied to a strong final kick. Keenum’s superior intangibles weren’t lost on the Rams decision makers, but by trading Bradford for Foles and then giving Foles a contract extension, there were compelling reasons to stick with him.

If not good football justification.

Of course, had Keenum relieved Foles earlier and picked up an extra win or two, the Rams would have never been in position to trade up to the top pick in April’s draft and select Goff, the presumed franchise quarterback they’ve been chasing since Kurt Warner and the Best Show on Turf days.

Which brings us back to a quarterback competition that should be based on performance rather than draft status or story lines or the Rams trying to nail a big landing upon arriving back in Los Angeles.

For now, that would mean Keenum opening the season as the starter, then letting his play decide when and if the Rams make the move to Goff.

It’s a jumping off point Keenum is seizing.

“I’m in the best position I’ve ever been in,” said Keenum, who has never gone to training camp as his team’s starter, and in three NFL seasons he’s made exactly 15 starts.

And while he recognizes the presence of Goff and his long-range significance as the Rams as settle in their new home, Keenum isn’t in a hurry to play the obliging teammate.

If Goff wants the starting job, he’ll have to take it from Keenum.

And that’s as it should be.

“I don’t want anyone to do bad. I never do,” Keenum said. “I want him to do his best. And I want to do my best. I just want my best to be better.”

It’s not personal. Just business.

“In my mind, I’m not competing against him,” Keenum said. “I’m competing against the 49ers.”

That’s a script no one envisioned when Goff was selected first overall.

And it remains to be seen who has final edit, and when they’ll exercise it