8/6, Rams practice in the coliseum, tweets & vids & articles

Ryan Kartje ‏@Ryan_Kartje
Case Keenum goes vertical for the 1st play of today’s scrimmage period. Nice completion to Kenny Britt.

Down With Damon ‏@DownWithDamon 44m44 minutes ago
Case Keenum is for sure the starter for the Rams.. For now at least.. #RamsFamilyDay #RamsCamp

Joe Curley ‏@vcsjoecurley
Teams period ends. I don’t have Keenum or Goff with an incompletion. Lot of runs. One nice downfield completion from Keenum to Britt.

Ryan Kartje ‏@Ryan_Kartje
Jared Goff’s best throw of the day is a laser down the field to Michael Thomas, 25ish yards. That was on a ROPE.

Ryan Kartje ‏@Ryan_Kartje
Tyler Higbee might not be polished yet, but I’m becoming more of a believer each practice. He’s a matchup nightmare.

Lindsey Thiry ✔ @LindseyThiry
Case Keenum completed about a 15 yard touchdown pass to Tyler Higbee in the back corner of the end zone. Higbee is a standout rookie.

Rich Hammond ✔ @Rich_Hammond
Doesn’t take much imagination to see Tyler Higbee as a major red-zone target for Rams this season.

Joe Curley @vcsjoecurley
Beautiful 1-yard playaction TD pass from Keenum to Higbee in red zone drill. Across grain.

Lindsey Thiry ✔ @LindseyThiry
Rams kicker Greg Zuerlein just nailed a 64-yard field goal in the Coliseum.

Rich Hammond ✔ @Rich_Hammond
Rams did no-tackle 11-11 drill. 27 plays. Stat estimates: Keenum 6-6, 53 yds, 1 TD; Goff 4-4, 29 yds, 1 TD. Many short TD runs.

Jared Goff continues to make progress during Rams scrimmage at the Coliseum

Gary Klein

http://www.latimes.com/sports/rams/la-sp-rams-scrimmage-20160806-snap-story.html

He has yet to take a first-team snap in a training-camp practice.

He has not stared across the line of scrimmage at middle linebacker Alec Ogletree, felt pressure from two-time Pro Bowl tackle Aaron Donald or tried to fit a pass by franchise cornerback Trumaine Johnson.

But Rams rookie quarterback Jared Goff is making progress.

He took another step Saturday during a workout at the Coliseum, which doubled as a showcase before tens of thousands of fans.

“I’m starting to settle in a little bit,” Goff said.

The crowd cheered just about every move the Rams made during a 2 1/2-hour workout that ended with players signing autographs.

The Coliseum, home to USC, was outfitted with Rams signage.

“Walking down the tunnel for the first time, for some of these guys, was a cool experience,” said Coach Jeff Fisher, who played defensive back at USC and coached in the stadium as an NFL assistant.

Goff was the main attraction for many fans.

He ran onto the field to cheers and received more after he completed a long pass to rookie receiver Michael Thomas. Goff was nearly perfect during a two-minute drill that ended with a touchdown pass to rookie receiver Duke Williams.

Goff’s next test comes Saturday night when the Dallas Cowboys visit the Coliseum for the near sold-out exhibition opener that might have the buildup and electricity of a playoff game. It will be the first NFL game at the Coliseum since 1994, the Raiders’ final season in Los Angeles.

After going through pre-draft workouts, rookie orientation, organized team activities and nearly two weeks of training-camp activities, Goff, the No. 1 pick in the NFL draft, is eager to finally play in a game.

“It seems like a long time coming,” he said.

Fisher said this week that Case Keenum would start against the Cowboys and that Goff would probably play a half.

Keenum had one pass intercepted Saturday but otherwise performed efficiently and connected with receivers and tight ends for several touchdowns during drills.

Fisher said Goff has worked with the first-team offense during walk-throughs and that he may get some work with the starters during practice this week.

He pointed to Saturday’s two-minute drill as an example of how far Goff has come.

“He was locked in, focused and he knew exactly where the play clock was,” Fisher said, adding, “It was good for him to finish up on a really good note.

“And now he can get his mind right for next weekend.”

Goff anticipates another strong reception from fans when the Rams play the Cowboys.

“Right now they’re very happy to see us,” he said, “and hopefully we can keep it that way.”

Star power

Running back Todd Gurley was one of the last players to come out onto the field, and fans had no trouble recognizing him.

“It was cool just to be able to play in the Coliseum for our first time and get a reaction,” Gurley said.

Gurley went through drills but he is expected to play sparingly during the exhibition season as the Rams attempt to protect one of their most valuable assets.

Gurley, the 10th pick in the 2015 draft, did not take an exhibition snap last season as he was still recovering from a knee injury suffered during his final season at Georgia.

Leg up

Kicker Greg Zuerlein wowed the crowd by kicking a 64-yard field goal.

Zuerlein made 20 of 30 field-goal attempts last season.

Fisher said in March that Zuerlein needed to compete for the spot this season.

Taylor Bertolet, who played at Texas A&M, also is in camp.

Notes

Third-team quarterback Sean Mannion completed a touchdown pass to receiver Nelson Spruce during a live tackling drill for younger players at the end of practice…. Cornerback E.J. Gaines remained sidelined because of a hamstring issue…. The Rams are off Sunday. They will resume practice Monday at UC Irvine.

Rams move into Coliseum, hold open practice

Rich Hammond,

http://www.dailynews.com/sports/20160806/rams-move-into-coliseum-hold-open-practice

It’s been 90 years since the Chicago Bears and Grange, their star halfback, traveled here for an exhibition at the Coliseum against a loosely organized team of college all-stars dubbed the Los Angeles Tigers.

The Coliseum’s first (unofficial) pro football game took place in daylight, because it had no lights in 1926. Now the iconic stadium shines brightly as the unlikely home of an NFL team for the first time in 22 years. The venue, and part of town, once given up for dead by owners soon will become vibrant on Sundays.

The Rams moved in Saturday afternoon, and held an open practice that drew nearly 30,000 fans. It marked a homecoming for a team that played in the Coliseum from 1946-79, then spent 15 years in Anaheim before a two-decade St. Louis sojourn. Los Angeles’ original major pro sports franchise has returned to its roots.

“For those people to be able to come back and bring their child or even grandchild, I don’t mean to sound corny, but it’s so special that it’s off the charts,” Coliseum general manager Joe Furin said this week.

Next Saturday, the Rams host Dallas in the preseason opener, so while Saturday’s practice was billed as a fan event, its practical purpose was as a dry run for a stadium that hasn’t hosted the NFL since 1994.

The Rams simulated a game situation, from player parking to locker-room setup to communication among coaches, even down to assistant coaches attempting to navigate the Coliseum’s sparse elevator setup.

“It’s just to get us into the groove,” said Bruce Warwick, the Rams’ director of operations. “When we show up next week against the Dallas Cowboys and there’s 80,000-plus people there, that’s not the time to figure things out.”

The Coliseum hasn’t been vacant. The Rams left in 1979, followed by the Raiders in 1995, but USC never left. And while the Coliseum has been a serviceable home for a college football team, it is 93 years old and in dire need of more than a fresh coat of paint.

USC has pledged $270 million in upgrades, to be completed before the start of the 2019 season, but the Rams will be gone by then, off to their to-be-built $2.4-billion stadium in Inglewood.

So, the Coliseum upgrades became reprioritized, and some were completed this summer ahead of schedule. All eight of the major lighting stanchions were redone, with brighter and more energy-efficient LED lights. Upgrades were made to communications, electrical, plumbing and sewer systems.

NFL-mandated security procedures now require all fans to walk through metal detectors and prevent them from bringing most bags into the stadium. Otherwise, Rams and Coliseum officials say, most of the logistics of game days will remain the same.

“The Rams have been extremely accommodating,” Furin said, “to the point of saying, `If it works on Saturday, there’s no point in reinventing the wheel. Make it work on Sunday.’ They recognize that they’re a guest, a tenant. We want to make them feel at home.”

To the greatest extent possible, the Coliseum looked like the Rams’ place. Many of the red USC-themed banners and stadium art were covered by blue and white Rams banners. The locker-room floor still has a large interlocking “SC” logo, but the walls were covered in Rams items.

“We wanted the inner bowl and the locker room to kind of feel like a home game,” Warwick said. “We’re in no rush to do every single space in the Coliseum. They’re going to see a lot of USC stuff, but at least on television and in the stadium, it will look like a Rams game.”

The Rams and the Coliseum made things look good Saturday, but still face significant challenges, some of which have no feasible solution. Locker-room space, for instance, will be cramped.

Parking will be a challenge, in terms of availability and cost. Saturday’s “free” practice came with a $20 parking charge, and a lot across the street from the Coliseum was charging $40 per car.

Three times this season, USC and the Rams will play on back-to-back days. An enormous amount of resources will be required to clean the stadium and change over all the internal signage.

“It is frenetic, and people will be running hither and fro, but it’s what we do,” Furin said. “We swap over. We’ve gone from USC football to soccer games. We’ve had changeovers in the past. This is just another one. It might be a little more complex, but it’s just more bodies at 3 in the morning getting it done. It’s not necessarily the easiest thing in the world, but we have confidence that it’s going to happen.”

Then there’s the field. The grass, even after a normal practice, receives a lot of wear and tear. Should USC play a night game and the Rams follow with a 1 p.m. game, the Coliseum crew might have only 12 hours to make the grass look playable.

“Sure, it’s going to take some wear and tear,” Warwick said. “During our bye weeks, we’ll see if they can re-sod some things, but we’ll figure it out. They’ve got a good grounds staff.”

There will be issues down the line, also. The major parts of USC’s Coliseum renovation will take place in 2018, while the Rams are still tenants, and the pending demolition of the neighboring Sports Arena will cost Coliseum officials some of their storage space and staging arenas for stadium workers.

Still, there’s optimism, even among players, who, Warwick noted, will be happy to be playing outside and on grass, as opposed to their previous domed home in St. Louis.

It’s also, in some cases, a personal homecoming. Rams safety T.J. McDonald played four years at the Coliseum for USC and joked that he would attempt to reclaim his own locker at the start of the season.

“I’ve tried to think about it, and how I’m going to feel, but I can’t really put it into words,” McDonald said. “I’ve just got to do it. After leaving there, I never thought I’d be playing there again. I think it’s a blessing, and I’m excited. I can’t wait for the opportunity.”

Enjoy the Rams nostalgia while it lasts

VINCENT BONSIGNORE / STAFF COLUMNIST

http://www.ocregister.com/articles/rams-724920-day-time.html

The nostalgia will wear off at some point. Sooner or later the Rams will blend back into Los Angeles as if they never left for St. Louis and spent two decades away from the region they called home for nearly 50 years.

The magic will fade. The charm of their return will dim. And they’ll reclaim their spot in the L.A. sports landscape as if they’ve been here the whole time.

But it’s going to take awhile.

And as sure as Deacon Jones invented the sack and Jack Youngblood played in Super Bowl XIV with a broken leg, there might be moments that come along over the next few months that take your breath away. Especially if you’re a longtime Angeleno who remembers a time when the Rams stood as tall as the Dodgers and Lakers and USC football.

The recommendation here is to just sit back enjoy it.

It isn’t every day one of the iconic sports teams in town moves away for 22 years only to triumphantly return home.

Which brings us to the sun-splashed afternoon that unfolded Saturday when the Rams stepped foot for the first time in the stadium they called home from 1946-79 and where L.A. sports heroes such as Elroy “Crazy Legs” Hirsch and Merlin Olsen and Norm Van Brocklin and Bob Waterfield and Fred Dryer sprung to life.

And where Todd Gurley and Jared Goff and Aaron Donald and Tavon Austin hope to inject themselves into the L.A. bloodstream.

In the whole scheme of the Rams’ walk-up to their first season back in L.A., Saturday marked practice six of training camp. And if you’ve seen one NFL practice chances are you’ve seen them all.

But it was so much more than that when you consider the Rams left the Coliseum for Anaheim 37 years ago, and when then-owner Carroll Rosenbloom marched his franchise south to Orange County the last place anyone thought they’d ever see the Rams call home again was the Coliseum.

But here they are.

And there they were on Saturday during an open practice in which an estimated 25,000 fans came to watch.

“That was fun.” Rams coach Jeff Fisher said. “That was great. This actually concludes that first phase of training camp and you couldn’t think of a better place to do it then here, in front of the fans in this environment. It was really, really, really fun.”

The nostalgia was everywhere. And Fisher felt it.

The San Fernando Valley native and son of a life-long Rams fan watched the Rams with his dad at the Coliseum back in the day – or, as he explained Saturday: “From way up there in the top some place,” while pointing to the highest section of the Coliseum. “It was one of the greatest moments of my life.”

He then went on to star at USC, where he played four years at the Coliseum, then returned here from time to time during his NFL career.

So to run through the Coliseum tunnel as the head coach of the team he and his dad rooted for was a special moment for Fisher.

“To be able to have the opportunity to play here in college then come back here on numerous occasions during my NFL career was really cool. But this … it was really fun.”

Of course, with this being an actual work day, and with the Dallas Cowboys coming to town in exactly one week to open the preseason, the Rams had business to tend to.

Fisher liked what he saw.

“We definitely got better today as a team,” he said. “I saw good things from everybody.”

Gurley agreed.

“It was a great day of work, especially for the offense,” he said. “We were able to get some of those red zone scores and goal line runs which we really need to get points on the board. So offense and defense, we all got better today.”

The workout followed the typical schedule, which meant an hour in the real pay off for the fans began.

The Rams, dressed out in full pads, transitioned to 11-on-11 drills. And that meant a clean look at the quarterback battle between current starter Case Keenum and Goff, the first-round rookie from Cal.

One week into training camp, it’s obvious the advantage Keenum holds over Goff in play book command and overall polish. And he wasted little time showing that with completions to Kenny Britt and Tavon Austin. In between was a long run from Gurley, the second-year running back, who blew easily past the edge of the Rams defense.

Keenum also connected with rookie tight end Tyler Higbee in 11-on-11 red zone drills, with Higbee doing what he’s done all camp: Using his speed, size and athletic ability beat his defense to the back of the end zone, then leap over him to reel in the pass.

But Goff took some strides forward Saturday with a strong day.

He was initially limited to handoffs when he took over with the second team, but he looked polished during his phase in red zone drills, including a smoothly executed play-action touchdown throw to Jake Stoneburner in the back of the end zone.

But the highlight for Goff was when the Rams put 1:46 on the clock and asked him to run the no-huddle two-minute drill.

He promptly completed five passes – including a strikes to Nelson Spruce and Duke Williams – while driving the Rams down the field, then found Williams crossing through the end zone for a touchdown with 15 seconds remaining.

Fisher was impressed.

“He was locked in, focused and he knew exactly what the game clock was, what the play clock was, the timeouts,” Fisher said. “He had a good day today.”

Goff said he’s feeling more and more comfortable each day, and he showed that on Saturday. The two-minute drill culminating his first week in training camp.

“A lot of those plays, we’ve run a lot, so I felt really comfortable,” Gof said. “We didn’t run anything out of the ordinary, so it was good. “

Based on crowd reaction, it’s obvious the people’s choice at quarterback is Keenum, who came off the bench last year to lead the Rams to a 3-1 record over the first four games in place if Nick Foles.

Goff will get the job eventually. Not in time for the Cowboys game. But soon enough.

And after a day mixed with nostalgia and work, the Rams were pleased to finish their first week of camp on a positive note in former and current home.

“It was cool be able to play in the Coliseum for the fist time and get a reaction,” Gurley said. “It was cool.”