article: how will Rams improve at receiver

Rams’ receiving corp are Tavon Autin’s helping hands

Ryan Kartje,

http://www.dailynews.com/sports/20160625/la-rams-receiving-corp-are-tavon-autins-helping-hands

OXNARD >> When the Rams opted to pick up Tavon Austin’s fifth-year option in May, handing him a salary north of $12 million for the 2017 season, the move was a clear vote of confidence that the diminutive, yet dynamic former top-10 pick would be the team’s top receiving weapon.

It was a logical gamble, given the state of the Rams passing game. Austin has been electric in spurts, and put together his best season yet in 2015, with 907 yards from scrimmage and nine touchdowns. At organized team activities this month, players and coaches alike raved about his playmaking ability. The offense, Rams coach Jeff Fisher said, was “re-designed” in the offseason to get him touches.

But Austin is not your typical No. 1 receiver, and with one of the league’s worst receiver groups around him since the start of his career, he has been limited in his ability to capitalize on his unique skills. Despite being one of the league’s more explosive players, Austin finished last season with just five receptions of 20-plus yards — the same amount as Bucs backup tight end Cameron Brate. Austin’s 52 catches, on average, went for just nine yards a pop, fewer than Rams backup running back Benny Cunningham.

For the offense — and its top receiver — to live up to billing, Austin simply needs more space in which to operate. And to create that space, the Rams desperately need a second — and, ideally, third — option to emerge.

It’s no coincidence then that as OTAs opened May 31, the Rams were carrying 12 receivers on the roster — no more than half of whom will likely make the cut in the fall. It was a diverse group, a mix of high draft picks and undrafted free agents, but among them, a unified understanding of what was at stake loomed over the group throughout.

“(The coaches) didn’t have to make it any more clear,” receiver Brian Quick said. “We know we need to prove it every day.”

After the third day of OTAs, it’s Quick who remains on the practice field, sliding past imaginary defenders, as his teammates trickle away to the locker room. Before long, he’s alone, tracing dig routes in his head, sprinting 10 yards and cutting hard on the grass field.

Among the returners at the position, Quick understands that he has perhaps the most to prove of the dozen wideouts here. The 33rd overall pick in 2012, the Rams saw a jaw-dropping athlete with a 6-foot-4 frame and an untapped wealth of potential. But over four seasons, that vision has only existed in brief, frustrating blips.

In 2014, when a breakout seemed imminent, Quick’s strong first month was derailed by a shoulder injury that nearly ended his career. When he finally returned in 2015, he managed only 10 catches for 105 yards. His reps were slashed. Issues snowballed. Looking back, Quick is blunt about what happened: He simply struggled to adapt to “new things” in the Rams offense, he says.

But in March, the Rams offered him a one-year contract anyway — a “prove-it” deal, Quick called it. When the team called with the offer, he swelled with confidence. He says their trust has him more motivated than ever. The contract, he knows, was a message — “This is your last chance.”

“I just need to be consistent, and that’s it,” Quick said. “I have to adjust and adapt.”

A week later, as OTAs roll on, Lance Kendricks takes his turn as one of the last few on the practice field. But as the team’s unquestioned top tight end (at least, for the moment) Kendricks lingers for a different reason. He’s lost his gold necklace somewhere in the grass.

He paces the field, scanning it up and down. Given offensive coordinator Rob Boras’ new affinity for trying Kendricks in several positions — in the slot, on the line, in the backfield — he jokes he has covered too much ground to pinpoint where his jewelry could possibly be. After a half-hour of searching, his confidence wanes. “I’ve seriously been all over this field,” he says.

Fortifying Kendricks’ role didn’t always seem like the obvious choice. But in March, the Rams released tight end Jared Cook, after three seasons as one of the team’s two leading receivers, and followed that up by sitting out the free agent tight end market. Kendricks saw it as a vote of confidence. In April, the Rams did draft two talented late-round tight ends in Tyler Higbee and Temarrick Hemingway. But in an offense that will feature the position more than in the past — Boras was the tight ends coach, after all — the Rams seem determined to lean on their steady veteran to help lead an offensive rebuild.

Like with Quick, this decision to trust in their own personnel is not without risk. Kendricks’ best season came in 2012, when he finished with 42 catches for 519 yards. Since, he hasn’t eclipsed 260 yards in a season. As far as Kendricks sees it, he’s finally receiving the opportunity to show he can be a top tight end.

“I have to prove that,” Kendricks says, “but I’m up for the challenge. I’ve been up for the challenge.”

How the receivers have responded to such challenges may be the most meaningful aspect of OTAs, where only so many conclusions can be drawn. For rookies, especially, being thrust into such a competition is often a dizzying proposition. When asked how his cadre of young receivers was adjusting, Boras suggested only that “there was a lot of thinking going on.”

But with the receiver depth chart entirely unsettled, early impressions are important. And so far, no rookie has made a better one than fourth-round slot receiver Pharoh Cooper.

Fellow receivers have praised him. Quarterbacks Case Keenum and Jared Goff described how much they enjoying throwing to him over the middle. Rams coach Jeff Fisher raved about how quickly he picked up the playbook. “I expect that he’ll be a household name at some point,” Fisher said.

Watch him run fearlessly across the middle of the field, and it’s not hard to see what could make Cooper a reliable weapon as early as this season. He is a compact, wrecking ball on short-to-intermediate routes. But how he fits with Austin, a receiver of similar stature and position, remains to be seen.

At this point, if we’re being honest, it’s hard to know how any of the pieces fit in a Rams passing game that ranked worst in the NFL last season. There are too many moving parts, all still with something to prove.

The unit hardly seems likely to swing from a weakness to a strength. But where there is uncertainty, there is also opportunity. A whole lot of it.

“We’ve all got to get to the 53-man roster,” Cooper said. “There’s a lot of receivers right now. The competition brings out the best in us. Once you get the opportunity, you just have to take advantage of it.”