Camp Report 8/14/14 + follow-up

some more follow-up…ongoing

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CoachO

Laurinaitis has been out of the boot for over a week. His situation is mostly precautionary. I believe he had a procedure in the offseason, that landed him a walking boot then, so this injury is more about not aggravating it any further. IF he has shown one thing in his career, he WILL be on the field on Sundays. It’s anyone’s guess as to whether or not he will play in any of the preseason games. But my guess, if he does, it won’t be until Miami.

As to Brockers, he has been getting in some work on the side with Reggie (Head Trainer) and should be back for next week’s game in Cleveland.

I think with Hayes, they are just taking things slow with him, like they are with a few of the other guys. He apparently had some neck and shoulder issues taken care of in the off season, and with him being a veteran, he doesn’t need the same time and reps to be ready for Sept. 7th. Now if he doesn’t start working his back into a regular rotation in the next week or so, then there may be more to it than that.

Rhaney suffered a knee strain, and according to Fisher’s post-practice comments, it isn’t as serious as they thought. An MRI is scheduled. My guess is he won’t be playing tomorrow. Don’t be surprised to see Mike Person getting more than a few token reps at Center in tomorrow’s game.

The biggest thing about the Barrett Jones injury, is it exposed how short handed they are with the younger UDFA’s just not being where they need to be.

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I believe that Person will get the reps while Bradford is in the game. Then Van Dyk may get a look at LT. Not sure how much Wells will play, so Barnes and Person may finish the game at Center. Hooey will get his reps at RT, with the 2nd unit, then may slide over to LT with the 3’s.

[At]…RT, I’m thinking Sean Hooey gets the first nod. They seem to like what he brings, and the kid has made some nice strides in camp this year. Boudreau seems to like the tall tackles, with the reach hat Hooey at 6’9 can provide. While he can at times have problems with a speed rush, being on the right side, he isn’t as likely to come up against that quite as much as he would on the left.

As far as Washington, I have a feeling his days have been numbered since camp started. He is the perfect example of a player who has managed to stick around because he was the “best” of an otherwise very weak core of depth guys. They have “out drafted” him with the guys that have been brought in the last year. But Joseph’s signing kinda sealed his fate.

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As much as I love the Joseph acquisition, when Saffold is in there, this unit has the potential to have an overpowering running game. Joseph has been good, Saffold could be special.

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They do have a 2nd unit for kickoff coverage, but honestly, it changes practice to practice, with all the players sitting out. It’s difficult to even chart it. My suggestion is to keep an eye on the telecast tomorrow, to get a better idea of who it is THIS week.

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McLeod looks to be coming on. He is more often than not, in the single high safety position, and has showed to be quite comfortable, and is reading routes and making breaks on balls in the air. Again, he just needs to clean up his tackling, and I think people may be pleasantly surprised.

The 4 Safeties who IMO are safe, are McLeod, McDonald, C. Davis, and Alexander.

…what I have seen of Bryant, I like. He seems to play with a certain “balls to the wall” mentality. He just needs to get up to speed in the defense.

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My biggest fear is the fans all jumping ship if this team doesn’t get off to a 3-1 start. They need to stay the course, and let a Jeff Fisher team improve as the year goes on. As most of his teams have shown they will. A fast start would be very helpful,, ,but if they can be around .500 at the halfway point, they could very easily win 6 of the last 8 to make their playoff push.

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I think our base did a pretty good job in limiting the damage last year of the read option. None of the teams that tried to run it, including Washington in Week 2 had much success. With the addition of Ogletree and McDonald, IMO, these players are perfect fits, lined up on opposite sides of the formation to run down a Wilson or Kaepernick, while not compromising the interior of the defense by losing one of the DTs.

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I think you have to look deeper at some of the reasons that screens are successful against our defense, and why on offense, they don’t seem to be nearly as effective, even when they try to run them.

From a schematic point of view, teams use these screens to exploit the Rams biggest strength. The aggressive nature of our defensive front, which tends to be in a constant “rush the passer” mode, plays right into the hands of an team running effective screens. The defensive front tends to run themselves out of the play, creating a numbers mismatch against the back 7. Especially when teams can run off the safeties, leaving maybe 3 or 4 defenders to stand up to the screen.

Conversely, other teams propensity to play mostly zone schemes against our offense, doesn’t create the same sort of mismatches for our offense. Trust me, it’s not that they don’t work on the screen game in practice. They work on it a lot.

But when teams tend to be more passive in their approach vs. our offense, especially when we don’t show the ability to stretch the secondary, they will out number us at the point of the screen more often than not.

…while it would be nice to have in the arsenal [on offense], I’m not sure it something “needs to fix”. Play calling as a rule, is more about taking advantage of the matchups the defense gives you. And when teams take the approach they have taken as a general rule, running screens just isn’t the way to attack it. But it also opens other things to take advantage of.

One example I like to point out from last year, is the Indy game. compared to other games. Fans are always complaining about Schottenheimer’s “failure” to get Austin the ball in space. But by design, when teams are playing primarily zone, you have to attack the open spaces and find the windows. Which means most of the time, the receiver has to settle into that void, and is standing still when the ball is delivered.

Now, to use the Indy game, they played primarily man to man defense, and you saw they difference. Austin caught the crossing route in stride, and was off to the races. Even Chris Givens, who rarely runs them, had a couple of big plays on similar crossing routes.

This is how OC’s change their play calling based on the defense. And screen passes are just another tool in the drawer when the opportunity present itself.

On defense, it becomes a “pick your poison” sort of decision. In most cases, they choose to pressure the passer, and it can make them susceptible to the screens.

But that’s where having an experienced DC can make all the difference in the world, And actually GAME PLANNING, which you are not likely to see much in the preseason. Down and distance, and scouting tendencies, will allow Williams to have a better feel when to get after the QB, and when to back off and force them into throwing into coverage.

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As much as I love the Joseph acquisition, when Saffold is in there, this unit has the potential to have an overpowering running game. Joseph has been good, Saffold could be special.

yeah. i can’t wait to see this oline with everyone lined up. the interior oline should be opening up some nice holes for stacy to power through. this offense is gonna be more physical than any st louis ram offense we’ve ever seen.

well besides injuries. what do people think could be the downfall of this team?

the secondary is still very much a question mark. run defense could be suspect. too soon to tell.

i actually think the offense should be fine. if you discount the potential of injuries. i mean bradford with a strong running game should be enough.