Recent Forum Topics › Forums › The Rams Huddle › camp reports, 8/6
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August 6, 2015 at 11:39 pm #28228
znModeratorRamzFanz
today was just strange. I think some of it was because of the NFLN coverage. They slowed down a lot and didn’t do a lot of drills. The crowd was half of what it’s been. No one wandered over to the crowd after practice to take pics and sign things. Rams may have banned “stay in STL” signs inside which is BS but they were on the streets outside. Grass parking area was soaked and closed so everyone had to street park and walk.
In terms of the play.
Coach O put it as well as anyone could today, but I’ll have to paraphrase because I don’t remember exactly: “I can’t say who is standing out as easily because the level of play is so much higher across the board, it’s hard to see who is standing out anymore. It was so much easier in earlier camps.”
It’s not so much that Foles holds the ball too long, covered receivers are covered receivers, but that he pumps the ball over and over and then he’s not accurate on his passes after the first read. His first read is very good. Foles is the king in the seam.
Pead was up to play again today. He made the most of Mason being out.
Quick is jumping over defenders for the ball as is Britt which is AWESOME!
I didn’t see much of little man TA today. So far in camp though, he’s an effective part of this O.
The o line gets better every day. Again, limited views, and no 1 on 1 today that I saw, but far fewer free running white uniforms in the backfield. Snisher may have just pulled this off. Can’t WAIT for preseason.
No view of Jones at center play pretty much at all. What I did catch was good. Take it for what it’s worth.
Mannion has pretty much fallen out of the rotation. I assume they want the other two to get as many evaluation reps as possible. Just watching him in passing drills is impressive.
Gurley running sprints. It’s all I saw of him today.
Kendricks, come on bro, I’m a fan. Stop it. [note: this is supposed to be Lance’s worst camp]
Smelly catches balls. Just sayin’, he does.
Bailey had a drop. It’s so rare, it’s news.
My main man Rodriguez dropped one too, caught a few, and was fielding punts again.
Cook is Foles favorite target and it’s paying off.
Can’t wait for the Scrimmage tomorrow! I’ll get pics and gifs!
August 6, 2015 at 11:41 pm #28229znModeratorBig Game
First off beautiful evening and nice big crowd out at camp. First time giving a report this season but I have been to several practices. Now this is from notes I took while watching so bare with me.
Brian Quick looks good caught just about everything thrown his way. Jenkins had a pick on Foles and continues to shine in coverage. Although I don’t like all the gambles or misplays he may have at times. I do think he will play very well this year and get that contract extension.
Greg Williams continues to bring pressure from all over but despite this Foles looked better. Foles did make a bad pass to Tavon that was picked by Jenkins due to the pressure the defense brought.
Pead continues to show he wants to be on this team nice runs and catches out the backfield
Looks like the offense wanted to work on passes to the flat with either the full back or running back. Kendricks looked a little better he did have a couple drops during drills but made a nice grab in 11 on 11
To me the quick crossing route will be a staple in our offense come the regular season. It seems to be ran at ever practice
Havenstein and Brown will be just fine guys are really progressing. Aaron Donald is still unblockable. Brad Smelly the TE impressed me today a lot of good catches in drills and 11 on 11
I like what I see in Mannion he stands tall in the pocket goes thru his progressions and makes good throws. He could be the future if developed .
Foles played a little shotgun which helped keep the pressure off him resulting in some nice accurate throws.
Benny Cunningham came to play today had some nice runs. The O line can really run block. Running game will nice saw holes for Cunningham, Pead, Watts, and Reynolds.
Joyner laid a huge hit on Pead after quick toss left in which Pead gained big yards. Drew ohs and ahhhhs from the crowd and teammates
In drills QB’s worked on roll out passes to Cook in the corner of the end zone. Also worked on quick slants in the redzone with Quick and Cook and Kendricks.
Gurley did reps on the side and also some running you can tell he is ready to be let loose. Bailey, Givens, and Cunningham worked on catching kickoffs
Mannion seems to be close to Foles always asking questions
Nice touch towards the end of practice offense went against defense as if it was backed up on the 10 yard while the backups screamed and made noise as if they where the crowd During that Jenkins got beat by Bailey along the sideline for what would have been a huge gain but Jenkins grabs Bailey
Well that’s just some of what I saw and took notes on. If anybody else was there please add or comment on anything I may have missed.
August 6, 2015 at 11:50 pm #28232znModeratorDR RAM
OK, I just watched the NFLN coverage. I just want to throw a few things out there that I saw:
Everyone looks to be in shape.
Practice is run very efficiently.
In one on one drills, Brockers, and Donald look almost unblockable. Westbrooks looks more powerful this year. Sims looks a little thicker, like he does every year, steady improvement.
From the offensive side of the drill, each player got two reps, and almost to a man, they got beat one, and they won one.
Bond went against Trinca-Pasat from the ORG spot. Bond won the 1st rep, where Trinca-Pasat tried an inside move, but Bond’s feet are slow. Trinca-Pasat won the 2nd rep with a rip move to the outside. Trinca-Pasat and Bond both looked meh, IMO.
Brockers up next against Barnes. Brockers with a swim move, looked like he was in water and flew past Barnes on the first rep. On the nest rep, Barnes got his hands on Brockers early, and won the rep, with Brockers going to Barnes’ left. Note: Brockers jumped a few times during this portion of practice, he was trying to read the snap count.
Next up was Wang vs. A, Donald. Ummm, not pretty. Donald bull rushed, and pushed Wang back, way, way back, as the cheerleaders used to say. Wang in the dirt, you get it. 2nd rep: Donald abused Wang, and bulled him, then cut to the inside, like lightening fast. This matchup wasn’t fair, and Donald would have sacked any QB on the team. They gave Wang another chance, and this time Donald, easily beats him to the outside. Don’t see Wang hanging around long. Pun intended.
#63? vs. Battle. #63 looks quick, and uses a rip move to go outside of Battle, for the win. Next rep, #63 fakes outside, and Battle, retreats quickly, #63 makes a hard move inside, and Battle grabs one of his shoulder pads with one hand, and tosses him down. Could have gone either way, if it was in the fray. Rhyme not intended. Battle has pretty quick feet, and he needs some technique work, but he has the body, and quickness to be that swing OT that we need. He’s not ready, yet.
That was it for that drill that they showed, horn sounds. 11 on 11:
All starters, this is a better gauge of where the OL are, because one on one’s always favor the defense. First rep, every OL wins, except Kendricks who absolutely looks lost. T.J. McDonald, lined up straight over him, blitzes, and flies in. Benny picks him up, so Foles can make the throw, and by this time, Brockers had walked Jones back to Foles. It was a 7 step drop, and Foles threw on time. It was incomplete, they didn’t show it, but it was Foles only option, Brockers was there. Jenkins busted up the pass to K. Britt. Except for Jones, all the other OL did a great job. G.Rob, J. Brown, and R. Saffold, all held at the LOS. Havenstein, dealing with a blitzing OLB Ayers, picked him up nicely.
Next play. Inside give to Benny C. Saffold (pulling right) and B. Jones got tripped up, Jones on ass, Brockers blew it up. Play looks like it was supposed to go to the 4 hole. Havenstein, and Kendricks seal the outside effectively on C. Long. G Rob, seals the backside…Quinn. J. Brown single handedly stymied his man at the LOS, Brockers, wow. Harkey, from FB position kicks out on T.J. who is on the LOS, again, and Ayers, also there makes the play, no gain. Note: There was a hole on the backside that runner may have seen who has great vision, patience. But, Benny ran where the hole, should have been. I think Hark, missed the block, but the D is giving a lot of different looks.
Next. Looks like same play, but now Harkey lined up offset on the left side at FB. Foles, under Center again, drops back, and fakes hand-off to Benny. Harkey takes a quick release into the left flat and is wide open for a short gain, then T.J. wraps him up on the sideline. Only one OL block had to be made, and G. Rob, rocked Dunbar for the outside seal. Looks like Jones and Brown may have had a little miscommunication error, and Brocker swam though almost untouched. Irrelevant, because it was a quick hitting play. Ayers came again from the outside, lined up wide of Long.
Next. Hayes humps offside, but they let the play run. 3 step drop to Quick, who high pointed the ball, on a 12 yard gain. Like a mini comeback fade. His split was pretty tight on the right. Hard to comment on OL on this play. Joyner on the tight coverage, and Alexander coming quickly, actually makes some contact, with the yellow doily, helmeted Quick.
Next. 2 WR split wide, offset right Harkey at FB, and Pead at RB. This time J. Brown’s job on Donald, who comes hard through the gap, but Brown, showing great lateral quickness, pushes Donald past the play. Looks like a potential big gainer, until Hayes sheds Havenstein, to fill the hole. I’d give Pead 3 yards, but he hit it hard, and kept running, after the play. Alexander there on the very quick fill. Tru and Pead have words after the play, because Pead kept trucking, and rammed Tru.
Same formation. Cook the TE on the right takes a hard release down the seam. OL does a pretty good job on the P/A, same as before, oppo, with Harkey running to the right flat. Open again. About a 7 yard gain. Jones got knocked back pretty good by, I think, Donald, he ends up on ass. Hayes tries to bull haven, but Haven is able to re-set and stave him off.
Next. Same formation, but offside FB to left. Pead with carry, and he hits it pretty hard to the 1 or 3 hole, and it’s pretty well blocked. Nobody on the D gets penetration. Would have been about a 5 yard gain. Pead, again, fights and keeps running. There was a small seam, where he may have broke, had he seen it. Tough to tell. Saffold just drove his guy 5 yards down the field…a DT couldn’t catch the number, and G. Robinson got to the 2nd level, and just murdered a LB, with little effort, on a seal. Nice looking run play.
Switched to backups, and I’m too sore to go on. Maybe, I can do the rest tomorrow. Pausing tape.
IMO, the OL looks pretty good. We might have something in the future. We ran simple stuff in that first go though. Different looks from the same formation. Center, was weakest of the group. Though of the two really bad reps for Jones in team, one, he got tripped up a little bit, and on the 2nd, couldn’t handle, probably Donald. Not many can. He had some good reps too. I’d like him to play more stout, no doubt.
Defense lines up all over, lots of different looks.
August 7, 2015 at 3:56 pm #28273znModerator12intheBox
Camp report 8.6.15
The player of the day was Isaiah Pead and the runner up was Brad Smelley. Not what you expected to hear? Not what I expected to see – but both had days. Smelley just got a lot of targets and caught what came his way including a beautiful one handed sideline grab where he had to fully extend his left arm just to get a paw on the ball and then reeled it in. Pead was flashing more so with his route running – most noticeably one coming out of the backfield where he faked Ogletree out of his jock creating about 3 full yards of seperation (although the pass still didn’t go his way). With what I saw from Pead, it wouldn’t surprise me to see him as the new 3rd down back this year. This team is stacked at RB.
Tre Mason not practicing up left the 1s with a committee of Bam Bam, Pead, and Chase Reynolds while Watts ran mostly w the 2s.
Speaking of Chase Reynolds, he and Harkey were the first guys out there. Foles and Mannion were soon after playing catch again – and again – if they didn’t have numbers on I think most of you would look at the 2 warming up and gravitate towards Mannion.
Camp favorite Daniel Rodriguez came out early and took some punt returns catching some in trick fashion – but while I’m on him – a quick word. It’s just one persons opinion, but he isn’t likely at all to make the team. He is teeny. I love the story, and watching him, he clearly has the heart – but this final 53 man roster is going to be stacked – there is no room for a second Tavon Austin on the team – and that’s basically what you are looking at with him. After practice Mannion, Rodriguez, Gurley, and another WR who I didn’t recognize (no jersey at this point) stayed around and ran routes. Gurley next to Rodriguez looked like Rocky Balboa next to Thunderlips (for you Rocky III fans)
Anyway, back to practice. One thing I could see – and only because I was intent on focusing on him – was that Greg Robinson had a good practice. It’s pretty much him and Quinn on most reps and he looks really good. He was very physical with him and on one run I saw him just crush Quinn to the inside – it clearly caught Quinn off balance.
Overall though, in the limited action I have seen – the offense runs better to the right than they do the left. It’s hard to say why but that’s what I’ve seen.
Up the middle? Not so good. In the 11 on 11 they ran these 4 plays in succession:
Run up the middle – stuffed by Brockers.
Run up the middle – stuffed by Donald.
Play action pass – short completion to Harkey
Run up the middle – eaten up by Donald 2 yards into the backfield.
As Coach O said, let’s hope what we are seeing here is that our defense is just elite. And that may be the case. Aaron Donald continues to just wow me.
In the drills on the near field, there was some fire w the D Lineman. Hard to explain the drill but 5 guys lined up side by side – they would fire their feet and then belly to the ground and back up 2-3 times to gas them and then the coach would point in a direction and they would all sprint over to the sidelines where 3 balls would be on the ground. 3 balls for 5 guys to fight over. good drill.
Linebackers worked on wrapping up again. Ogletree sure looked athletic out there – but it wasn’t full go.
With the DBs it was the Jenkins show again. He is the first to do every drill they do and Tru is second. Every last time.
They had some change of direction drills – short 4-5 yard bursts then a change of direction – sometimes 90 degrees and sometimes almost 180. It was the kind of drill that really separated the contenders from the pretenders – and you could see the difference between corners and safeties. Jenkins and Tru looked great and Joyner had a really nice looking rep in this drill as well. One guy who seemed to not have as good of body control in this drill was Imoan Claiborne – but I did only see the one rep for him.
Got a good look at Nick Fairley – not doing anything – just a good look at him and he looked very trim (for him). He didn’t flash much that I saw – but other than seeing Aaron Donald running loose in the backfield, it’s hard to appreciate the interior from the distances that we had to deal with.
Chris Long looked full of energy – if he was hobbled, I couldn’t tell.
At one point the DBs had these visors on their helmets – they appeared to be meant as blinders of some sort. They ran 2 different one on one coverage drills wearing them – but I never figured out what the point was. If anyone knows – I’m curious.
In the passing offense, there is Jared Cook and then there is everyone else. Cook gets thrown to all the time.
Foles needs to get the ball out early to have success. The longer he holds it, the worse things go. When he double clutches it, when he pulls it down and scrambles – his accuracy and his decision making seem to suffer. Jenkins picked him off in 11v11 on a play he tried to extend. McCleod also had a pick on a deep sideline route that was intended for Bailey who never got close to it (defensive holding?)
Justice Cunningham had a good practice – he caught a few and was physical out there but I didn’t like the way he walked back to the huddle – he looks like he is really sore. You can’t see it in live action (which is good) but he seemed to be hurting.
A few more fights this practice, both very short lived. Brockers at the center of one and Will Hayes involved in the other.
Havenstein had a nice practice in pass protection – the tackles are about all you can see from that distance for O line play – but he looked solid.
Quick had some moments – watching him climb up to catch the high ones is fun. I saw him drop one – but he came down with most of them – one for a TD over Joyner who had no chance with the size mismatch.
Tavon ran what looked like a bad route that led to a Joyner INT. Didnt see much else from TA.
Harkey made a nice catch on a sideline route and then later had one fall off his hands deeper down the field. There is a lot of action in the flats in this offense.
In 11v11 I saw Quinn stuff a run with just his right arm while he was being blocked. Shortly after that, G Rob sealed him inside leading to a Tre Watts run to the left side for a big gain.
Chris Givens had a drop – only time I wrote down his number. I kept writing down 87 who was catching pass after pass and kept being surprised it was Brad Smelley.
Britt had a red zone TD catch up top.
Joyner made a big hit on Pead after a nice long run – the kind of hit that is probably frowned on by coaches in practice.
Forcing myself to watch the O lineman drills – the best footwork I saw came from Brown and Rhainey – it wasn’t much of a drill – but you can see the athleticism. Wang was flaccid in this drill.
Gurley did some sprinting and looked like he is ready for Canton just running at 90% in a straight line.
They ran some plays coming off of our own goal line – and used the team to yell and scream and create a hostile crowd. The defense won a safety in this scenario – but the only reason unknown that is because a few players threw up the signal. I couldn’t see the play. McCleods INT came in this scenario.
They then flipped it and the offense ran some red zone. Cook, Cook, Cook.
Ogletree had a nice goal line hit to save a TD. Even in the red zone – or maybe especially in the red zone – when Foles holds the ball too long, things go badly.It appears the red zone passing plan is Cook, Kendricks, Quick, and Britt. Players under 6’2 need not apply.
Mannion, for as good as he looks, isn’t getting many reps at all. They are giving Keenum every chance to win a job. The sooner they turn the 2s over to Mannion, the better.
I still didn’t get a good look at Battle, I still want to see more interior OL play, and I can’t wait for the scrimmage tonight.
August 7, 2015 at 9:26 pm #28328znModerator2015 St. Louis Rams Training Camp: The Camp Experience
By misone
Aug 7, 2015http://www.turfshowtimes.com/2015/8/7/9114891/2015-st-louis-rams-training-camp-news-updates
So I made a really random last min trip to Rams park yesterday. Here’s a few things that I noticed while there.
1.Gurley is definitely not ready. He still looks stiff when he runs.
2. Greg Robinson is going to have a hell of a season run blocking. He literally was throwing guys like rag dolls during the inside run period, and that included Robert Quinn.
3.The hype on Janoris Jenkins is real. He definitely looks locked in. It makes sense why they want to sign him now, because if this carries over into the season he’s going to get more expansive.
4. Stedman Bailey was uncover-able. He was abusing everyone in the secondary..and no one came close to stopping him.
5. Jamon Brown is going to have a better rookie year than Rob Havenstein
6. Jared Cook is focused, and made a lot of freak catches. He’s also in ridiculously good shape, like he rededicated himself this off-season.
7. Alec Ogletree is going to the pro bowl. It’s that simple. Michael Brockers will be an alternate.
8. Rodney McLeod has completely taken away the deep middle.
9.Chris givens can’t run routes still. He was the cause of two picks.
10.All of the QBs looked erratic when throwing deep. Except when throwing to Britt. He had about 4-5 highlight reel catches today..all 30+ yards diving with someone all over him. A couple of under throws was mixed in.
Tre Mason wasn’t practicing so I saw a lot of Isaiah Pead and Trey Watts. I’ll just say this, lets hope we don’t have to turn either of them. They looked rough today, specifically in blitz pick up.
Random Moment:
At one point Dani Klupenger came over and asked about doing a Q&A with her. Usually I’d be all for it but, I was actually blown away by how cute she was in person and instead of answering I just stared like a 12-year old boy.
Caution Beware:
Demetrius Rhaney is physical, but he is far from ready to contribute. He was beaten silly a couple times in one on ones. Tim Barnes was beaten pretty bad in one instance as well. in fact, the interior D-Line absolutely dominated the inside run period. This either means the interior D-Line is just that good – which is likely the case – or the center, whoever it will be, is going to struggle. I tend to believe it’s the latter considering that a good lineman is likely to at least slow the guy down at least once.
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