Rams TEs gettin lots of positive buzz so far

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  • #151540
    Avatar photozn
    Moderator

    Rams’ deep TEs room features ‘family’ dynamic, new methods, young coach

    By Jourdan Rodrigue

    https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/5661347/2024/07/28/la-rams-tight-ends-system-family/

    LOS ANGELES — Nick Caley says that when he saw young tight end Davis Allen properly execute a cross-sift he had the same feeling as watching his oldest daughter walk for the first time.

    “BOP!” yelled Caley, slamming a fist into his open palm while speaking with The Athletic as the Los Angeles Rams opened training camp last week. The tight ends coach helped head coach Sean McVay install new (to this system) blocks for the tight ends last spring and summer, which was Allen’s rookie season. These and variations of these — also referred to as “blast”/blast kick-outs, move blocking — feature the tight end going in motion either before or right at the snap, moving across the formation and then diving upfield as a blocker in order to either create a new gap or open an old one for a running back without giving the block away to the defense pre-snap. These had been utilized relatively infrequently in the NFL lately, but especially gained popularity last fall.

    Caley, 41, is now in his second season with the Rams after a long stint in New England. He also turned down an offer to become the Patriots’ offensive coordinator this spring, team and league sources said, in part because of the group of players he coaches in L.A.

    Led by eight-year veteran Tyler Higbee, who will miss the first part of the 2024 season while recovering from knee surgery, the Rams’ tight ends room is a mix of youth and experience, organizational tenure and new faces. Higbee has spent his entire career in Los Angeles. Meanwhile, 25-year-old Colby Parkinson joined the Rams this spring as a free-agent signing after four years in Seattle. Allen, 23, was a fifth-round draft pick in 2023 who was thrust into the spotlight when injuries sidelined Higbee and 2023 trade-acquisition (from Miami) Hunter Long (25).

    Even without Higbee on the field, Caley’s group isn’t just deeper this season — it is noticeably larger. Where Higbee (6-foot-6, 243 pounds) has some lankiness to his frame, Parkinson (6-foot-7, 265) and Allen (6-foot-6, 255) are built like Budweiser clydesdales.

    “We (all) mesh very well,” said Allen, “we come from all different walks of life but I think we share an appreciation of wanting to be at our best. But we’re all pulling for each other — there’s no ‘Oh, he’s taking more reps and that bothers me.’ It’s more just like, ‘OK, we’re the tight ends. And whoever goes out there is representing the entire tight end room and coach Caley.”

    Parkinson and Allen have taken on the lead share of snaps in Higbee’s absence. Long has mixed into the first- and second-team rotation, too. Because Parkinson and Allen especially seem to be emerging as impact players who can block and catch, something interesting may happen: McVay, the coach known as a catalyst for the increase of 11 personnel usage across the NFL since 2017, might need to field multiple tight ends more than he typically has in order to feature his best rotations of players.

    Now comes the part where fantasy football-heads must calm down: Nobody is saying the Rams will become a predominantly 12 personnel team, only that the usage of that personnel grouping could potentially increase in 2024. They have three receivers they really like in Cooper Kupp, Puka Nacua and Demarcus Robinson and they’d like to also keep those guys on the field. Kupp and Nacua still do all of the things asked of Rams receivers that made 11 personnel so successful in L.A. — they block well in the run game and can run a variety of concepts like fullbacks or miniature tight ends, therefore removing the need for an extra tight end. Running 11 personnel with the three receivers and lone tight end (Higbee) has also meant McVay’s offense could play faster and prevent defensive substitutions because they weren’t pausing to substitute their own offensive players.

    So, things may not change too much. Yet getting multiple tight ends on the field is a stated goal inside the new-look position room.

    “It’s on us on how much 12 and 13 (three tight ends) is run,” Parkinson said. “If we show that we are factors in the run game and the pass game, it’s gonna be hard to keep us off the field and that’s on us — I don’t think that’s something that will be handed out to us because of all the success we’ve had in 11 personnel, which is totally justifiable. We have some amazing wide receivers! But I think we will run as much ’12’ as we earn.”

    Allen echoed Parkinson. “I think we kind of look at it as, when we’re out there in 11 let’s make sure that we do our job so well that coach McVay is like, ‘I’ve got no choice but to do 12 or 13.’ That’s what coach Caley preaches. We want to do our job and keep ourselves to a standard where we can’t give coach McVay or coach (Mike) LaFleur any other option.”

    Like any other role, earning those snaps requires mastering concepts McVay wants to use in all phases of offense. This is where Caley and his teaching progression come in.

    Take the move blocks, for example.

    In the Rams’ building, they started out as a theory discussed among the coaching staff, and then between Caley, LaFleur and McVay as they mapped out some of the technical points. Caley asked LaFleur if he could bring the tight ends over to the ball-handling drills generally run by the quarterbacks, running backs and receivers at the start of practices because that is a good time for the players to develop timing for different types of motions with the quarterback, from pre-snap to at-snap. In spring OTAs, Caley and a few assistants would hold “pop-up” bags because players are not allowed contact with each other during that time. “So I’m holdin’ it, keeping my a– out of the way,” he said, “but they’re working on the technique full-speed so we can calibrate and set the speed realistically when we snap. (if the motion is a pre-snap, the TE has to set back on the line before the snap. If it’s an at-snap motion, the TE has to know when to “snap off” the motion.) We’re building the elements.”

     

    When training camp begins, all of the technique and timing should be installed by the time the pads finally come on. Then, Caley can see what his players are really made of.

    “You’ve got to be tough,” Caley said. “You’ve got to love that s— because that is not for everybody.”

    For all of the schematic and personnel developments the Rams are excited about in their tight ends room, they do miss having Higbee on the field. Still, his continued presence in the position room has been a benefit to teammates, and to Caley. Information and problem-solving flow at a high pace in meetings, in part because Higbee has seen so much and in part because Caley doesn’t really have a brake. He never sits, but constantly paces and bounces from here to there to demonstrate different techniques or to show how the player should physically manipulate space (as it turns out, he also does this during interviews).

    “He is high-energy, all the time,” said Parkinson, grinning. “I don’t know what type of coffee he drinks in the morning (but) he wakes up fired up and ready to do. It has a huge impact on us, it makes us excited to be there.”

    Caley laughed — he gives his players some of the credit for his demeanor.

    “They’re fun to coach! They are smart, they are tough, and they love football — and I love football!” he said, throwing out his arms with a wide grin. “It’s a family, I mean, it is!”

    #151541
    Avatar photoInvaderRam
    Moderator

    i love to hear it. and while i know the rams receivers are more than willing to block, it’s different when it’s a 6’6″ 250 pound person blocking you. hopefully, they can do that and still be a threat catching the ball.

    #151543
    Avatar photowv
    Participant

    “…Caley, 41, is now in his second season with the Rams after a long stint in New England. He also turned down an offer to become the Patriots’ offensive coordinator this spring, team and league sources said, in part because of the group of players he coaches in L.A…”

    ==

    That cant be right.  The Rams TE coach turned down an OC job to remain a TE coach?

    Granted, the Patriots offense may be the worst in history.

     

    w

    v

     

    #151544
    Avatar photoInvaderRam
    Moderator

    That cant be right.  The Rams TE coach turned down an OC job to remain a TE coach?

     

    i found that kinda weird too. only thing i can think of is maybe mcvay gave some assurances of a future promotion to oc if/when lafleur leaves? or maybe he doesn’t have those kinds of aspirations?

    #151545
    Avatar photozn
    Moderator

    That cant be right.  The Rams TE coach turned down an OC job to remain a TE coach?

    only thing i can think of is maybe mcvay gave some assurances of a future promotion to oc if/when lafleur leaves? or maybe he doesn’t have those kinds of aspirations?

    Me: this bit from Breer doesn’t explain it, but it is a very early source for Caley’s “such a good experience I couldn’t leave” remark. I will say this. Mayo is a defensive coach and prospects of getting hired away are always bright for McVay’s offensive staff, so he could, at 41, feel that he can grow a lot more under McV than under Mayo and will always have opportunities down the road. Plus I wouldn’t take the “couldn’t leave” remark as just a fig leaf, it’s probably true, even if it sounds (and probably is) like a stretch when offered as THE explanation.

    He was the TE coach in NE from 2017-2022, so he coached in 3 super bowls under Belichick, including 2018 against the Rams. It very well could be that Caley wants to learn head coaching and offensive football under McV and rid himself of or maybe just expand on the Belichick model. Just speculating. At 41 though he’s going to have more opportunities.

    from Albert Breer, 2/27/2024: https://www.si.com/nfl/2024/02/28/bears-quarterback-elephant-in-the-room-ryan-poles-justin-fields-caleb-williams

    The Los Angeles Rams took some losses on their coaching staff this winter (particularly with Raheem Morris and Zac Robinson headed to Atlanta), but they also scored an awfully big win. Hanging on to highly regarded tight ends coach Nick Caley was a coup for Sean McVay.

    The continued poaching of McVay’s assistants has been, over the last few years, both a huge endorsement of what’s been built in Los Angeles and also a bit of a burden on a team that’s constantly needed to reshape itself around new staff coming in. But last year marked a sort of shift in how they did it, with McVay going outside a coaching tree that traditionally has been very insular to hire Caley and Ryan Wendell, both of whom have Patriot roots.

    Part of it, of course, was that McVay just liked those two. Another was the respect he’s always had for Josh McDaniels and the New England offense, and the thought that adding some layers to the passing game, with Matthew Stafford as its triggerman, and some more diversity to the run game would make the Rams tough to deal with. To be sure, it worked, enough so that the idea of Caley leaving to go run his own offense was very much in play.

    Caley traveled to New England for a second interview with the Patriots, whom he worked for from 2015–22, over the weekend of the conference title games, and was offered the Patriots offensive coordinator job by his old staffmate Jerod Mayo. And he was offered it at a very competitive salary, which reflected the respect Mayo has for him.

    It was tough to say no. But Caley had such a good experience last year with the Rams, that the idea of leaving was more difficult than turning down a coordinator job. So he stayed, and McVay, as I’ve heard the story, was ecstatic that he did (and McVay showed that emphatically on the phone with Caley when he was told he was staying). In turn, the Rams have since made it worth his while by giving him the pass-game coordinator title that Robinson left behind when he decided to go run his own offense in Atlanta under Morris.

     

     

    #151580
    Avatar photozn
    Moderator
    J.B. Long@JB_Long
    Matthew Stafford says this group of @RamsNFL tight ends has the potential to be as talented and deep as any he’s worked with in 16 seasons.nd deep as any he’s worked with in 16 seasons.
    #151583
    Avatar photoInvaderRam
    Moderator

    sounds like colby parkinson is the starter right now with allen the backup.

     

    i guess the only question is will it at east be replacement level for higbee.

     

    i’m encouraged so far but who really knows. tight end and injuries are my only real questions on offense.

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