Rams tweets n things … 7/26 thru 7/29

pic.twitter.com/HYmFaPfGdH

— Adam Harstad (@AdamHarstad) July 26, 2020

Stephen Holder@HolderStephen
By the way… I, for one, definitely want the NFL season to overcome Covid. Because if the season is canceled, we would deprive all those fans who have threatened to boycott because of kneeling their opportunity to make good on their empty threats. Face with tears of joy

==

from https://theramswire.usatoday.com/2020/07/27/la-rams-jalen-ramsey-donte-deayon-secret-weapon/

Troy Hill, David Long Jr., Darious Williams and Donte Deayon are the other contributors at corner and Ramsey called one of them a secret weapon for Los Angeles. After talking on the phone for an hour with Deayon, he shared on Instagram that fans should know his name in 2020.

Here’s Ramsey’s post on his Instagram story late Sunday night.

𝕋𝕠𝕞 – 𝕃𝔸 ℝ𝕒𝕞𝕤@TL_LARams
Another reason @BigGame81 should be in the Hall of Fame already. Only two WRs in the entire history of the NFL had over 8,000 receiving yards in their first 6 seasons: Randy Moss and Torry Holt

TurfShowTimes@TurfShowTimes
Rams looking to post 4 straight winning seasons for first time since 1986

Jourdan Rodrigue@JourdanRodrigue
I think Wolford is a pretty decent backup, lots of teams around the league won’t have as ready an answer if anything happens to their QB1.

P-squads are expanded and teams can protect four guys each week. I think protected guys will be a backup QB, a backup kicker, OL depth and maybe a WR or TE depending on how the numbers shake out there. And as for the rest of the practice squad, it’s great that it expanded because I think many in the Rams’ UDFA class have a lot of talent. I really like Brandon Polk, and Rozeboom is an ideal develop-in-house candidate.

I’d bet Anchrum ends up on the active roster at some point during the year. But for many rookies (and particularly the closer you get to the line of scrimmage) it just takes some time to adjust. I think Anchrum, if he doesn’t make the initial, could well be one of the protected PSquad players at minimum.

from https://ramblinfan.com/2020/07/27/will-la-rams-run-3-3-5-defensive-formations/

The analysts over at Football Outsiders had recently posted how NFL teams modified their defensive personnel groupings from the 2019 NFL season versus the 2018 NFL season. Their numbers show that dime defense (meaning, six defensive back sets) increased by 2.7 percent league-wide and the LA Rams were one of the league’s leaders with the use of a dime package 42 percent of the time. Let that sink in folks. The LA Rams ran defenses with six or more defensive backs 42 percent of the time in 2019.

The Rams defense ran their 3-4 base defense 34 percent of the time, good for the third-highest usage in the NFL. The team’s use of the dime package of 42 percent usage was good for the second-highest usage in the NFL. So what about that five defensive back nickel-package? The Rams saw fit to use that formation just 23 percent of the time, which was dead last, or the 32nd ranked usage in the NFL.

from Former NFL defensive tackle Dana Stubblefield found guilty of rape

https://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2020/07/27/former-nfl-defensive-tackle-dana-stubblefield-found-guilty-of-rape/.

A jury found former NFL defensive tackle Dana Stubblefield guilty of rape Monday, NBCBayArea.com reports.

The incident occurred April 9, 2015. Stubblefield eventually was charged with sexually assaulting a developmentally disabled woman he invited to his Morgan Hill, California, home to interview as a prospective babysitter.

Gary Klein@LATimesklein
First four picks in 2016 draft — Goff, Wentz, Bosa, Elliott — received massive extensions. Rams on the clock with Jalen Ramsey, the No. 5 pick.

Sam Farmer@LATimesfarmer
Epidemiologist Zach Binney on sports/coronavirus:
“It’s kind of like an NFL defense. If you’ve got nine guys out there following the coach’s program, but you’ve got two freelancing, it’s not going to be hard for a good quarterback to score on you. COVID-19 is a good quarterback.”

—

from https://www.outkick.com/patriots-players-are-dropping-out-in-droves/

one New England Patriot after another is dropping out of the NFL season. The list now stands as follows:

OUT:
Dont’a Hightower (LB)
Danny Vitale (FB)
Brandon Bolden (RB)
Najee Toran (OG)
Marcus Cannon (OT)

Field Yates@FieldYates
A total of 21 NFL players have tested positive for COVID-19 since players began reporting to training camp and 107 have tested positive in total this offseason, per the NFLPA’s latest data.

Mike Reiss@MikeReiss
Patriots safety Patrick Chung tells me that he plans to opt out of the 2020 season. He is the sixth Patriots player to do so.

Field Yates@FieldYates
The Patriots will have to replace their top three linebackers in terms on snaps played from the 2019 season: Dont’a Hightower, Jamie Collins and Kyle Van Noy.

Steve Ramirez@SteveRRamirez
Hey Rich_Hammond I have a question that just popped into my head. If the NFL season is not played due to virus concerns, what happens to the 2021 NFL Draft and how is the order figured out?

Rich Hammond@Rich_Hammond
They’d have to make up something, basically. In 2005, after the NHL season got wiped out, they basically did a “weighted” order based on results of the previous couple seasons.

==

ALBERT BREER, from https://www.si.com/nfl/2020/07/29/mailbag-patriots-opt-outs-move-super-bowl

Duncan McLean (@TheRealDunx): If the season is canceled but the draft in 2021 went ahead, how would the NFL decide the draft order?

AB: We’re gonna wrap up with two questions I got on the podcast, and that I’ve gotten a lot, that I feel like are worth answering twice. Duncan, the easy answer would be to keep the draft order the same—but I don’t think that’d be fair, to reward Cincinnati and Washington and Detroit and the Giants twice for being bad once. So, as I did earlier in the offseason, to come up with an idea here, I went back to the one applicable piece of sports history I could find.

You may remember that the NHL lockout wiped out the entire ’04-’05 season, and that meant having a 2005 draft without standings to build a draft order off of. So the NHL got creative, and built a weighted lottery for the equation, and assigned team lottery ping-pong balls according to it. Here’s how it worked.

Three balls: Teams that had not made the playoffs in the previous three seasons or held the first overall pick in the previous four seasons.

Two balls: Teams that had one playoff appearance or first overall pick over that time.

One ball: All other teams.

If you ran this for 2020, then the Bucs, Jets, Broncos, Raiders, Dolphins, Giants, Lions and Washington would all get three ping-pong balls; the Browns, Cardinals, Bengals, Chargers,

Colts, Steelers, Jaguars, 49ers, Packers, Bears, Cowboys, Panthers and Falcons would have two ping-pong balls; and the other 11 teams would have one.

Now, does it seem unfair that it’d be done this way with a generational quarterback prospect like Clemson’s Trevor Lawrence on the board? Maybe. But in 2005, the NHL basically had its equivalent to that, in Sidney Crosby. So, three Penguin Stanley Cups later, obviously, this wouldn’t be unprecedented in sports.

Gerry Levine (@gerrylev): If there is no college football season how will that affect evaluating players for next year’s draft?

AB: Another good question here, Gerry, and one that, when I was doing the podcast, I went back in recent history to research. Honestly, my first instinct is to say losing a full college football season would affect the draft a lot. But after looking back at last year, I’m less sure of that, at least when it comes to the top of the draft.

Now, there’s no question that the first pick would not have been the same in 2020, if there was no 2019 college season—Joe Burrow’s ascent from probable third- or fourth-round pick to slam dunk No. 1 makes that undeniable. But as for the rest of the Top 10, honestly, I feel like the NFL had a pretty good idea on who Chase Young, Jeff Okudah, Andrew Thomas, Tua Tagovailoa, Justin Herbert, Derrick Brown, Isaiah Simmons, C.J. Henderson and Jedrick Wills were well before they did anything on the field last fall.

Once you get past the elite group, there, obviously, would be more variance. Also, the decisions players have to make on going pro would become more complicated, as would the process of vetting them (given access for scouts almost certainly won’t be the same during this draft cycle). So there’d definitely be an impact.