reporters on the Dallas game

Preseason Five Takeaways: Cowboys vs. Rams

Myles Simmons

http://www.therams.com/news-and-events/article-1/Preseason-Five-Takeaways-Cowboys-vs-Rams/deed4166-145c-427e-84f2-7f8498151362

The Rams welcomed professional football back to Los Angeles with a rousing preseason matchup against the Cowboys. With an announced crowd of 89,140, the final whistle blew with L.A. on top after a nice 28-24 comeback victory.

Of course, in preseason, the final score is never the whole story. For a better understanding, here are five takeaways from the Rams’ first exhibition matchup.

1) Goff has an up-and-down debut

Aside from the hoopla surrounding the overall return of the NFL to the L.A. Coliseum, much of the intrigue on this game had to do with No. 1 overall pick Jared Goff’s debut. The quarterback entered the game with 9:45 left in the second quarter, playing the rest of the period for his first NFL action.

The first possession ended after only three plays, as the rookie was hit hard from a blitz on third down and threw an interception.

But Goff looked much more comfortable in his next series, especially on his passes to rookie tight end Tyler Higbee. The Cal product went to his fellow rookie three times on the drive, and two of those passes went for first downs. Goff also threw a strike down the middle that would have gotten the Rams in the red zone, but the pass was dropped.

All this despite Goff aggravating his non-throwing shoulder on the hit that induced the interception.

Head coach Jeff Fisher had initially planned on playing Goff playing a couple series into the third quarter, but scrapped that as a precaution at halftime.

“We talked to him and he was getting a little stiff, so I said, ‘I’m not going to mess with it,’” Fisher said.

Sean Mannion played the rest of the game, but both Fisher and Goff said the rookie will be fine going forward.

“I’ve played through much worse,” Goff said.

2) Running backs steal the show

Running backs Benny Cunningham and Malcolm Brown did a fine job of gaining yards and breaking through tackles on Saturday. With Todd Gurley a healthy scratch, Cunningham got the lion’s share of carries in the first two quarters, amassing 23 yards on four carries. He broke through at least three tackles en route to his 14-yard touchdown run. And he also had a 20-yard reception on a screen during the same scoring drive.

“I just feel like the offensive line did a good job the entire game,” Cunningham said. “Those guys have been grinding during camp. I feel like they’re going to be the staple of this offense. And they were just opening up holes. I know every series I was in, it was cake the way those guys were grinding for me.”

Brown did plenty of damage himself as the club’s leading rusher. He had eight carries for 66 yards — including a 39-yard rush in the third quarter that put the Rams in position for their second touchdown.

Running back depth is always important, and if Saturday night is any indication, Los Angeles should be just fine behind Gurley.

3) Higbee, Cooper make early contributions

Dubbed “Little Baby Gronk” by Gurley at Family Day last week, Higbee showed why head coach Jeff Fisher said he could contribute early and often to the Rams’ offense this year. Through three quarters, Higbee led the home team with five receptions for 49 yards. L.A. can use him all over its offensive formations, and he’s shown prowess in both blocking and receiving.

But when he makes a catch and breaks tackles, like he did on a reception from Goff in the second quarter, that’s where he gets the nickname “Little Baby Gronk.”

As for Cooper, the Rams already have two strong return men in Cunningham for kicks and wide receiver Tavon Austin for punts. But Cooper may be making creating a good problem for Los Angeles to have.

Cooper brought back a kickoff return 48 yards in the first quarter to the Los Angeles 41. Then he used his shiftiness to reverse field and bring a punt back 25 yards to the Dallas 33-yard line.

Again, it’s only one preseason game, but those return skills show just one reason why the club was happy to grab Cooper in the fourth round.

4) Spruuuuuuuuuuce

There’s a reason Nelson Spruce became the Pac 12’s all-time leader in receptions.

Spruce has been making catch after catch in training camp. And that certainly translated to the field on Saturday, as Spruce caught led the team with six receptions for 51 yards and a touchdown.

The former Westlake High School star shone bright again in Southern California, as he was one of the main catalysts for the Rams’ second-half comeback. At one point in Los Angeles’ go-ahead scoring drive, Mannion completed three passes in a row to Spruce. The wideout also made a number of tough catches, including a leaping grab that gave the Rams a first down in the red zone.

All that induced some pretty loud “Spruuuuuuuce” chants from the Coliseum crowd.

“I’ve seen that from him throughout OTAs, to tell you the truth,” wide receiver Kenny Britt said. “He’s becoming a young player who’s coming into himself.”

“Nelson’s a guy I trained with, and for us to be on the same team now and to see him do that was really exciting,” Goff said. “I’m really happy for him.”

Fisher said Spruce needed X-rays on his knee, postgame, but the issue shouldn’t be anything that should keep him out for a significant amount of time.

“He’s a little sore,” Fisher said. “I think he’s going to be fine.”

Especially considering his performance tonight, Spruce is making an early case for a spot on the 53-man roster.

“We brought him here because we think he’s got a chance to help us win games,” Fisher said. “He’s talented. You look at what he did in college — setting the Pac 12 record is pretty impressive. So we’ve thought that since well before the draft.”

5) One for the Fans

The fans deserve a nice ovation for supporting the Rams in the club’s return to Los Angeles, as the announced attendance was 89,140. Clearly many, many people wanted to help welcome the Rams back to Southern California, which helped create what was undoubtedly a special event.

“You could feel after we came in from warmups and then once some of the guys who were no longer playing — the response was, ‘Hey, this is very cool,’” Fisher said. “Some of them had not had that in their professional career. So it was really cool.”

“They stayed until the fourth quarter of a preseason game and were on their feet for the whole fourth quarter, so you can tell right there what it means to them and how exciting it is to have a team back here,” Goff said of the fans. “You could tell the atmosphere was just awesome. I expect it to be like that most games in the regular season as well.”

Bonsignore: Introduction was awkward, but Rams’ welcome-home party turned out OK

VINCENT BONSIGNORE

http://www.ocregister.com/articles/rams-725713-first-half.html

Timid is the foot that steps back into the old neighborhood.

Hoping to make a good impression on their first night back in town, the Rams nearly stuck their foots in their mouths.

Maybe they were trying too hard.

It happens some times.

You want to say the perfect thing so bad you end up babbling on and on until you’ve insulted everyone in sight.

You knock down a drink or two to loosen up, only to end up wicked plastered and making a fool of yourself.

The Rams were that guy for most of Saturday.

And get this: It was on a night the old neighborhood threw a party in their honor.

More than 89,000 tickets were distributed to Saturday’s game, and the vast majority showed up at the Coliseum to welcome the Rams home from the 21-year sentence they served in St. Louis after being banished there by former owner Georgia Frontiere.

Everything was set up for the Rams to succeed: A full house. A national television audience. An entire city eager to slap them on their backs and welcome them back home.

All they had to do was show up, fist-bump some of their former pals, kiss a couple of babies on the forehead and wink at a pretty girl or two and they would have had the whole joint eating out of their hands.

They were home-free.

Instead, most of them wake up this morning with a rip-roaring headache wondering what exactly went down on a night that began as a celebration but deteriorated into a blurry haze of first-half mistakes and misplays that buried them in a 17-point hole against the Dallas Cowboys.

“We have our work cut out for us,” Rams coach Jeff Fisher said. “We aren’t close to being regular-season ready.”

Nelson Spruce and Sean Mannion and the rest of the Rams B-teamers cleaned up the mess, roaring back in the second half with a spirited comeback to win 28-24.

It sent everyone home happy and saved the Rams starters from making an embarrassing first impression.

Spruce has a chance to make the team as an undrafted free-agent wide receiver, by the way, and if L.A. has any say in the matter he’ll have a spot on the final roster. The shouts of “Spruuuccceeee” coming from the packed house seemed to echo all the way to L.A. Live.

You figure Fisher was listening.

“He played really well. And it’s no different from what we’ve seen in practice,” said Rams starting quarterback Case Keenum. “Just a really good football player.”

As for the fans, by the end of the night it didn’t seem to matter that it was a bunch of backups and long shots they were cheering on.

The Rams won. There was a cool little fireworks show afterward.

And everyone left beaming.

“It was as if we just clinched the playoffs,” Fisher said.

That didn’t excuse what happened the first 30 minutes, though.

The Cowboys punished the Rams starters over the first two quarters, and in the whole scheme of things that’s more important than what happened in the second half.

The Cowboys returned the opening kickoff 101 yards for a touchdown and then got two touchdown passes from rookie quarterback Dak Prescott to take a 24-7 lead at halftime.

Outside of Bennie Cunningham’s touchdown run to cap a crisply led drive by Keenum, the first half was a big bummer.

“I just feel like we shot ourselves in the foot with penalties and mental errors,” Cunningham said.

Jared Goff, the top pick in last April’s draft and the quarterback the Rams have hitched their future to, completed 4 of 9 passes for 38 yards with an interception and a sack. His quarterback rating was 17.1. Worse, he took a vicious hit and suffered a shoulder injury that kept him on the bench in the second half.

Meanwhile, the defense got ambushed by a Cowboys offense quarterbacked by a fourth-round draft pick who sliced and diced his way to 139 yards and two touchdowns on 10-of-12 passing and a 154.5 passer rating.

“We made a couple of mistakes, but that’s part of the bump we’re doing to take, definitely,” Rams defensive tackle Aaron Donald said.

That’s the bad news.

On the other hand, most of the 89,000 fans who crammed into the Coliseum stuck it out till the end and were rewarded with a positive finish.

They weren’t in any rush to kick the Rams to the curb, no matter how many times they cringed or turned away in the first half. And they cheered wildly as Spruce and Mannion ignited the second-half comeback.

After spending the last 21 years without the NFL, it seems they’re so happy to have it back they’ll set aside their critical eye and let the Rams ease their way back into their hearts.

No boos. No demands to fire the coach or bench the quarterback or pound dirt.

It was a night to celebrate. And L.A. wasn’t about to let a guest of honor who initially forgot his manners to louse up their party.

The Rams appreciated the support.

“It was great,” Donald said. “Definitely great to see a packed house, and it’s loud, so it’s pretty good.”

Besides, L.A. may have gone 21 years without pro football, but that doesn’t mean we aren’t savvy enough to put the first preseason game in perspective.

The Rams starters have three weeks left to get themselves cleaned up before the season opener. If they’re tripping all over themselves opening night against the San Francisco 49ers, we might have issues.

But for now, it’s just one sloppy first-half performance in an exhibition game no one is likely to remember or care about.

Rams return to L.A. and win, but time will tell how long they remain a marquee item

Jason La Canfora

http://www.cbssports.com/nfl/news/rams-return-to-l-a-and-win-but-time-will-tell-how-long-they-remain-a-marquee-item/

LOS ANGELES — Kickoff was still more than three hours away, but traffic around the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum was clogged and congested for block upon block. Figueroa Street, Exposition and Martin Luther King Jr. boulevards were overflowing with cars, with police trying to coordinate a smooth entrance to the stadium. Thousands were still already tailgating inside, guys were holding signs offering parking across Vermont Avenue for the bargain price of $80 — a telltale signals that the NFL was back.

This preseason football game between the Los Angeles (again) Rams and the Dallas Cowboys had registered as a bonafide event, even by L.A. standards, as the Rams were back in town — ostensibly to stay this time — and this grand old stadium hosted its first NFL game since Dec. 24, 1994.
It was the place to be and be seen — even with Adele performing another of her eight-straight sold-out concerts at Staples Center mere miles away and with the Dodgers in the heart of a pennant race. Eventually, the 89,140 fans poured in here (some late arriving, sure) which the Rams were pointing out as an NFL record for a preseason game in the States hours before it actually began.
The Rams rallied for a 28-24 win on this gorgeous beach evening (85 degrees with a nice breeze), with their deep reserves overcoming a 17-point deficit in the second half.
“It was great, it was great” said Rams coach Jeff Fisher, a SoCal guy who played in this stadium for USC. “Anytime you get close to the Coliseum it’s hard to get in, because there are so many people. But it was fun. It was great. … We’re glad to be back.”
The fight for relevance and resonance and success — in the standings and at the box office — is on … again, with the Rams seeking a connection with both the bevy of entertainment stars in the area, and especially with the hoi polloi, thousands of whom were amassed all around this cavernous stadium from the morning hours on.

Of course, the rub is, the novelty always wears off and this is an incredibly fickle NFL market and this team may have to win and win soon if it wants to capitalize on this initial shot of adrenaline. For all of the many shots on the scoreboard before kickoff of various models on the sidelines dancing and preening for the camera and for the celebrity cache on hand, it’s going to take the Rams capturing a fan base and mollifying their corporate sponsors and suite holders to really make a go of it here. (Lest we forget the Chargers or Raiders could still be joining them here.)

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And, well, allowing Cowboys receiver Lucky Whitehead to return the opening kickoff 101 yards for a score (the first of many Rams special teams failures) — with a cacophony of Dallas fans wailing all the while — probably wasn’t the most auspicious way to begin this latest phase of pro football in Los Angeles after a 22-year absence.
Of course, it was no coincidence that Jerry Jones’ team served as the opponent for this momentous event, as he has long looked for a share of the market by holding his training camps in Oxnard, California, he was the primary power broker in getting the other owners to approve Stan Kroenke’s plan to move here from St. Louis and eventually build a football palace in Inglewood, and you couldn’t miss the Cowboys’ massive trailer truck parked outside the Coliseum, serving as a mobile team store.
One thing Jerrah always does is follow the money, and make no mistake, that’s what this latest dalliance with L.A. is all about.
So, let us commence with some of the “firsts” and get them out of the way.
They played I Love L.A. by Randy Newman for the first time on the Coliseum loudspeakers about 75 minutes before kickoff (they played a snippet of the chorus of the theme of Welcome Back, Kotter about 500 times, inter-splicing it between other songs for three hours or so before game-time).
Whitehead, as you already know, scored the first touchdown back here and explosive back/return man Benny Cunningham scored first for the Rams, a 14-yard scamper that punctuated a drive he sustained. And in the end, Fisher was addressing his locker room following a wild comeback win trying to keep them from getting too high.

“I had to remind them it was a preseason game,” Fisher said of his partying locker room. “It was as if we had just clinched the playoffs as far as they were concerned. And that’s always fun.”
This being a preseason game — even one with all of this pomp and circumstance and, I suppose, history — the primary context of the affair was still more about who did not play than it was about who did. Yes, the Rams are trying to raise their national profile (Hard Knocks and all) and are desperate to get their young core some exposure and profile in this over-saturated L.A. media/marketing and entertainment landscape.

Todd Gurley, the best candidate for Breakout Star From a New Hollywood Production on this roster, for instance, has joked that he only gets noticed, when he does get noticed, as the guy from a local hamburger ad. But it can’t be at the expense of over-exposure to injury, and he was among those who did not play.
The Cowboys, predictably, sat star quarterback Tony Romo after an injury-marred 2015, as well as veteran tight end Jason Witten and stud left tackle Tyron Smith, to name just a few.
And the Rams still had to be smart about how much they played their starters, too. Journeyman Case Keenum started the game under center, though one can’t imagine he’ll play much football once these games actually start to count in the standings. And the individual most in the limelight Saturday night — even more than Gurley — was first-round pick Jared Goff, whom this franchise mortgaged a good bit of its future to move up and select despite a somewhat middling college career.
The early years of this franchise — particularly these three seasons before Kroenke completes construction on his state-of-the-art football Taj Mahal in Inglewood — will be defined by the success of that trade, or lack thereof, and Goff’s development. For a franchise that has lacked anything close to stable and competent quarterback play for a decade (since the emergence of Marc Bulger), and which hasn’t finished above .500 since 2003, much is riding on Goff’s arm. His importance cannot be overstated, and while he played in this monstrous stadium in college at Cal, the stakes are markedly higher for him and his bosses, now.

Had Goff been able to come close to the poise and ability of Cowboys rookie Dak Prescott (a fourth-round pick), then there would have been considerably more postgame buzz about this contest. Prescott (10 of 12 for 139 yards, two touchdowns and a near-perfect rating of 154.5) displayed veteran savvy and splayed the ball around the field. He made two pretty back-shoulder throws to Dez Bryant early on — one for a big gain and another for a highlight-reel touchdown; it was the kind of throw Goff failed repeatedly to make to receiver Kenny Britt with no defenders around from the opening episode of Hard Knocks and indicative of the many strides he must make.
Prescott was pristine, displaying perfect form and placement on a beautiful 32-yard lob that led Terrance Williams right into the end zone (Prescott was the leading man of this exhibition).
“He did a really good job of commanding the guys,” said Cowboys center Travis Frederick, one of many veterans raving about the rookie. “He was very comfortable.”
Goff, on the other hand, was picked off on his second attempt in ugly fashion, taking a blow to his non-throwing shoulder that would end his night early. He was beat by the blitz on third-and-9, hit as he threw and the ball caromed right to a defender for an easy pick.

Goff has been struggling in practice from what I have heard, looking quite raw and rudimentary in some special situations, and it was impossible not to want to compare him to Prescott, who had the air of a veteran from the onset, leading an 80-yard drive and later making astute plays from a first-and-25 situation to eventually scramble alertly on third down to get Dallas in field-goal range, making it 24-7 on the drive following Goff’s interception.
“He played with poise and composure, in every aspect of it,” Cowboys coach Jason Garrett said. “You saw it in his eyes in warmups. In no way did the game seem too big for him. I thought he handled himself really well. … He handled the success of the game well and handled the adversity and he got our team back in favorable situations on a couple of different occasions when we were behind in the chains. He read the defenses well, he threw the ball well. He made a lot of little plays and a few big plays. I thought he did a really good job.”
Goff was let down by a drop deep in his own territory to start his second drive, but rallied to convert on third-and-long. He threw a few nice balls later in that possession that fell to the ground and, using a lot of clock on what would normally be a two-minute drill, he took a drive-ending sack as well to close out the first half (how shrewd it was to let Goff play behind a backup line is worthy of debate). He finished 4 of 9 for 38 yards with a sack and a pick and a rating of 17.1.
“After the first hit he took he was a little sore,” Fisher said, adding that “he’ll be fine” and back to practice this week. Fisher also said that moving forward Goff will get ample opportunity to work with the starters.
“It’s fine,” Goff said. “I’ve played through much worse.”
Goff said he felt more comfortable on his second drive and “once I was able to settle in I felt great.”
After more than two decades of no pro football (OK, there is a USC joke in there somewhere), however, even a sloppy, uneven product largely placated this big crowd. The Rams were 4-12 in their last season in California, playing in Anaheim, on a team that produced 29 offensive touchdowns as a team (somehow Jerome Bettis carried 319 times with just three scores).
The last NFL game here featured Joe Montana and the Chiefs beating the L.A. Raiders (the last score at the Coliseum was Vince Evans to Alexander Wright for 65 yards). Nowhere to go but up, I suppose.

The last time an NFL team played here Gurley was 4 months old and Goff was about 10 weeks old. Rams president Kevin Demoff, one of the people most integral in the move, was midway through his senior year of high school here in Los Angeles (only a few years removed from a crushing defeat on Nickelodeon’s Double Dare).
The top movie in the country was Dumb And Dumber and the forgettable Ini Kamoze had the top song on the Billboard charts (Here Comes the Hotstepper). If you were super cool (and rich) in SoCal back then maybe you sprung for what’s now considered the first “smart phone” — the IBM Simon Personal Computer Communicator retailed for $1,100. Yeah, it has been a while.
Time will tell how long the Rams remain a marquee item in this latest incarnation, and if Kroenke’s sparkling new stadium will be enough to hold L.A.’s attention for good. I like their odds of besting the late-model IBM phone and Ini Kamoze in terms of staying power. Dumb and Dumber, well, we’ll have to see about.
More notes from the Cowboys-Rams game
You can’t overstate how good Prescott looked: Many scoffed at Jerry Jones when he didn’t rush to outbid the Chiefs for Rams castoff Nick Foles as a his backup following the injury to Kellen Moore. Prescott played the entire first half and with the Cowboys being very careful with Romo, there will be a lot of snaps out there for the rookie QB. Prescott’s DUI scared teams off more than anything he displayed on field. I’ll be watching his development closely. He had three absolutely perfect throws, and you could tell before the ball even reached its apex that the 32-yard arc to lead Terrance Williams into the end zone was going to be a thing of beauty. I ran into Cowboys Hall of Famer Michael Irvin after the game — he called Prescott the best QB in this draft and said he begged Jerry Jones not to sign a veteran when Moore was hurt. “I told Jerry — don’t you dare take any reps away from this rookie,” Irvin said. “Don’t you dare mess this up for him.” Looks pretty sage so far. Don’t expect to hear anything about the Cowboys signing a veteran if Prescott keeps this up. “He made a really favorable impression on a lot of people,” Cowboys coach Jason Garrett said.

Dallas could end up with a bevy of backs: They have more runners than they need barring injury. None would land all that much in trade — whether it’s Alfred Morris or Darren McFadden — but I wouldn’t rule it out.
Expect plenty of expletives out of Jeff Fisher on the next Hard Knocks: The Rams continue to take a lot of silly flags. Especially on special teams. They handed plays and drives back to the Cowboys and generally got burned for it, and the starting defense was not sharp, especially against the run. “We’re not close to being regular season ready right now.”
Love Rams running back Benny Cunningham: Great as a change-of-pace guy and in the return game and he was excellent carrying the Rams offense in the first half with Todd Gurley not dressed. Fisher loves him too and at some point he’ll land a new contract with this team. The Patriots explored him as a restricted free agent this offseason.
Rams third-string QB Sean Mannion made the most of it: He led scoring drives adroitly and converted a late fourth down to keep the final drive going — he found receiver Nelson Spruce (who’ll get more Hard Knocks action) several times and finished it off with the game-winning touchdown pass. Spruce — becoming a cult favorite around here — went for X-rays on his knee but Fisher thinks he’ll be fine. Mannion finished 18 of 25 for 147 yards and three touchdown throws. “Sean handled things like we expected him to,” Fisher said.