Rams camp & the virus (w/ a long good article)

A preview to a big story on how the @RamsNFL are preparing you address Covid-19 protocols. Led by VP of Sports performance and medicine Reggie Scott, what has been done facility wise, safety wise and in prep for testing has been a massive endeavor. Massive. @nflnetwork pic.twitter.com/q6XoO6g0aA

— Steve Wyche (@wyche89) July 24, 2020

Inside one NFL team’s plans to transform its facility

https://theathletic.com/1950740/2020/07/25/inside-one-nfl-teams-plans-to-transform-its-facility/

For as much as the NFL has tried to create standard protocols for all 32 teams to follow as they return to work amid the coronavirus pandemic, the reality is that social distancing is going to be easier in some places than others when as many as 90 players report to training camp next week.

Some teams have massive new, state-of-the-art training facilities. Others are based inside their stadiums, which provides the benefit of space.

Other teams have had to get much more creative.

One such team is the Los Angeles Rams, who remain headquartered in a temporary practice facility on the campus of Cal Lutheran University in Thousand Oaks. (Some employees also work out of a business office in Agoura Hills.) The Rams work out of two modular buildings on a limited amount of acreage, and nearly every inch of it, from the locker rooms and weight room to patios and parking lots, has been transformed.

Rams director of football operations Sophie Harlan on Thursday afternoon guided The Athletic on a virtual tour of the facility to show the transformation and explain many of the changes players will see when they are cleared to walk through the gates.

Harlan also demonstrated some of the new technology the NFL and each of its teams will use, such as thermal scanners at the entrance to the building and inside the locker room that record and track individuals’ temperatures and proximity trackers that are to be worn by all employees at all times while on team business — from inside the weight room to the cafeteria and on the practice field — to aid in contact tracing should anyone test positive for COVID-19.

It’s been an all-consuming process for operations employees like Harlan, complicated by the fact that state and local regulations prevented most employees from being in the facility until six weeks ago, rapidly evolving public health recommendations and surges in positive COVID-19 cases across the country.

“It’s been hundreds, thousands — I can’t even begin to tell you how many contingency plans I’ve thought of. It’s been a lot of coming up with plans, scrapping them, reworking them,” Harlan said. “The amount of hours of late-night phone calls and early-morning emails, all of it, it’s constant. But at the end of the day, if it allows for us to go do this thing safely and keep not just our players and coaches and staff safe but our families as well, it’s more than worth it.”

At the Rams’ Thousand Oaks facility, players will notice several 40-foot trailers in their parking lot — home to the BioReference Laboratories testing site and 29 members of the NFL Films’ crew on-site to shoot “Hard Knocks” — and one massive tent that is 70 yards long and 44 yards wide.

That tent, with open sides and a peaked roof, will be the team’s new meeting space when head coach Sean McVay is ready to hold full-squad meetings or when his assistants want to gather offensive and defensive players or smaller position groups.

Harlan’s staff is having carpet installed over the asphalt and moving tables and chairs out of the facility’s indoor meeting rooms to create an open-air meeting space. The Rams’ plan is for team meetings to be held either outdoors or virtually. (The Rams did conserve enough parking space adjacent to the facility to account for all players; parking space for coaches and other staff members has been moved off-site, and they will take a short shuttle ride or walk.)

“That is a huge game changer for us because it creates a lot of square footage that is shaded but still outdoors, allowing for that airflow continuously but also allowing for our players to meet at some point together,” Harlan said.

But first, players will have to get inside, and before they arrive, they will be asked to take a screening quiz from their mobile devices before they leave their homes or hotels. If a player reports he is symptom-free, he’ll enter a different, smaller tent. He’ll step in front of a thermal facial scanner that will take his temperature and read it out loud. The scanner will record and store these body temperatures to create a baseline for each individual, to more precisely notice a dramatic increase.

If his temperature is normal, the player will then receive his SafeTag — a chip about the size of the face of an Apple Watch — which he’ll be required to wear at all times while inside the facility, on Rams property or engaged in any team activities. These SafeTags, produced by German technology company Kinexon, will provide visual and audio alerts when the wearer comes too close to anyone else.

(For employees in Tier 3 — those people who aren’t allowed to have any contact with players or coaches or other people in Tiers 1 and 2 — it will flash yellow at 12-feet proximity and red at 10 feet, and it will give an audible alert if the 6-foot bubble is breached.)

Harlan slips the tag into a black sleeve that she pulls onto her forearm. Players will be able to wear their SafeTags similarly, like a bracelet or watch or on a lanyard around their necks. SafeTags will also be inserted into jerseys so that the teams and league can easily discover who was close to whom, and for how long, during on-field action.

Dr. Allen Sills, the NFL’s medical director, said the hope is these proximity trackers will make the contact tracing process far more rapid and efficient. Not only will the league and teams quickly be able to determine whom a player might have been exposed to, but they’ll also be able to know the length of the exposure — a critical component to deciding who else might need to be quarantined and for how long.

“This is an area where our knowledge is continuing to evolve and change, but clearly the CDC and other public health agencies have provided guidance here that, right now, it appears that time and proximity are really important determinants of risk of transmission when someone is infected,” Sills said in a phone interview on Friday.

The league has initially ordered 10,000 of these SafeTags, and league officials said this will be one of the largest-scale uses of this technology. The NBA is using similar technology within its bubble environment in Orlando, Fla., but on a much smaller scale.

“I learned very quickly that we’re going to have to figure this out on our own and have our own unique use case,” said Michelle McKenna, the NFL’s chief information officer. “And our protocols that we’re working on with Dr. Sills and his team are so unique that even if someone else had done it, I’m not sure it would have been done at this scale, tying it to on-site testing, and all of that together.”

The NFLPA signed off on the use of these trackers. It is important to note that these SafeTags measure proximity only to other individuals who are also wearing them; they do not record specific geo-locator or any biometric data. The data will be collected and stored by a third-party provider, IQVIA, the same company that will collect the results of COVID-19 tests.

The league did consider whether players and other team employees could wear these sorts of devices outside of the facility, but it raised too many privacy and logistical concerns.

In addition to the contact tracing, Sills said teams and the league plan to use the SafeTags and the entire SafeZone system proactively, even in the absence of an outbreak, to tell if social distancing measures are working and if there are places in team buildings where players or other employees are gathering at unsafe rates and distances.

“It’s all about risk mitigation. But I think that that type of positive feedback information can be really useful for clubs as they look for ongoing ways to diminish risk,” Sills said.

The Rams’ practice facility is composed of two buildings, both modular spaces installed at Cal Lutheran when the Rams relocated from St. Louis in 2016. Eventually, the team will build a permanent training center, but for now, players, coaches and football operations employees split their time between those two buildings, which are separated by a large covered patio.

Players will spend most of their time in and around Building 2, which is home to the locker room, weight room, training room and cafeteria. Each of those spaces will look markedly different from what players remember.

The locker room was revamped after last season, with the installation of new, swankier lockers, more open space and fresh new colors. But many of those new lockers will sit empty, and more than 30 players will instead use auxiliary locker space in a large room that used to be the media room and team communications office. Now that space is filled with individual locker stalls, spaced 6 feet apart. There are no tables for congregating for games of cards or communal dining.

Both locker rooms have coolers, which can be opened with a pedal on the bottom of the door, filled with individual bottles of water and Gatorade. Bathroom stalls also have these foot-level openers, to reduce germ transmission on hands. The Rams have installed hand sanitizer dispensers near all high-touch surfaces, such as the doors leading to the locker room and training room.

Players will also notice the signage. It’s everywhere, in blue and gold letters and symbols. There are arrows on the floors to designate one-way hallways. Doors are designated as entrances or exits only. Every room contains a reminder to MESH — the Rams’ acronym for “Mask, Education, Social Distance and Hygiene.”

Face coverings are mandatory — not just here at the Rams facility but at all 31 training sites — and education is a critical part of creating a healthy ecosystem, said Reggie Scott, the Rams’ vice president of sports medicine and performance.

Scott runs the Rams’ athletic training office and is the team’s designated Infection Control Officer. He’s also the newly elected president of the Pro Football Athletic Trainers Society. In that role, he’s been part of nearly every NFL and NFLPA task force virtual meeting since March and the early stages of the pandemic.

“I can’t wait to go back to just taping ankles again,” Scott said Friday, laughing.

His job now entails making sure that everyone in the building is following the league’s COVID-19 prevention protocols, no matter how individuals might feel about the virus and their risk. Masks are mandatory; there will be no exemptions or debates about the politics of face coverings. If they want to play football, these protocols are not optional — and they should be followed once players and staff leave the building and go home.

“Education is going to be a big component of this. We’re doing it for ourselves and our families, but we’re also doing the right thing for other people. We’ve got to respect the person next to us,” Scott said. “That’s not just a Rams thing. That’s a United States thing; that’s a world thing. We’re going to educate our staff and players that this is bigger than ourselves.”

In Scott’s space, the training room, tables have been spread far apart, and the sheets on each training table will be replaced after each use. The laundry load will increase exponentially across the league, as all items are now single-use.

Scott and his staff will have to break that 6-foot barrier at times — they have to be hands-on with injured or rehabbing athletes. Team doctors and trainers have access to a supply of medical-grade personal protective equipment, such as N95 masks and gowns, if they need it.

The team’s weight room, which is connected to the training room, is one of a few spaces that has been largely unchanged because of protocols that prohibit large groups from working out at the same time. The weight room also has garage doors that open to an outdoor gym space that the team plans to use as much as possible.

Weight and conditioning times will be carefully scheduled, just like mealtime.

Players will order their food via a mobile app and will have a designated time to pick up their individually packaged meals. The round, banquet-style tables on the patio have been removed, replaced by long, rectangular tables, making social distancing easier, and players will be encouraged to eat at their locker stalls.

This will be as big of a change as anything for players who are used to bonding with one another during training camp. After months of virtual meetings in the offseason, players will reconvene only to be told they can’t spend much actual time together.

But Rams officials are trying to remind one another, and will remind the players when they arrive next week, that there’s a purpose here: to keep them and their families safe and find a way to make it through a full season.

Now that the Rams facility is set up for training camp, Harlan is shifting some of her focus to the complications of the regular season, things she never thought she’d have to consider when she was promoted to her job of running football operations in February.

She recently toured the team’s charter plane — a tape measure in hand, to figure out seating arrangements for when the Rams take their first road trip, in Week 2, to Philadelphia — and is also working to figure out hotel arrangements and what road-trip meeting spaces will look like in 2020.

And she’s ready for everything she’s planning to completely change. After all, it was only in the past few weeks that the team received clearance from Ventura County to hold training camp at its facility in Thousand Oaks. The organization is also working with officials in Los Angeles County, home to the team’s new $5 billion stadium.

“We are prepared to take this in stride and make the changes necessary to continue, whether that’s with new technology or new recommendations from the CDC. We’ll adapt and adjust,” Harlan said.

Jourdan Rodrigue@JourdanRodrigue
The Rams are continuing with testing. So far, per transaction wire, no players have formally opted out and none have recorded positive tests (Monday was the first day for testing, FWIW).

What we learned from coach Sean McVay as Rams players return to facility

Jourdan Rodrigue

https://theathletic.com/1969375/2020/08/02/what-we-learned-from-coach-sean-mcvay-as-rams-players-return-to-facility/

The Rams will have their first in-person team meeting since the end of the 2019 season on Monday, inside a massive open-sided tent at their facility in Thousand Oaks, Calif.

That tent is just one of the many ways the team is hoping to prevent the spread of COVID-19 as the NFL pushes ahead with training camp. Mask-wearing, regular hand-washing and sanitizing, and social distancing will be enforced. Head athletic trainer Reggie Scott and director of football operations Sophie Harlan have led building and equipment sanitation efforts, as well as extensive educational procedures to make sure all players are on the same page.

Rams testing continued last week. Three consecutive negative tests were required for players to begin onboarding and picking up their equipment. So far, the Rams have placed two players on the COVID/reserve list (which means they either recorded a positive test or were showing symptoms or in contact with someone who was): rookie third-round pick Terrell Lewis and rookie UDFA defensive tackle Michael Hoecht. Hoecht was cleared from the designation on Sunday morning.

The Rams also had one player, offensive lineman Chandler Brewer, opt out of the season. Brewer is in a “high risk” category due to his history with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. Head coach Sean McVay addressed media on Sunday morning via Zoom teleconference, and said that conversations about opting out remain supportive and open.

“I think it has been really important that we’ve had that clear, open and honest dialogue with those guys,” said McVay. “We’re asking the questions. It’s something that I’ve never experienced before as a coach, because we care about these guys. If there are legitimate safety and health concerns, we’re going to do nothing but support these guys.”

Here’s what else we learned from McVay, as he prepared to see his players as a group and in person for the first time in months.

Virus aside, a healthy start to camp

McVay’s prediction in May that his team would report healthy to camp came true: He confirmed Sunday that no players will start the year on the physically unable to perform list, which means players passed their physicals and can begin the onboarding process.

Notable offseason injury recoveries included safety John Johnson, right tackle Rob Havenstein, guard/tackle Joe Noteboom and center Brian Allen.

The acclimation period will be crucial for injury prevention

McVay noted in the spring that a big concern — and focus — for his staff would be soft-tissue injury prevention, without a true spring offseason workout program. Across the NFL, players will undergo a “ramp-up” period of approximately two weeks before any contact or live drilling is allowed. Teams can hold walkthroughs, etc., but will spend a lot of time with install meetings and in the weight room to get back into football shape.

“With the way we have to operate, that kind of takes care of itself,” McVay said. “We’ve got this eight-day acclimation period (that will run) from Aug. 3-7, those first five days. We’ll give them the 8th off, and then we’ll finish up the 9th, 10th and 11th. We’ll actually give our guys off on the 12th as well.

“You’re talking about the 13th as really the first opportunity — and really, that’s where that ramp-up phase starts — and we’ll be limited and in a ‘phase two’ type of setting where they still can’t go against one another. … We’ll do a great job with Reggie and his group, and Justin Lovett and the strength staff, of making sure we get the right physical assessment so we’re not pushing guys too early.”

Realistically, “football shape” will take some time — especially for offensive linemen — but McVay believes that the Rams actually have built an “edge” into their preparation and planning throughout the off period.

The Rams can begin holding walkthroughs on the Aug. 13 and will begin actual live drilling with some form of contact on Aug. 17, which McVay called the first “real” day of practice.

The Rams will hold a few scrimmages at SoFi Stadium before the season

While the current belief is that no fans will be allowed to attend games at the new SoFi Stadium this fall, the Rams’ front office remains hopeful that at least some people will be able to see the new digs by mid-September, when the NFL season begins. In any case, though, the Rams will be missing a lot of eyeballs on the new stadium that they had hoped to host throughout the year, which means they will have to get creative in showcasing it.

McVay mentioned that the Rams will host a couple of scrimmages at SoFi during training camp, and that’s important for a few reasons: First, HBO’s “Hard Knocks” will be there to film the whole thing (and hopefully media is allowed, too!) and therefore more of the facility can be presented to a larger audience.

Second, with little opportunity for any sort of a “test run” ahead of the regular season, players and staff will want to get as acclimated as possible to things like locker-room setup, getting on and off the field, sideline setup and even adjusting to playing under a roof and massive video-board, and on turf.

No big contract updates – yet

Three starters — receiver Cooper Kupp, cornerback Jalen Ramsey and Johnson — are up for extensions and could hit free agency next spring. Especially in the case of Kupp and Ramsey, such contracts are expected to be large, with Ramsey’s even potentially re-setting the cornerback market.

“Obviously those guys are instrumental parts of what we want to do,” McVay said. “I’m just making sure I know what the heck I’m doing next, after this right now, negotiating through the days. August 3 can’t come soon enough, especially through these physicals where we can at least get some sense of normalcy through the schedule. But those guys are important — but there are no updates on those fronts.”

Each player did report to camp — but McVay mentioned there was no real worry of anyone holding out. Ramsey even said in the spring that he’d show up to training camp without a long-term extension.

Contextually speaking, the three players may have to wait a little longer than previously expected, with so much unknown about the season. The 2021 and 2022 salary-cap ceilings will also almost certainly be affected by whatever deficit the league absorbs this season, and the already-tight Rams will have some tough decisions to make.