Deadpool wrote:

And I mentioned this last year. If Goff is struggling going from a pure shotgun offense to a under the center offense. Its a timing and mental thing for him right now. The timing comes from having to take the snap, turn your back on the defense, set your feet, find your wrs and the dbs and make a throw. Not as simple as it seems. And if your lower half isn’t in sync with your upper half, accuracy can be an issue. The mental part comes from having to think his way thru this process.

Holding the ball too long is a product of not recognizing what he is seeing and not processing the info fast enough. He has to get faster at processing and he is smart enough to do it. If he plays tonight watch his footwork and if he gets the ball out on time.

He made some strides last year, but I really don’t think Fisher’s offense did him any favors. But I think he is going to have to make some huge strides this year or some tough decisions will be have to be made.

The way Snead and McVay are constructing this offense, the QB could be the weakest link. And that won’t fly for long. Esp. with a (seemingly) loaded QB draft class.

weak LT – fixed with Whitworth
weak OC – fixed with Sullivan (i remain unconvinced of his back being healthy)
weak WR group – fixed with Woods, Kupp and Watkins
weak TE group – added Everett

InvaderRam wrote:

i read somewhere that the second surgery is actually somewhat common.

From the article (in the 2nd post):

According to Dr. David Chao, a football injury specialist, the type of injury Watkins sustained results in a second surgery about 20% of the time and “does not indicate mismanagement” by the team. Dez Bryant and Julio Jones both needed second surgeries, as well, when they suffered similar injuries.

Yeah you are right, and the article mentions that (though doesn’t stress it). I am not worried about the foot.

Injury concerns are real with Watkins, but then they were real with Bradford too back when, and look at him now.

That’s why you can get a top receiver for a 2nd round pick.

….

Agamemnon wrote:

This sounds like McVay’s top 5.

Sammy Watkins
Robert Woods
Tavon Austin

(ie. the 3 vets)

Cooper Kupp
Pharoh Cooper

top 5? Could be.

wv wrote:

Plus Arya was throwing off her back foot.

.

InvaderRam wrote:

zn wrote:

Big plays. Touchdowns.

well. the big plays will be for watkins. for gurley. tds will be for watkins. gurley. higbee. everett.

there’s only so many touches.

when they got watkins to open things up underneath. i believe it’s for gurley. woods. kupp. higbee. everett.

again. my only hesitation to fully invest in this prediction is that kupp, higbee, and everett are largely unproven. austin has at least done it. and watkins could get injured.

No, think about it, it’s using resources. Tavon used 2015 style in an offense dominated by Watkins means more space for Tavon, which means more big plays.

I would be disappointed in McVay if he were so dogmatic he couldn’t see that.

Let’s say they didn’t have Barron and they added an ILB who was also a ferocious blitzer. Would you say not to blitz him because Quinn and Barwin have that covered?

Nah you use resources to best advantage.

You don’t say “we don’t need this Hakim guy, Bruce and Holt have the receiving game covered.”

..

InvaderRam wrote:

at best he’s the fourth receiver. at best. and mcvay likes tight ends. which puts him further down the pecking order. he’ll be around for at least this season. he can still do damage as a returner. and maybe can run the ball some. rams are being supportive of him, but that trade said pretty much everything.

I disagree. Not with the idea that he’ll be gone after the year. But with the idea that he becomes an afterthought this year. We all know if you use Tavon right, he’s a bigplay threat to defenses. Well with Watkins aboard now, if anything, that’s even more true. I think McVay would be crazy not to use him (2015 style) and take advantage of that.

With Sammy Watkins, Rams finally have a true No. 1 receiver –ESPN

Alden Gonzalez

http://www.espn.com/blog/los-angeles-rams/post/_/id/34699/with-sammy-watkins-rams-finally-have-a-true-no-1-receiver

LOS ANGELES — The 2014 draft was coming up, and the Rams — at that point still playing in St. Louis — badly needed help at wide receiver. Timing was on their side. The Rams held the No. 2 overall pick, and Sammy Watkins, Mike Evans and Odell Beckham Jr. were all among the best players available. But they chose Greg Robinson, a freakishly athletic left tackle who never quite figured it out. After three years, Robinson was gone, sent to the Detroit Lions for a sixth-round pick, and the Rams’ desire for a legitimate No. 1 receiver persisted, leaving them to wonder what could have been.

“In ’14, I often said, ‘Wow, this might be one of the best wide receiver drafts I’ve ever seen,” Rams general manager Les Snead recalled Friday, the day he finally acquired the bona fide outside threat he long coveted. “A handful of players were going to make major impacts in this league.”

The Rams finally have one of those players. On the morning before their first preseason game — at home against the Dallas Cowboys, with kickoff set for 6 p.m. PT on Saturday — they sent cornerback E.J. Gaines and a 2018 second-round pick to the Buffalo Bills and received Watkins in return.

It was the kind of trade the Rams desperately needed to make, the type that gives their offense a real chance to finally emerge as a legitimate unit.

Watkins, who went fourth overall in that 2014 draft, possesses the talent of a true No. 1 when healthy, boasting the NFL’s fourth-most yards per reception since he came into the league. He gives rookie head coach Sean McVay a deep threat similar to what DeSean Jackson was for him in Washington. It’ll create a lot of single coverage for Robert Woods, Cooper Kupp and Tavon Austin, three guys who make most of their impact in the intermediate passing game. It’ll open up more running lanes for Todd Gurley, who saw his rushing yards per carry drop from 4.8 in 2015 to 3.2 in 2016. And it’ll give second-year quarterback Jared Goff the tools he needs to succeed after a tumultuous rookie season.

“When you attack a team with your pass game, you’d like to use the width of the field and the length of the field, and that’s what speed can do,” said Snead, who also received a sixth-round pick in next year’s draft from the Bills. “It’s really just trying to open the field up.”

Losing Gaines hurts the Rams. He was very good as a rookie in 2014 and was performing well throughout training camp. But newcomer Kayvon Webster, who is very familiar with Wade Phillips’ system from his time in Denver, already had locked down the starting job opposite Trumaine Johnson. And younger players such as Nickell Robey-Coleman, Lamarcus Joyner, Troy Hill and Mike Jordan gave the Rams some adequate depth at the position.

What really hurt was giving up a second-round pick, but the chances of hitting on someone like Watkins in the second round seem far less favorable than the chances of Watkins staying healthy enough to be productive.

The key is making sure this isn’t only a one-year stint.

Watkins is eligible for free agency after this season. The Rams and Bills had been talking about a trade like this since the early part of May, when the Bills decided not to pick up the fifth-year option on Watkins’ rookie contract (the Rams did the same with Robinson). The Bills paid Watkins most of his 2017 money with a training-camp bonus. He’ll cost the Rams less than $700,000 against the salary cap this season, which is roughly $1 million less than what Gaines was on the hook for. But the Rams need to figure out a way to sign Watkins beyond this season.

Doing so would give the Rams enough skill-position players to build around, with Goff, Gurley, Woods and Kupp all 25 or younger and controllable for at least the next three seasons.

It’s something Snead is “definitely” interested in.

“He’s 24,” Snead said of Watkins. “So, you don’t just do it for the now, although we do think he’ll help the now. Because of the age, you’d want it to be for the future as well.”

The Rams’ offense has finished last in the NFL in yards each of the past two seasons and outside the top 20 in defense-adjusted value over average for the past decade. They know you can’t be both bad and boring in Los Angeles, as they were amid a miserable 4-12 season in 2016. So they went about changing that this calendar year. They hired McVay, one of the game’s brightest offensive minds, then splurged on a new left tackle in Andrew Whitworth, signed Woods, used three of their first four draft picks on pass-catchers and traded for Watkins.

Watkins, a teammate of Woods in Buffalo, caught 125 passes for 2,029 yards and 15 touchdowns in 29 starts in 2014-15, seasons when the Bills’ passing attack wasn’t necessarily setting the world on fire. Calf and ankle injuries held Watkins back early in 2015, but he had 900 receiving yards over the final nine games that season. Foot surgery kept him out of eight games in 2016, a year he finished with only 28 catches for 430 yards. But he’s healthy now, and players like him normally don’t become available so young.

“I think clearly you’re getting a special receiver,” said McVay, who doesn’t expect Watkins to arrive in L.A. until Saturday night. “Obviously his career, when he’s been available, he’s been outstanding in terms of being able to stretch the field vertically. But when the ball’s in his hands, good things happen.”

The Rams wanted Austin to emerge as a deep threat, but injuries — wrist surgery in the spring, a tender hamstring in the summer — kept him from working on a role that never seemed to fit him. They held out hope for second-year player Michael Thomas, but he’s suspended for the first four games after violating the NFL’s policy on performance-enhancing substances. They drafted Josh Reynolds, but he’ll take time to develop.

“A guy who can stretch the field — vertically, with speed and size — we knew that was on the agenda, whether it was this spring, this summer, next free agency, next draft,” Snead said. “It was an item that we felt really helped take our offense to the next level.”

Rams say Tavon Austin ‘definitely’ has a role even after Sammy Watkins trade

Alden Gonzalez

http://www.espn.com/blog/los-angeles-rams/post/_/id/34701/rams-say-tavon-austin-definitely-has-a-role-even-after-sammy-watkins-trade

LOS ANGELES — Los Angeles Rams general manager Les Snead says he believes Tavon Austin “definitely has a place” on his team, even though it feels as if the offense already has moved on without him.

On Friday morning, the Rams worked out a trade with the Buffalo Bills to make Sammy Watkins their new vertical threat on the outside, a role Austin previously was supposed to fill. Watkins and former Bills teammate Robert Woods will be the Rams’ primary receivers. Their slot receiver is Cooper Kupp, a rookie out of Eastern Washington who already looks to have solidified a role.

But the Rams stress that they’ll find a place for Austin.

Tavon Austin will cost the Rams $15 million against the salary cap this season, but just $5 million next year if they cut ties. Kevin Sullivan/Zuma Press/Icon Sportswire
“Tavon is a fast kid,” Snead said at a charity luncheon in downtown Los Angeles. “Jimmy Johnson probably said it best, long before I was in football: Speed is important. So having fast people on your team, you never have too many of those.”

Austin signed a four-year, $42 million extension weeks before the start of the 2016 season. But he gained only 668 yards from scrimmage that year, which actually represented his second-highest total in four seasons. The Rams then brought in a new head coach (Sean McVay), signed one primary receiver (Woods) and traded for another (Watkins). They also have selected seven wide receivers and tight ends in the past two drafts.

Austin, meanwhile, hasn’t been able to get on the field.

Wrist surgery in the spring made him a spectator while the Rams went about their offseason program. The 26-year-old was a full participant at the start of training camp, but a hamstring injury has kept him out of practice for the past 11 days. And it’s hard to envision his role once he returns.

Austin always has made an impact on punt returns, but he has hardly ever been an ideal fit on offense. His blazing speed screams vertical threat, but his height (5-foot-8) does not. Former Rams coach Jeff Fisher used Austin mostly as a gadget receiver the past four seasons. He made 75 of his 181 catches behind the line of scrimmage and carried the ball 125 times out of the backfield. His best season was 2015, when he gained 907 yards from scrimmage. But unless Austin supplants Kupp as the slot receiver — seemingly unlikely — it’s hard to see him getting the snaps to produce like that again.

He still can return punts, be on the field on four-receiver sets and perhaps even emerge as an option out of the backfield, but his role won’t match his pay.

Austin will cost the Rams close to $15 million toward the salary cap this season, after which the Rams can cut ties with him and absorb only $5 million toward the cap. That’s why this was going to be an important season for Austin, and why it now seems his days with the Rams are numbered. But Snead said he still sees Austin as an effective player when he gets the ball in space — and having more weapons theoretically will allow him to get the ball in space more often.

“It’s we, not me,” Snead said, echoing McVay’s rallying cry for this team. “It’s not just one player; it’s not just one star. It’s a group. I would love to have a Gonzaga basketball team, where everybody complements each other. Some days it’s one person, some days it’s another. The sum of the parts is better than the individual.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wzrwEpKYHWk

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=icjA5DfVwE4

Rams Eyeing Sammy Watkins Extension

Sam Robinson

https://www.profootballrumors.com/2017/08/rams-eyeing-sammy-watkins-extension

The Rams received the highest-ceiling talent in Friday’s seminal trades, and Les Snead wants Sammy Watkins to stick around in Los Angeles long-term.

The sixth-year GM said he “definitely” wants to sign Watkins to an extension, telling Jason La Canfora of CBS Sports, “he’s 24, so you don’t just do (this trade) for the now.”

Snead said the Rams were eyeing Watkins from the time the Bills decided not to pick up his fifth-year option in the spring. With Los Angeles now armed with multiple slot options in Tavon Austin and Cooper Kupp, and featuring newly acquired No. 2 wideout in Robert Woods, Sean McVay coveted a field-stretching presence for his first Rams offense, La Canfora writes.

“It probably started a little bit in the spring as you’re talking to people and trying to improve your roster,” Snead said. “We started flirting with Buffalo and Sammy probably around the time when they didn’t put the fifth-year option on him and we didn’t put the fifth-year option on Greg (Robinson).

“And over time I had a conversation with Buffalo and then when Brandon Beane got the GM job we rekindled that a little bit during the summer and it came to fruition this week.”

The Rams traded a second-round pick and E.J. Gaines for Watkins, so the former No. 4 overall pick bolting after one season would not net the team a particularly good return on its investment.

Snead acknowledged Watkins’ medical history was a key discussion point before pulling the trigger on the trade with the Bills. But the Rams eventually signed off on it. Watkins missed eight games with a severe foot injury last season.

“We definitely discussed it,” Snead said, “and I think it’s probably one of the reasons they didn’t put the fifth-year option on him. But when we dove into it we felt comfort taking the risk and making this move and going forward.”

Bonsignore: Sammy Watkins is Rams’ gift to Jared Goff

Vincent Bonsignore

link: http://www.dailynews.com/sports/20170811/bonsignore-sammy-watkins-is-rams-gift-to-jared-goff

The to-do list was daunting as the Rams trudged off the field at the Coliseum on New Year’s Day to end the 2016 season.

Sitting at the bottom of almost every offensive statistical category had resulted in a 4-12 record and left rookie quarterback Jared Goff battered and bruised.

Just over seven months later, that to-do list is complete, the final item getting crossed off Friday with the addition of dynamic wide receiver Sammy Watkins in a blockbuster trade as shocking and surprising as it’s expected to be impactful.

Goff now has a legitimate supporting cast. And with it, an offensive-minded coaching staff working from a contemporary playbook rather than the old, dusty one former coach Jeff Fisher was using.

But more on all that in a bit.

The Rams invested six draft picks into moving to the top of the 2016 draft to pick Goff, believing he was the franchise quarterback they’d been lacking since the Greatest Show on Turf days.

But upon bringing him into the fold, Fisher did the most inexplicable thing. He neglected to surround Goff with the necessary infrastructure to help nurture him in the transition from college to the NFL.

The offensive coaching imagination was nonexistent. The experience in developing a productive quarterback was lacking. The offensive line was the worst in the NFL, and the wide receivers group not much better.

It was a recipe for disaster for a young quarterback from whom so much was being expected.

And as the Rams sought refuge in their Coliseum locker room New Year’s Day, they knew they had to address the folly of Fisher’s approach in order to ensure Goff had a viable, available path to reach his ceiling.

In the months that followed, they went about crossing off items with admirable meticulousness.

New head coach Sean McVay, regarded as an up-and-coming offensive savant, was hired. And he brought with him an offensive staff heavy on imagination, game planning and quarterback development experience.

From free agency, All-Pro left tackle Andrew Whitworth was signed, his presence immediately lifting the position from one of weakness to that of strength. Robert Woods, the former USC standout and a polished three-year NFL wide receiver, was added to supply professionalism and reliability.

And from the draft, dependable, productive Eastern Washington wide receiver Cooper Kupp and athletic tight end Gerald Everett were added. They, along with Tyler Higbee, Tavon Austin and Pharoh Cooper, would provide much-needed weaponry for Goff.

One item remained untended to, though, the result of a low draft position and financial resources being diverted to other concerns in free agency.

The Rams have known for some time they needed a bona fide No. 1 wide receiver, someone capable of blowing the top off a defense, drawing extra attention defensively — and opening more room for others to work, including running back Todd Gurley — and tilting the field in the Rams’ direction.

Someone Goff could confidently let a ball fly to knowing he’s got the speed, athletic ability and will to go get it.

A difference maker, if you will.

Players with that kind of skill set are hard to come by, especially in their prime and on the open market.

So the Rams reluctantly tabled the item until next offseason.

Or so everyone assumed.

Then Friday morning arrived and with it the exact kind of jolt Goff, McVay and a young offense desperately needed.

In a stealth move the Rams spent all offseason monitoring, they reeled in Watkins from the Buffalo Bills for cornerback E.J. Gaines and a second-round pick in the 2018 draft.

Watkins is a 24-year-old former fourth overall pick who brings an element of speed, athletic ability and production the Rams haven’t had in years. In his three years in Buffalo — the last two in Rex Ryan’s run-oriented offense and with multiple quarterbacks — Watkins had 153 catches for 2,459 yards and 17 touchdowns and averaged 16.1 yards per catch.

And while foot injuries have limited him to 21 games the past two seasons, he’s reportedly back to 100 percent after undergoing surgery last January.

If that’s the case — and he looked healthy Thursday catching five passes in the Bills’ preseason opener against the Vikings — the Rams may finally have a legit No. 1 wide receiver.

And in the process, provided Goff with the final piece in a multi-layered support system that reaches all the way from the film room to the left side of his offensive line to a new shiny toy in Watkins 40 yards down the field.

Watkins is in the final year of his original rookie deal, but the Rams are well positioned from a salary cap perspective to re-sign him to a long-term contract after the season. And in talking to Rams personnel, they don’t view this as a one-year pickup but rather a chance to add a young, dynamic talent they hope is a big part of their future.

The biggest winner, of course, is Goff.

When the season opens in four weeks, he’ll line up behind a retooled offensive line anchored by one of the best left tackles in the league and a rebuilt receiving corps from which multiple options are available. Receivers who can stretch the field like no one the Rams have had in years.

The Rams’ to-do list was daunting on New Year’s Day. The team’s future seemed bleak and foreboding.

But as the regular season approaches, there is genuine reason to believe things have changed for the better.

Vincent Bonsignore‏ @DailyNewsVinny
Skeptical [Tavon’s]a part of things moving forward.

—

Rich Hammond@Rich_Hammond
McVay specifically mentioned Watkins’ ability as a deep threat and the importance of another target for Goff.

==

Ryan Kartje‏@Ryan_Kartje
For those wondering, if Tavon Austin was cut right now, his contract would cost the #Rams $19.97 million in dead cap. So … not happening.

If he’s cut after the 2018 season, Tavon Austin wouldn’t cost any money against the cap. Can’t imagine he’ll be with the team past next year

—

J.B. Long‏@JB_Long
Not a rebuilding move. Speaks to how good #Rams feel about rebuilt secondary & sense of urgency to win, taking WR with 1 contract yr left.

Confident, bold move by #Rams. Signals “we’re closer to contending than you think we are.”

#Rams revamped WR corps: Sammy, Woods, Kupp, Tavon, Cooper, Mike Thomas/Josh Reynolds.

That could work. Impressive revamp in one offseason.