PA Ram wrote:

I see Goff in his Rams uniform and he looks very thin to me.

Maybe a year or two in the league will change that.

The key is that he was thinner at Cal. He played in college at 205. He’s now around 220. If you compare the Cal pictures and the Rams pictures you can see the difference between 205 and 220. He will probably be at 230 by 2017.

See the whole point is that at Cal, an enzyme deficiency kept him from adding weight and muscle. They have since found out about that and have fixed it.

College pictures of Goff do not show him at his current weight and muscle build.

Since college, because of a nutrition program (he had an enzyme deficiency, as detailed in this thread) and weight training, he is now 15 pounds heavier than in college (and gaining), is lifting more weight, and lost 3% body fat on top of it.

They say by 2016 he ought to be playing at 230.

Here is Goff at Cal:

Here is Goff in Rams minicamp (and this is after only a couple of months)…he played at 205 in college and is already now at 220:

With the NFL back in Los Angeles, Super Bowl can’t be far behind—perhaps as soon as 2020

By Sam Farmer

http://www.latimes.com/sports/nfl/la-sp-nfl-meetings-super-bowls-20160522-column.html

It was early 1993, and Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones was in football heaven.

He walked out of a tunnel at the Rose Bowl — site of the seventh and most recent Super Bowl in the Los Angeles area — and into the Southern California sunshine.

“It was one of the greatest memories of my life and certainly of my career,” Jones recalled by phone this week, reminiscing about Super Bowl XXVII, a 52-17 victory by the Cowboys over Buffalo.

“I rode in with the team, and had one of the guys get me a football. There might have been three or four thousand people already there. I walked down to the end zone and it just felt so great. I took that ball and I kind of hopped and skipped in the end zone and just said, ‘Touchdown!’

“There’s a little bit of that feeling,” Jones said, “when I think about having the Super Bowl back in Los Angeles.”

That hasn’t officially happened yet, of course, but it’s likely to come to fruition Tuesday when the league takes the unusual step of naming three Super Bowl host cities in a single day.

“I’d be surprised if we came out of there without L.A. getting one of the three,” Indianapolis Colts owner Jim Irsay said.

The next two Super Bowl sites are set, with Houston playing host to the game capping this season, followed by Minneapolis hosting in its soon-to-open venue. At the NFL’s one-day May meetings in Charlotte, N.C., on Tuesday, owners will decide where their marquee game will be played after the 2018, 2019 and 2020 seasons.

The five cities/regions competing for those games are Los Angeles, Atlanta, South Florida, Tampa and New Orleans.

No one knows for sure until the 32 secret ballots are cast, but a likely outcome is Atlanta getting the first available slot for the Falcons’ new stadium (2018 season, Super Bowl in early 2019), South Florida getting the next one for the Dolphins’ renovated stadium, and L.A. claiming the third opening for the Rams’ Inglewood stadium. That would mean an L.A. Super Bowl in early 2021, giving the Rams two full seasons in their glistening, $2.6-billion home. Tampa and New Orleans are closer to longshots in this process, in part because those cities don’t have new or significantly renovated stadiums.

With the Chargers backing a ballot initiative for a proposed stadium in downtown San Diego, there is also a possibility that the NFL would take the unusual step of guaranteeing a Super Bowl in that city if a new stadium were to be built. Such a guarantee would not name a specific year for a San Diego Super Bowl but could offer a time window for one.

L.A. is also bidding for the game that will be played in early 2020 — it would need a special waiver to get around the NFL’s rule that a new stadium must be open for two seasons before it hosts a Super Bowl — but from the perspective of the franchise building the stadium and surrounding mixed-use development, the 2021 game would be preferable.

“We believe hosting the 2021 Super Bowl, when the stadium has been open longer and the Inglewood campus is more developed, will provide a better experience for the fans and the NFL,” said Kevin Demoff, Rams chief operating officer.

“In this process, though, where all the competing cities have not only put together strong bids but also have a history of hosting multiple Super Bowls, there is always a benefit to having more chances to host.”

The Super Bowl proposals were due April 15, and four of the bidding cities/regions had since last summer to work on them. Because the Rams didn’t get the green light to move until mid-January, however, the NFL didn’t make a request for an L.A. proposal until early March. Therefore, the L.A. bid committee had less than six weeks to put together its pitch.

That bid committee is composed of chairman Casey Wasserman, also spearheading the effort to bring the 2024 Olympic Games to Southern California; Kathy Schloessman and Bob Graziano of the Los Angeles Sports & Entertainment Commission, and Michelle Kerrick of Deloitte. That group, along with the Los Angeles Tourism and Convention Board, worked closely with the cities of L.A. and Inglewood to assemble the bid.

“An NFL team coming back to L.A. was always about more than eight regular-season home games,” Wasserman said. “It was always about the promise of what L.A. and a world-class facility here could deliver in terms of the breadth and variety of events. Obviously at the top of that list is the opportunity to compete for, and hopefully host, a Super Bowl. Hopefully we’ll be able to attract a Super Bowl and it’s the first of many.”

Hosting a Super Bowl is an expensive endeavor, and a city’s bid committee is required to privately raise about $35 million through sponsorships and donations. (Those “partnership packages” entail sponsoring the host committee, not the Super Bowl game, which the NFL owns.) That money pays for a wide range of expenses, including the hotels and practice sites for both participating teams, as well as Super Bowl transportation, security, promotion, accreditation centers and media events.

To make a qualifying bid, a city must ensure at least 22,000 hotel rooms will be available during the peak nights of Super Bowl week. The L.A. bid committee estimates that the week leading up to and including the game would generate at least 100,000 hotel room nights (60,000 guaranteed), which would make the Super Bowl the largest event Los Angeles has hosted since the 1984 Olympics.

Inglewood would be the centerpiece locale of an L.A. Super Bowl, but L.A. Live would be a significant focal point as well.

“We’re spreading the wealth around,” Schloessman said. “We’re not putting all of the activities in one area. We tried to pick venues for these different events that will highlight Los Angeles as the entertainment capital of the world, and will also take advantage of our good weather.”

Jed York, owner of the San Francisco 49ers, said he expects the Inglewood stadium to be “second to none” and an ideal site for the league’s biggest game.

“I think there’s something to be said for city pride, regional pride,” said York, whose team was the host club for Super Bowl 50. “I think it would be really cool to announce that for Los Angeles, whenever they get to host one.”

Rams GM explains what Michael Vick’s rise and fall taught the NFL

Andrew Lynch

http://www.foxsports.com/nfl/story/atlanta-falcons-michael-vick-los-angeles-rams-les-snead-stephen-curry-lebron-james-052016

Before his arrival, the NFL had never really seen anyone like Michael Vick — for better and for worse. And it’s unlikely we’ll ever see another Vick, given everything that transpired during his career.

Current Los Angeles GM Les Snead knows all about Vick’s impact on Atlanta and the league at large. Snead was the director of player personnel for the Falcons during Vick’s time with the Falcons, and he joined FOX Sports’ Peter Schrager this week for a wide-ranging conversation that touched on Vick’s on-field prowess; his off-field transgressions; Rams rookie QB Jared Goff; the Sam Bradford trade from last year; and more.

Of course, Vick’s career exploded in controversy when he was sentenced to nearly two years in prison for his involvement in a dog-fighting ring. Aside from the reprehensible nature of the crime, Snead explained how Vick’s transgressions taught the NFL a much-needed lesson:

“During those situations, you always try to learn something from it and apply it in the future. And I think the best thing that probably happened from all that is you quickly realize that a lot of these young kids are under extreme pressure. And I think with Michael’s sake, he would want to escape and get back to his old friends, just to get away from some of the stresses of being the face of the franchise — the face of the city.

“I think what probably all teams and especially us and myself have carried on is that, number one, you realize these are not just young — you’re not just developing football players. You’re developing young men to men. Not just for their time that they’re with you and your franchise. Because you can play a long time, right? And it’s 10 years, and all of a sudden, a 21-year-old is now 31. … So I think those moments, what you learn from it, “Hey, let’s try to do everything we can to continue playing the college role,” per se. It’s not just a job, it’s not just, “You’re a professional.” Even though you are, and the standards and all of that increase, as they should be, the bar is higher.

“You put in programs or whatever, to develop, if you want to call it, boys to men, and not just football players. That’s what I’ve tried to do and I think a lot of NFL teams from that moment have tried to do.”

Looking back, Snead says that the spectacle surrounding Vick was comparable to what we see in today’s NBA — which likely played into the “pressure” Snead believes Vick faced in Atlanta:

“In Atlanta, during our Super Bowl year, I don’t think we sold out a game, even though we went 14-2. … so that just kind of lets you know where the Falcons were on the meter in Atlanta. But I think what Vick did was made you relevant immediately. He was just one of those players at the time, because he was one of the first running QBs that was electric and can pass the ball. Just one of those — people wanted to come see him play.

“So you had people coming to see him play like you almost would, “Let’s go watch LeBron [James] tonight,” or, “Let’s go watch Steph Curry tonight.” A little bit like the NBA, I think that’s what Vick brought to Atlanta. You had to be there and live it to really get the full, full scope or picture of what Vick meant to that city.”

It’s a fascinating comparison, since football is the ultimate team game, consisting of 11 guys on either side of the ball working in unison. A basketball team, on the other hand, only has five players on the court at any one time, so the stars stand out and drive the NBA. That’s not really the case in the NFL, where we root for our favorite teams first and our favorite players second.

Michael Vick is supporting legislation that will help keep pets safe.

When Vick was drafted by the Falcons in 2001, he immediately made Atlanta relevant as a football city and helped raise the city’s reputation as an entertainment and cultural epicenter. Yes, the Falcons had gone to the Super Bowl in 1998; even that on-field success couldn’t touch the excitement in the early ’00s, however.

As for the present day, Snead revealed just how cool and confident Rams No. 1 pick Jared Goff is with a story from Goff’s pro day before the draft. Check out the podcast for that and more discussion about some of the Rams’ recent personnel moves.

SOUTHERN MISS’ MICHAEL THOMAS CAN DEVELOP INTO A TOP NFL WR

https://www.profootballfocus.com/draft-southern-miss-michael-thomas-can-develop-into-a-top-nfl-wr/

This is a strange wide receiver class. The headline grabbers in Baylor’s Corey Coleman, TCU’s Josh Doctson and Ole Miss’ Laquon Treadwell all have their flaws, but if you dig a little deeper into the class, there are good No. 2-type receivers who are likely to be available on Day 2 of the draft and beyond. That’s not to say some of these sleepers can’t develop into top receivers in the NFL, however, which brings us to Southern Miss’ Michael Thomas.

We’ve heard a lot about Ohio State’s Michael Thomas as a potential late first-round draft pick, but the buzz for the Southern Miss playmaker of the same name is much less vocal, though it does exist. Owning the 11th-highest receiving grade of all receivers in this draft class, there’s a lot to like about him.

Let’s be clear though, Thomas isn’t the perfect draft prospect, and as frighteningly good as some of his traits are, there are things that would make me nervous about drafting him high in the second round if I were an NFL general manager. He dropped seven passes from 79 catchable targets this year, giving him a drop rate of 8.97 that ranked 19th-worst of the 45 receivers in this class to see at least 58 catchable passes thrown their way. Drops can be misleading — let’s not forget that Amari Cooper came out of Alabama with a safe set of hands last year and went on to lead the NFL in drops in 2015 — but in addition to a high frequency, Thomas had some really poor drops as well.

When it comes to production his 1,392 yards are impressive, but a lot of his yardage came on moments where he flashed, rather than times where he took games over. He racked up over 100 yards as a receiver on eight occasions in 2015, and in all eight of those games at least 25 percent of his yardage came on one reception. That’s not necessarily a bad thing — and it’s good that he creates big plays — but teams would prefer to see him as a bigger threat consistently, rather than once or twice per game.

While there are reservations about Thomas, it’s time to pivot to his ceiling, which is one of the highest of any receiver in this draft class. There are things he can do that hint to the possibility that he can develop into the best receiver to enter the NFL this year. He’s raw and needs work to get there, but what he does well, he does very well.

Thomas ranks near the top of multiple signature stat categories, highlighting his overall skill set amongst the other receivers in this class. WR rating tracks the NFL QB rating on passes where each receiver was targeted. With 71 catches for 1,392 yards and 14 touchdowns from 112 targets, ranking sixth in the class. Obviously the play of the quarterback comes into the equation here too, but it does give a solid basic look at his production.

Thomas was also a solid deep threat, with his 509 yards on passes traveling 20 yards or more in the air ranking seventh amongst draft eligible receivers. He was actually only targeted 30 times on deep passes, with 10 receivers seeing more looks downfield, but was one of the best in the nation when the ball was thrown his way.

Yards per route run tracks the number of yards each receiver produced with regards to the number of routes they ran. Thomas ran 467 routes in his final year at Southern Miss and racked up 2.98 yards per route run — the fifth-highest mark in this class. On a per-route basis, Thomas was more productive than both Notre Dame’s Will Fuller and Ole Miss’ Laquon Treadwell, both who will potentially be drafted in the first round of the NFL draft.

Thomas can make plenty happen after the catch too, forcing nine missed tackles from 71 receptions and averaging 7.1 yards after the catch per reception. Yards after the catch are often impacted by the type of coverage a receiver faces, along with defensive backs taking bad angles. While that is true, you can see from this play against Washington in Southern Miss’ bowl game that Thomas also displays a good burst to create big plays after the catch.

Thomas has the ability to go up and bring the ball down, with numerous circus catches throughout 2015. Not all receivers can make these type of catches so routinely, with only a few receivers in the NFL being able to do so. Being able to increase his catch radius gives an added layer to what Thomas is able to do, as well as adding some wow factor to his film.

While Thomas is raw and not without his flaws, it’s madness to expect a receiver to come into the NFL polished given how open college offenses are these days. When a player like Amari Cooper comes into NFL looking like a complete prospect and has to adjust, that much should be obvious. But if a team can get past the rawness of Thomas, there’s a very good receiver who could prove to be the jewel of this draft class if he develops correctly.

The arrival of the NFL significantly altered the list of the 50 Most Powerful in Southern California Sports

My first thought reading all this was…SFW.

My last thought, though, was…SFW.

.

InvaderRam wrote:

it will always be a passing league, but i do like the idea of countering all that speed on defense with some power. if it actually works. i guess we’ll find out.

Some things about this.

First, yes you have to pass well in the league when you pass…but you don’t always have to pass.

If you look at the 12 teams with the highest passing percentage last year, 1 was a playoff team (New England).

If you look at the 12 teams with the highest RUSHING percentage, 7 were playoff teams in 2015 (Carolina, Minn, Seattle, KC, Cinn, Arz, Houston).

Then look at the Rams, because there’s another aspect to this. Last year was the first with Fisher where they crossed over into being “run heavy.” I count pass heavy as throwing 60% of the time or more, I count balanced as anywhere from 56+% to 59+%, and I count run heavy as running 44% of the time or more. In 2012 the Rams passed 59% of the time, and in 2015 they ran 46.6% of the time.

But they STILL set up long passes and took shots.

Even with Foles and Keenum (combined numbers) they threw 31+ yarders 5.4% of the time (which is top third in the league though not top 6th) and hit on 28% of them (which is edging toward good though not there…30% or more is good).

Anything at 5% or more on long passes is the top 1/3rd of the league. In fact that was better than a lot of teams–last year, for example, Flacco was 4.3%, Wilson was 4.1%, Luck was 4%, Rodgers was 4%, Brees was 3.8%, Rivers was 3.6%, Brady was 3.4%, Tannenhill was 2.6%, Stafford was 2%, Ryan was 1.9%, and Eli was 1.9%

That’s the worst rated passing game in the league, with a melted down starter and problems to fix at WR. And the long shot was STILL part of their game.

So I imagine how good it will be when the qb is starting-caliber and they have more at TE and WR

wv wrote:

What is this “guess what” thing,
Snead has fallen into.

w
v

It’s the evolved, more adult version of what players always say–“you know.”

He used to be a college player, but, the brain changes as you grow older. You know?

Rams sign another first-round defensive lineman

The Los Angeles Rams have signed another former first-round defensive linemen, Dominique Easley from the New England Patriots. CBS Sports NFL Insider Jason La Canfora joins Nick Kostos to talk about the expectations for the Rams and Pats this season.

vid link: http://www.cbssports.com/video/player/nfl/688194115838/0/rams-sign-another-first-round-defensive-lineman

Jordan Matthews, Eagles WRs stick up for Sam Bradford

http://www.theredzone.org/BlogDescription/tabid/61/EntryId/56554/Jordan-Matthews–Eagles-WRs-stick-up-for-Sam-Bradford/Default.aspx

Eagles quarterback Sam Bradford has taken criticism from all angles after requesting a trade when the team moved up to draft Carson Wentz.

When no deal was made Bradford returned to the NovaCare Complex where he was welcomed back by a group of teammates that not only understood his predicament but also defended his actions, Matt Lombardo of NJ Advance Media reports.

“My thing is,” Eagles wide receiver Jordan Matthews said following Tuesday’s practice at the NovaCare Complex. “Yeah, all that stuff was happening, but when he came back he got right back into it and got right back to work. That’s what we need to do and that’s what he has to focus on.

“All the other stuff gets nullified if we go out there and win. Once the pads go on, Sam’s not going to be sitting back thinking ‘what if.’ No, he’s going to be out there ready to go win a freakin’ football game. Let’s be completely honest. He’s not the first or only player in the NFL looking for a situation where he can make more money or better their situation. He’s just a quarterback, so I know it’s looked at a little differently.

“But, if he’s in here … I know Sam. Sam’s going to want to go out there and win. He doesn’t have social media, but he knows what people say. He wants to prove them wrong. We want him out there.”

Matthews along with teammate Zach Ertz flew to Bradford’s home in Oklahoma to work out with the quarterback earlier this offseason. Even with Wentz now in the fold, the wide receiver says that what happens from here forward is all that matters for Bradford, not the business drama over the past several weeks.

“We can’t worry about next season,” Matthews said. “I don’t even want to talk about that. We have to worry about right now … It’s all that matters. It’s all we’re focused on. Whatever happens in the future, we’ll roll with it. But right now, Sam’s here. He’s the starting quarterback. We have to be ready to compete for him and we want him out there.”

“I think people saying Sam doesn’t want to compete are the farthest thing from the truth,” Chris Givens said. “He’s a competitor. He’s a guy that wants to win. He’s a guy that comes to work every day looking for ways to get better. He’s a guy that people look to to lead.”