wv wrote:

Course its not really Brady’s ‘quick release’ that makes
that offense so deadly. Its the whole damn thing: Brady,
The OC, the coaching, the scheme, the brains of the WRs…

Its some sort of weird Patriot-synergy.

Goff’s been a great college QB. Quick-minded, a magician in the pocket,
very accurate, nice touch on the ball.

I think we can all see why Martz would be intrigued by him.

He’s still a gigantic question mark.
Moreso than Gurley was, I’d say.
The rams have taken chances the last two
first round picks. Gurley with the knee,
and betting Goff is worth all those pix.

w
v

No I would argue it IS Brady.

Last year the Patz OL had Rams-level OL injury issues. Yes, THAT bad.

And they made it work for much of the season because Brady has that combined pre-snap read ability, good eyes, and quick release.

When they finally met a defense capable of demolishing that, however, the fairy tale ended. Reportedly Denver hit Brady more times in that game than any qb got hit at anytime during the season.

Subtract Brady, which Denver DID, and all the other things Brady makes look really good (including the coaches and scheme) suddenly did not look so good.

Anyway, I am willing to venture that Goff is not a GIGANTIC question mark. To me the questions are only these: HOW good will he be, and how soon.

I don’t think there;s any bust potential there. Or even any “turns out just to be average” potential there.

I think that qbs with those combined traits come along rarely. So I know he will be good…I just don’t know how good or how soon.

I don’t care about the picks. A good 12-15 year qb is worth whatever number of players they WOULD have gotten. If you heard that in 2004, SD, NYG, and Pitt gave up that many picks for Rivers, Eli, or BR, would you doubt the value of it? (And actually the Giants did trade a lot for Eli.)

Now of course this is all just “where I stand” and “how I see it.” It’s opinion, but one I have confidence in. Years from now, if it plays out like I think it will (with Goff being AT LEAST good), only then will I consider punishing posters who disagreed.

…
..

NERam wrote:

Trying to look for scale tippers that may have led to the Rams decision to pick Goff over Wentz.

In the same spirit, I looked for positives on Goff.

Martz said Goff showed enough mobility to extend plays as well.

“Now he made some bad plays, but the (good) plays that he made are plays that only an elite player can make,” Martz said. “I think he could be just ‘stupid’ good. He gets rid of the ball so quick.”

Fisher has said recently that he likes the offensive approach he sees with Brady, where you get rid of the ball in a blink.

Quick release.

Among other things they liked.

Actually there’s a sports science vid up here somewhere, where they showed that Goff’s release is quicker than Brady’s.

.

On a field in Orange County, Calif., about an hour north of Martz’s home in San Diego, the former Rams coach put Goff and Wentz through the paces.

“I spent about two hours working them out, and spent about an hour with them in the classroom,” Martz said.

That’s a good article.

NewMexicoRam wrote:

I’m with you zn. When I saw the headlines for the trade for #1, I thought QB right away. I did waiver between Goff and Wentz for a couple of days, but when I thought about the limited experience Wentz had, I knew it was Goff and was really excited when the commish made the announcement draft night.
I, for one, am ready for 15 years of superior QB play.

Good to see you chiming in, NMR. Yes our experiences of this were quite similar. Though I have to say, it’s fun to see a range of views on this. Makes it lively.

from off the net

—

woofwoofmo

Rams are investing up to $9M in Barnes the next two years. That’s enough to tell me they like what they see.

If Barnes pass protection is so bad, as some claim, explain to me how he is one of the top rated centers in the league in sacks allowed per game. Did you know that Barnes ranked 3rd in the league for starting centers in 2015 for “sacks allowed/penalties incurred” per game. And for all centers in the league with more than 10 career starts he ranks 4th. Not bad. His numbers are better than Mack, Frederick, Mangold among others. Barnes did get a game ball for the Tampa game, as well as the Seattle game. Coaches don’t do that for missing blocks, being passed by etc. those are given because they’re earned. I watched the Seattle game, I was there and didn’t see what the Barnes critics are seeing and obviously the coaches didn’t either. According to JT Rams coaches graded him as their best lineman last season:

JIM THOMAS, 5/11 chat: I know of one internal review that had Barnes rated as the team’s best offensive lineman in 2015. Barnes was a lot better over the second half of last season.

Barnes was a very good signing giving further stability to an up and coming line. Many of us feel he’s a good solid player who made good progress thru his first year as a starter working with a constantly shifting line.

Paul Boudreau is known throughout the league as one of the best O-Line coaches in the game. The players love him and IMO, he’s doing an excellent job developing the talent he’s been given to work with. My belief is the Rams are lucky to have “Boo” as a coach. This line given more time together with a full off-season & training camp has a chance to be a really good unit.

wv wrote:

I wonder how many St.Louis residents stopped
football-posting. Dak? Mike Franke? Who else?

w
v

Jim Fadler. CoachO.

How not to defend Chip Kelly’s offense

Eric Branch

http://www.sfgate.com/49ers/article/How-not-to-defend-Chip-Kelly-s-offense-7467548.php

When Chip Kelly has been asked about the burden his up-tempo offense places on his defense – and he’s been asked about it a lot – he’s often offered a thought-provoking rebuttal.
His standard response during his three seasons in Philadelphia (the Eagles ranked last in the NFL time of possession during his tenure): Focus on snaps, not minutes.
In 2013, for example, he referenced a 2010 game against UCLA when he was Oregon’s head coach that neatly captures his argument. UCLA ran just three fewer plays than Oregon (70-73), but had the ball for 18 more minutes (38:31-21:29). Final score: Oregon 60, UCLA 13.
“So all I gathered was that they stand around a lot more (on the field) than we do,” Kelly said. “So I think when people look at the time of possession, and that’s what people look at automatically … It’s not time of possession. It’s plays run is what I look at because you’re not exerting any energy if you’re just standing in the huddle.”
During the rest of his tenure with the Eagles, Kelly hit on the same theme when the topic was broached:
“Time of possession is how much time can the other team waste,” he said in 2013.
“I’m not a time-of-possession guy, I’m a plays-run guy,” he said in December.

The question was also raised in January when he was introduced as the 49ers head coach. He outlined a scenario in which his team and its opponent had similar stats, with the exception of time of possession.
“We won the game by seven, but they had the ball for 10 more minutes than we did,” he said. “So all I learned is that they stand around better than we stand around. It’s still plays run.”
Kelly’s stance can be argued, but it’s a worthy and interesting argument.
However, Kelly didn’t stop there in January. Instead, in defending his system, he offered another rebuttal which has nothing to do with whether his offense wears down his defense.
The argument: defensive players like to play defense.
“I’ve also never met a defensive player that says, ‘Coach, I want you to possess the ball for the entire game so I don’t have to play,’” he said. “I want guys that on the defensive side of the football of the San Francisco 49ers can’t wait to get on the field and embrace the opportunity to get out there and play.”
For starters, Kelly has met at least one defensive player that didn’t like to play too much defense.
But that’s not the point here.

The point is this: A defensive player’s excitement level about getting on the field has nothing to do with his ability to avoid fatigue if he’s on the field for too many snaps.
So to review: Kelly offered A) a compelling argument and B) a nonsensical argument.
So why bring it up four months later? Because the defensive-players-like-playing-defense argument keeps getting invoked to defend Kelly’s offense:
“I’m not looking at it as getting tired or exhausted. I’ve never, in a thousand years, ever heard (of) someone not want to be on the field,” inside linebacker NaVorro Bowman said in April.
“I think NaVorro said it the best, right? I’ve never met a defensive player that didn’t want to be on the field. Show me one that doesn’t want to be out there,” general manager Trent Baalke said before the draft.
“One of the criticisms has been (on) the defense and they’re on the field too much. And like Bo said — and I agree with him; we kind of laughed — if you’re a defensive player, you want to be on the field,” Baalke said on KNBR after the draft.

Baalke has also said of the defense that “what you have what you have to be able to do is get off the field on third down.” But Kelly has acknowledged the onus is on his offense to avoid lightning-quick three-and-outs, which can fatigue even the stoutest defenses.
“If we’re not getting the requisite amount of snaps, then that’s where we’re hurting our defense,” Kelly said in November. “We talk about it all the time: It’s plays run. … It’s really just the production from the offensive side of the ball in terms of what’s giving them an opportunity to wear us down on the defensive side of the ball.”
That echoes Kelly’s best argument: It’s about snaps, not minutes.
And don’t forget this: It’s definitely not about defensive players liking to play defense.

Chip Kelly quells Kaepernick controversy, keeps QB job TBD

http://www.theredzone.org/BlogDescription/tabid/61/EntryId/56494/Chip-Kelly-quells-Kaepernick-controversy–keeps-QB-job-TBD/Default.aspx

Midway through the offseason program and four months shy of the season opener, 49ers coach Chip Kelly isn’t near ready to reveal who’ll be his starting quarterback between Colin Kaepernick and Blaine Gabbert, Cam Inman of Bayareanewsgroup reports.

“I have no idea,” Kelly told KNBR 680-AM, sounding half-joking and half-coy. “We’re not playing a game until September. At this point in time, it’s early, and one of the players, Colin, is injured right now, so he’s not been a full participant in everything.”

Kelly doesn’t anticipate the quarterback duel to truly unfold until training camp starts in late July, when Kaepernick should be closer to full health following rehabilitation on his surgically repaired right thumb, left shoulder and left knee.

“Kap’s at every meeting. Kap’s at rehab. Kap’s at every practice, doing what he can,” Kelly added. “We don’t know exactly what we have until we get those guys up and running. That won’t be determined until preseason camp.”

“He’s still working extremely hard in the rehab part,” Kelly continued. “I think people forget he had a thumb injury, a shoulder injury and a knee injury that he’s coming off of. So right now, Blaine is out there, Thad Lewis is with us, and Jeff Driskel are the ones taking the snaps in the offseason program.”

I appreciate what Bowen says here but I also think the Rams (and now some other teams) run rookie minicamps at least somewhat differently. They are not quite as cutthroat.

some teams take an altered approach to their rookie minicamps, a la Fisher

nittany ram wrote:

I don’t know what’s being said about Goff’s release but I hear he is accurate.

Goff has one of the quickest releases people have seen in a while. It clocks a bit quicker than Brady’s. (Someone actually measured that.) Another noted strength is his ability to use really quick feet to maneuver in the pocket while keeping his eyes downfield. Since he played behind one of the worst OLs in college football, this attribute was regularly visible.

As if they need another, Rams don’t want “Hard Knocks” to be a distraction

Darin Gantt

As if they need another, Rams don’t want “Hard Knocks” to be a distraction

Nothing about the Rams’ move to Los Angeles has been subtle, so the fact they seem eager to be on “Hard Knocks” isn’t much of a surprise.

So Rams coach Jeff Fisher said he’s done his due diligence, talked to other coaches about what the HBO reality show entails, before declaring it the opposite of a distraction.

“We want this to be the best show to date,” Fisher said, via Sam Farmer of the Los Angeles Times. “We want to pave the way for the member clubs to line up for the opportunity to do this. . . . The players are familiar, they understand what’s ahead, we’ve talked to the coaches and they’re excited.”

Of course, he was quick to point out: “We want them to be football players, not actors.”

For the most part, their players seemed on board, though punter Johnny Hekker had a concern about the 24-7 presence of NFL Films cameras documenting their every move.

“I’ve got to make sure,” Hekker said, “that my grandmother doesn’t have to hear me bleeped out.”

The Rams offer plenty of material, with their move to California and bold move to take a quarterback first overall in the draft coupled with an itinerant existence the next few months, bouncing from place to place to train and have camps. But they take solace in the fact that the last six teams to do the show have equaled or bettered their record from the year before, with four of them making the playoffs.

So that means Fisher’s traditional seven or eight wins (which he’s managed in 10 of his 21 NFL seasons) are still in play here.

First Mason, now McDonald. This is starting out to be a bad off-season. Unless that’s it, and that’s all we see.

Rams easing rookies in to prevent shock factor

Nick Wagoner

http://espn.go.com/blog/st-louis-rams/post/_/id/29225/rams-easing-rookies-in-to-prevent-shock-factor

LOS ANGELES — Los Angeles Rams coach Jeff Fisher doesn’t believe in mixing the old and the new, at least not right away.

Which is why Fisher and the Rams are following their usual procedure when it comes to integrating their rookie class and the veterans. The reason? Fisher doesn’t want the green rookies trying to keep up with a group of players that already knows what to do on a daily basis.

“That’s the objective of what we’re doing so it’s not a shock,” Fisher said. “We want them to go out and condition and be prepared to go into the drills. Our offseason program is this, we can’t come together until June, until the OTAs. So that’s when the offense and defense come together and compete, so we’re separate, so they’ll just be drilling.”

The Rams welcomed their rookies last weekend with their annual orientation. Those three days are spent introducing the rookies to how things should be done on and off the field with on-field work limited to some individual drills and walk through tempo. This week, the rookies and veterans got a chance to mingle a bit in meetings. As the offseason conditioning program progresses, they’ll mostly be kept apart until the final stages, also known as organized team activities.

In the meantime, the Rams will continue to run drills for the rookies in an effort to get them up to speed so when they do merge with their teammates they won’t have as much to learn. With limited time to work on the field because of the collective bargaining agreement, once the on-field team work begins, there’s little time to stop and wait for rookies to catch up.

So the next couple of weeks will focus on trying to speed up the process.

“That’s an excellent opportunity to get them up,” Fisher said. “Once they come together in the OTAs in June, then they’ll be able to compete. I think what we’re going to see when the vets come on the field for their 90-minute session (earlier this week) and the rookie class is observing, you’re going to see a little of this (pounds chest) out of the vets because they are going to show off a little bit. So it works out good — you get more out of the vets, the ‘rooks’ get to see it. Once we get to OTAs everything will be good.”

Just because the Rams are focused on getting their rookies up to speed doesn’t mean they will push them too far too fast. Fisher believes in easing them in, not only to get their conditioning level back to football shape but also to give them a chance to translate what they learn in the classroom to the field.

That last part is the primary focus of the entire exercise.

“You’re looking at the mental things,” Fisher said. “Are they doing the right things? Is the footwork appropriate? Are the steps appropriate? Are you dropping your hips? Those kinds of things. Then of course you’re looking at every once in a while someone goes a little more than half speed and so how well do they pay attention to the details? It’s hard to evaluate the explosiveness and things like that. It’s hard to evaluate when you’re not competing against an opponent, an offensive or defensive opponent.

“This is the way you have to do it. We’re convinced this is how you have to do it. It’s really unfair for them to come out and ask them to get to full speed and then you have a soft tissue injury and then he misses OTAs then he’s behind at camp. We’ve been doing this for a long time and it’s worked out for us because ideally what you want to have is you want to have a healthy roster when you start training camp.”

Fisher was pleased with how the rookies got to work during the orientation but also stressed to his youngsters that they have to stay on top of things to ensure they don’t fall behind. It’s a message he’ll continue to deliver throughout the rest of the offseason program. Once the group gets a concept, the Rams move on to the next one and the one after that.

Rookie quarterback Jared Goff undoubtedly has the most to learn between now and the start of training camp. He had some interaction with the veterans before departing back to the University of California this week but is looking forward to bringing it all together.

“I haven’t met too many of them,” Goff said. “I met a few and it’s been great. I got a bunch of texts from a bunch guys — that’s been really cool. I’m excited to finally work with them, eventually.”