RamBill

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Alex Marvez @alexmarvez

Rams once again projected to field NFL’s youngest roster for 3rd straight season. At 34, backup QB Shaun Hill oldest player

DE Robert Quinn expects more double-teams coming off 19-sack season. Hopes that creates opportunities for others

WR Kenny Britt says he’s finally fully recovered mentally & physically from torn ACL suffered in 2011. Looks great in camp

8 d-linemen locked into roster spots. Team will carry 10-11. No cinch Michael Sam sticks

Offensive benefit of Gregg Williams’ return as DC: Sam Bradford getting rid of football quicker in practice

Don’t expect LT Jake Long (knee) to play Saturday vs @packers. Return coming later vs Browns or Dolphins

Some follow-up.

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CoachO

Brockers tweaked an ankle the day before the scrimmage at the dome, tried to come back and participate in the scrimmage and sprained it pretty good. So he has been held out since. I would guess that if the season were starting on Sunday, he would play, but its not so why not be careful with him?

Langford looked fine, if you are asking about his “health” . They were in shorts and shirts, so nothing remotely close to anything physical up front yesterday. But he was moving fine, and taking regular reps with the 1st unit.

Laurinaitis is out of the walking boot, but did not participate in ANY of the practice. He observed portions from the sidelines, then went back inside.

Saffold and Jenkins did some side work with Reggie Scott (Head Trainer), so I would venture a guess they are closer to returning. Brockers is a tough call. And one where I would think caution would be the proper course of action ..

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My take on Gilbert, is he continues to get plenty of reps, so based on that, he is definitely ahead of Davis.

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[UDFAs]…This roster has developed to the point that there just isn’t room to “keep em all”. I am not concerned about exposing guys to the PS, if they aren’t good enough to make OUR TEAM. The PS is way too fluid throughout the season. And who’s to say, if we “lose” someone like Roberson, we won’t find someone off another teams PS, who is better? How many players have been claimed by this regime in the past two years who have come in and are still here?

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…the gassers are nothing new. They ran them last year for the very same thing.

Its just their way of making the guilty players a little more accountable, and trust me, Mr. Dill was not getting a whole lotta love from the other O-linemen for his performance on Friday night. Needless to say, they ran more than any other unit yesterday.

The thing about Fisher’s teams, they are always gonna play with an edge, and some penalties are always gonna be tolerated. To me, its the presnap (and in the case of Dill) post play penalties that have to be addressed. How many drives on offense have been stalled because a 2nd and 5 turn into a 2nd and 10, or worse yet, a 3rd and 3 turn into a 3rd and 8 because of a false start? Same thing in reverse on the defense, with the off sides penalties. Becoming drive SUSTAINING penalties?

Eliminate those, and the rest become just part of the game.

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[Does J Long look like he can play this Saturday?]…all things point to that being a likely scenario. he and Wells both, took the majority of reps in yesterdays 11 on 11 stuff, with Long squaring up vs. Quinn all day long. He had his hands full and was really working hard to stand up against him. He didn’t look to be favoring the knee in the least, and they didn’t seem to be concerned with the amount of stress he was putting on it.

Saffold did some work on the side with Reggie Scott yesterday, which is a pretty good sign that he is close to returning.

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I was at field level watching the team drills all day, and anyone who questions Bradford’s arm strength needs to see it from that close. Talk about a WOW factor.

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CoachO

I have … seen Bradford in frequent interviews make statements about pushing the ball downfield.

Now, as far as how that translates onto the practice field, its tough to get a read on it. There are days when its clear they want to do exactly that. They focus on mostly 15-18 yard routes, and other days when they take their shots 25+.

Then just about the time you think they are turning a corner, the next day they are focusing on the underneath crossing routes, or outlets to the TEs or RBs.

I do believe that they will certainly make more of an effort to exploit the intermediate routes off of play action.

And depending on who they have on the field, be it Quick and Britt, or Austin and Bailey, will go a long way in determining the plan of attack.

Winnbrad wrote:

It seems like the league is trying to make something out of nothing. I still think the best option is to get rid of it. It slows the game down for no reason.

IMO, give teams 7 points for a TD, or let’em opt out and go for 2 from the 2 yard line.

It’s bad enough having so many games decided by a bad snap/bad hold/gust of wind, etc. Kicking a 33yd extra point just makes it harder for outdoor teams to consistently make extra points.

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Fair points. But, we’ve crossed the line into blood feud territory. This will forever be known as the Extra Point Board War.
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That may be the first Reynolds interview since he first signed in 2011.

Bump, I have 3 now.

zn wrote:

I don’t think Fisher wants a ball control offense/top defense type team. Where they keep the ball, keep scores down, and dominate that way. Well he wants that, partly, but IMO he wants more than that. I think what he actually wants is an offense that scores so the defense plays with a lead. I think he wants to unleash the beast. I don’t think he wants to control games, I think he wants to break games open. So that goes along with the “yes run but strike with big plays” approach to offense. Get that defense on the field with a lead, in full throttle demolish mode.

The more I think about this, the more I am convinced by it.

They want to run,use ball control passing, AND set up big strikes through play action and other ways too. Big passing plays, of various kinds, will be a very important part of the mix. We will see more plays this year like the longer passes to Cook and Bayer, and the (in effect, kind of) “trick” play to Harkey (where a very dedicated blocker runs completely free on play action, because in the previous plays they had been “predictable” running out of power run sets). And heck, last night, the WRs didn’t even get that involved in those (though there were deep medium passes in the 21-30 yard range to Pettis, Bailey, and Blake).

The point is to get up on teams and unleash the defense, not to hang tough in close games. The model of this IMO is the 2013 Saints game, where they got up on New Orleans and then just came at them relentlessly on defense. Colts game, same thing.

One small hint of that was last night’s YPA.

Now we know it was 3 qbs, none of them Bradford, but it was still Schott’s offense working on some basic concepts. So there’s the bare bones of a hint here.

21/34 for 238 = 7 YPA.

That included (with RAC yards as part of it) passes of 24, 24, 24, 21, 29, & 42 yards, + the 32 yarder to Givens which led to the PI penalty.

Now if you’re like me, that is absolute, incontrovertible proof of their every-game offensive direction for the next 20 years.

Or, it;s a small but tantalizing hint showing, maybe, how they will do things this year.

(BTW their 3rd down conversion percentage last night was 41+%, which in 2013 would rank 8th. Now that’s just one pre-season game but I am going to keep a running week-to-week watch on both this and YPA.)

I also agree with this post:

Rockram

I never thought Fisher intended to roll back the clock. Pass and run with equal efficiency, adjusting your game for the opponent, and then understanding the pass scores points, the run controls the clock and prevents the D from just pinning their ears back and rushing the passer. . . In watching the routes run by the Rams last night, they were intermediate and deep for the WOs. Used the slot and TEs underneath mostly. This isn’t going to be 3 yards and a cloud of dust. If it was, Kendricks, Cook, Austin, Bailey, Givens, are all bad fits. And the Rams have been too deliberate to just throw darts at the board.

CoachO

The thing that stands out to me about the Safety play last night and the defense overall, was the bad tackling. But it doesn’t surprise me in the least, and I am not overly concerned about it by the time Sept rolls around. If you watch any of the other games around the league, the one thing that has become a trend is the tackling is really bad in the first couple of games in the Preseason.

They just aren’t able to tackle anymore in training camp, then you ask them to “practice” it in live games, it is going to be inconsistent.

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I can live with the aggression penalties. Its the presnap penalties they need to clean up. Those are the drive killers in offense. And the drive extenders on defense

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That was the best Davis has looked at any time since training camp started. But while he made a couple of nice throws, he also missed badly on others. I am not just talking about the throws themselves, I am talking about the decisions he made.

While Gilbert’s accuracy or lack thereof was obvious, what impressed me was this decision making in his first NFL action. He got the ball to the right guy most of the time, he just had throws sailing on him. Think he may have been just a tad anxious about the setting? There are bound to be things he needs to learn from, but the kid has a ton of talent, and my guess is he is showing enough that he will make the roster. They won’t risk trying to slide him to the PS.

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If you look at the group of CBs past the 1st four who are IMO, Jenkins, Johnson, Joyner and Gaines, Roberson probably has the best cover skills. He just doesn’t want any part of the physical side of the game. To me, for him to have any chance of competing for a roster spot, he HAS to get on Special Teams. There is no way a 6th CB makes any roster without ST contributions. And so far, he isn’t on any of them. Neither is Woodard. Huge Red flag for me.

…for a 6th CB to make the team, he has to be able to play on ST. And because Roberson is so unwilling to tackle, that isn’t gonna happen.

McGee, for his lack of consistency in coverage, at least has shown the ability to be a contributor on most of the coverage teams. So I would put him at the #5 CB spot.

[Daniels:]…at this point, he is certainly viewed as being better than the others. He is on on the 1st units on Kickoff Return, Kickoff Coverage. 2nd unit on the Punt Coverage unit. So that tells me at this point, he is regarded as one of the core players on the core units.

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Rhaney just doesn’t know what he is doing yet, in making all the calls at the LOS. There were many instances where he would make a line call, only to have the QB change it up. I had heard prior to the game, that the plan for the “2nd unit” was to be very run heavy, because of this very thing, and the game situation sort of dictated they throw it more than they wanted.

I would venture a guess and say they keep 10.[O L]. And Barrett Jones will NOT be one of them. I’m fairly confident in saying he won’t be on the 53 man come Sept 7th.

Long, Robinson, Wells, Saffold, Barksdale, Barnes, Joseph, Person, Hooey, Bond.

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As far as having only one starter at LB out, its more a case of who took his place that lead to most of the issues. By having Dunbar slide to the MLB position, and now putting Armstrong on the field to stop the running game….. well you saw how that turned out.

For all those people who still want to beat the drum for Ray Ray taking over for Dunbar at the WLB, I hope you took notice. He couldn’t get off blocks, and over ran plays consistently. I know its ONE preseason game. But this is the same thing that shows up in every practice.

But if history tells us anything, Laurinaitis will be there, barring some serious injury.

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Barring any unforeseen developments, I would imagine the 7 man DL rotation being: Quinn, Long Hayes, Sims, Brockers, Langford, Donald,, with Conrath being the 8th game day activation.

It would not shock me at all, to see Carrington being one of the surprise cuts. He is on a 1-yr deal, ($1.5M with a $1M guarantee) Conrath is in the last year of his original 3 year deal, ($1.44M) but only $6K guaranteed. Again, it should be interesting to see how this battle plays out.

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[Receivers]…the thing that has been interesting to me, and they have stayed very consistent with it throughout camp, and even in the game on Friday, is the tandem concept they are employing.

Britt and Quick are usually paired together, as is Austin and Bailey. Givens and Pettis make up the 3rd duo, and are noticeably behind the other two groups in terms of 1st unit reps.

When you watch the game, is they are in 2 WR sets, these combinations are the foundation, and they bring in other personnel packages off of it.

Britt and Quick got the starting reps, and played the first few series. Then you had Austin and Bailey getting work into the 2nd Quarter. But make no mistake, Givens was still on the field late into the 2nd Half, and no matter how you spin that, it can’t be a good sign.

Fisher mentions that he’s glad certain crazy things came up in the 2 minute stuff, that way they can fix some issues.

I don’t know how important this is, but that kind of reminds me that I think Fisher is the kind of coach who is better at finding and fixing problems then he is at preparing a team to not have that many problems in the first place.

Odd as it sounds, that’s a compliment. It means he’s not a man with a dominating vision, BUT at the same time is a very pragmatic guy who is willing and able to adjust things on the move.