from PFF, Ranking the top wide receivers by open-target rate from 2023: https://www.pff.com/news/nfl-ranking-top-wide-receivers-open-target-rate-separation-2023

6. COOPER KUPP, LOS ANGELES RAMS

Total Targets	Open Targets	Open-Target Rate
100	87	87.0%

Injuries have hampered Cooper Kupp over the past two seasons, but he still gained separation on 87 targets in 2023. The 31-year-old ranked second on the Rams in targets (100), target rate (27.2%) and gains of 20-plus yards (10). Kupp leads the Rams’ receiving corps in open-target rate over the past three seasons (86.8%) and ranks eighth in receiving yards (4,001) over that span.

Zooey wrote:

What people are seeing is a guy who fumbles his words and often loses the plot of what he is talking about. .

And what I have learned is, people mistake that very particular kind of geriatric issue (word searching), which is very commonplace, for a full-blown complete and total, all-at-once simultaneous cognitive decline. It isn’t. Geriatric studies can show how that one issue (word-searching) can be overbalanced by cognitive advantages that only older people have (like deeply engrained, experience-trained general judgment).

I mentioned Margo because long before the word “dementia” became a loaded and misused political buzz term in the 2020s, I was hearing about dementia on basically an every day basis, and with that, some info about how it differs from more ordinary and common issues in geriatric psychology. A lot of those stories had to do with just not knowing–so you have adult children having to deal with older parents in a nursing home, and either they don’t know what dementia is and have to be educated, or they have poorly informed assumptions about it, or they think their parents have it when they don’t, or they insist they don’t have it when they do.

Okay there’s that in the background. But once it became a political buzz term, I read around about it too.

So we just differ on this issue, which as we know is cool. I don’t think the comment that set off this discussion “hit the nail on the head,” on the contrary it just sounds like someone beating a particular political drum. One of the things that drives that, IMO, is that “diagnosing” leadership with dementia plays on fear. IMO that’s why it’s so powerful.

And again, all of this — to me — is unrelated to whether or not someone should vote for Biden. In this discussion, I’m not advocating anything having to do with that, either way.

And your quote doesn’t do anything for me. It doesn’t line up with anything I  have been learning from all the medical reading……And with me it’s starting to reach the point where Biden himself is less the issue than the cultural politics of agism generally, which to me is getting so it has less to do with elections and more to with how mistaken election year rhetoric is causing all sorts of people to leap to all sorts of  loaded conclusions in daily life.

My wife has nothing to do with this. She’s not out of town with me and we haven’t discussed the debate. What I got from her starting years ago was the basics on the distinction between actual dementia and the more commonplace issues having to do with ordinary geriatric psychology.  The rest comes from me reading widely on the issue and by that I mean reading medical people

He couldn’t perform as well as he did with actual dementia…and I am not saying he performed well. Medically that’s not dementia and hard-core online politicos saying it is are just not familiar with actual medical understanding of dementia. My wife is an RN who works with actual dementia patients and so over the years I’ve learned some things about this. Your poster did not hit the nail on the head…your poster just beat a certain political drum. And everything  I say here is regardless whether or not you support or will vote for Biden.

They talk about McVay and the Rams for the first couple of minutes.

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From https://www.turfshowtimes.com/2024/6/22/24183689/rams-tight-end-depth-chart-colby-parkinson

former Seattle Seahawks tight end, Colby Parkinson.

In free agency, the Rams signed Parkinson to a three-year contract worth up to $22.5M. That seems like a lot for a player that had never exceeded 25 receptions in a season and recorded over 300 yards once in four years.

…

Seattle has typically been a heavy tight-end team, utilizing 12 personnel at the 10th-highest rate last year and fourth-highest rate in 2022. With that said, especially last year, their pass rate out of 12 personnel has been relatively low. They threw out of 12 personnel just 50 percent of the time last year which ranked 18th in the NFL. That was much lower than their 2022 rate of 57.1 percent which was the seventh-highest. It’s worth noting that also Parkinson’s best year as a receiver.

The Seahawks simply haven’t been a team that consistently uses their tight ends in the passing game. … Last season, Seattle ranked 22nd in tight end targets and were 26th and 21st in 2021 and 2020 respectively. Again, in 2022 when the Seahawks were more tight end usage heavy in the passing game, ranking fifth in the NFL with 136 targets, Parkinson had his best season as the third tight end in the offense.

Parkinson has simply been under-used in Seattle. In 2022, among tight ends with at least 25 targets, he ranked 19th in total EPA despite just a 5.9 percent target share…. The 5.9 percent target share should raise significantly in the Rams offense. In a down year, Higbee had a 12 percent target share last season.

…going back to 2022, as a receiver Parkinson ranked ninth in yards after the catch per reception and his 1.56 yards per route run ranked 11th.

…

McVay has already expressed his excitement in Parkinson and has said,

“You saw him climb the ladder, make a big catch today…I thought Shane (Waldron) did a great job utilizing his skillset in Seattle where you could really get a good evaluation…He’s definitely going to add real value. We’re looking forward to being able to getting the pads on and playing real football when we can kind of get a little bit better evaluation in a full speed setting. But the size, the instincts, just the overall character, we’re certainly excited about him.”

The Athletic’s Jourdan Rodrigue has also mentioned that Parkinson’s size and speed ‘pops in practices.

InvaderRam wrote:

i remember when martz hired lovie and the rams d turned around in 2001. did they have to make drastic personnel changes? is that when they added lewis, pickett, and archuleta?

Fwiw here’s what I remember about that.

Well part of the 2001 turnaround was the 2000 collapse. Before 2000 every single DL starter had off-season surgery, and then some of them like Farr got injured during the season. Carter had back issues. Plus of course turns out that Giunta was not up to it as a solo coordinator.

In 2001, they added draft picks (Polley, Archuleta) and free agents/trades (Ahonotu, Fields, Aeneas) and then guys already on the roster stepped up (Zgonia, Young, Little). They also had on-the-roster vets who stayed steady, like Fletcher and Wistrom. Picks like Lewis and Pickens didn’t really do much.

The differences between then and now?

• the defense didn’t really collapse in 2023 like it did in 2000
• back then, the most they lost was Carter, who while good was no Donald
• 2024 depends heavily on 2023 and 2024 draft picks, much more than 2001 depended on draft picks…actually, frankly, 2001 was a disappointing draft
• 2001, they changed the scheme by hiring an outside coach; obviously in 2024, they promoted their own guy, so at least there’s general scheme continuity

It’s really hard to say right now how good they will be in 2024. In 2000/2001, it was a collapse then a turnaround. In 2023/2024, it’s a slower building process heavily dependent on young players in the front 7 plus a first-time coordinator.

Daniel Jeremiah@MoveTheSticks
Always fun to see what words come to mind when studying players. Florida State edge Jared Verse–carnage, rugged, violent, powerful, jolting are a few of the words on my sheet.

***

from  JB Scott: https://www.turfshowtimes.com/2024/6/23/24183774/rams-olb-depth-chart-jared-verse-byron-young

The OLB room is starting to get crowded in Los Angeles. Once the pecking order is established in training camp, how should we expect things to look?

While Young impressed as a rookie, at age 26 there are questions around how much room he has left to grow at the NFL level. He also hit the “rookie wall” last year and there was a substantial drop in production from the first half of the season. There’s a chance, if not probable, that Verse steps in and is the Rams’ best OLB on day one. That’s a fair expectation of the 19th overall selection and who most draft experts had solidly ranked in the top three EDGE rushers from this class.

Starters: Jared Verse & Byron Young

The first thing that sticks out about the combination of Verse and Young is how their skillsets, at least on paper, seem complementary. Verse is a physical, violet EDGE who makes his presence felt. He’s more explosive than fast. On the other hand, Young is somewhat undersized and wins with speed and high motor.

…

There will be opportunities; who makes the most of them?

Brennan Jackson, 2024 4th rounder
Nick Hampton, 2023 5th rounder
Ochaun Mathis, 2023 6th rounder

They do the Rams starting at about 40:30 in.