After the Bears released a statement suggesting they may move to the suburbs, the mayor of Chicago released a statement of her own, calling the Bears' move a negotiating ploy and saying they should be more focused on beating the Packers. https://t.co/WT7E4RzGQb

— ProFootballTalk (@ProFootballTalk) June 17, 2021

from https://theramswire.usatoday.com/2021/06/17/rams-desean-jackson-offense-mind-boggling-scary/

On NFL Network recently, [DeSean Jackson] said it’s going to be mind-boggling for defenses trying to slow down Los Angeles’ offense.

“Really just having the playmaker skill ability with the other wide receivers, the other running backs, tight ends. With a quarterback like Matthew Stafford, it’s really mind-boggling for other defenses or defensive coordinators to be sitting back, like, ‘Man, how we going to stop these dudes?’ For me, I’ve been on some pretty good receiving corps, but Robert and Coop, in addition to Van and Tutu, it’s going to be scary,” he said on “NFL Total Access.”

…

“For me, I just look at it as being in a position where I have an offensive-minded coach like Sean McVay who’s in-tune and who knows how to put his players in position to win, first-off is the biggest concern for a veteran receiver like myself,” Jackson said. “And just having that fit and being able to gel together and being in a similar offense, a similar system where I know a lot that what we did in Washington is switched up a little bit but the terminology is pretty much the same.”

Sebastian Joseph-Day is coming off two productive seasons and last year he really seemed to step up to become a mainstay in the interior. With the loss of veteran Michael Brockers, I expect SJD will take his play and leadership to the next level. Excited to see the big man work pic.twitter.com/clel1JqmTs

— RAMS ON FILM (@RamsOnFilm) June 17, 2021

Tyler Lockett: Shane Waldron's offense brings 'more freedom' to Seattle WRshttps://t.co/kb9iuauuwR pic.twitter.com/8TR8yaB5o4

— Around The NFL (@AroundTheNFL) June 17, 2021

I’ve heard this before.. My defensive coordinator with @Jaguars (Dick Jauron) to me that the practice field is where you experiment with your game. Try new techniques and skills to see which ones could be utilize in games. Some coaches encourage their players to find their limits https://t.co/1q2PQuQONG

— Bucky Brooks (@BuckyBrooks) June 17, 2021

Sean McVay will have plenty of options on offense when it comes to his receivers, tight ends and running backs. https://t.co/oDZuKgts0t

— Rams Wire (@TheRamsWire) June 17, 2021

Jourdan Rodrigue selected as PFWA 2021 Terez A. Paylor Emerging Writer Award winner https://t.co/byHy7dMFnd

— Pro Football Writers (@PFWAwriters) June 15, 2021

from PFF, Defensive scheme analysis for all 32 NFL teams: https://www.pff.com/news/nfl-defensive-scheme-analysis-32-nfl-teams-2021#LAR

LOS ANGELES RAMS

2020 Defensive Pass Efficiency Rank: 1
2020 Defensive Rush Efficiency Rank: 2
2020 Base Coverage: Quarters
2020 Third-Down Mentality: Blitz and play Cover 3

Going from former defensive coordinator Brandon Staley to new defensive coordinator Raheem Morris is quite the scheme shock. It will be interesting to see if Morris keeps some of the new concepts Staley used. The “tite” front is not something we’ve seen from Morris in his stops around the NFL. Last year, Morris’ Falcons defense ran an “odd” or “bear” front, 3-4 looks, only 17% of the time.

Where Morris deploys cornerback Jalen Ramsey will be interesting, as well. Staley moved the veteran around a bit in 2020, playing him at nickel when the situation called for it. Ramsey’s rate of snaps at outside cornerback dropped by six percentage points from 2019 to 2020. During Morris’ time with Atlanta, his defense was a static Cover 3 and Cover 1 unit, like what Ramsey played in Jacksonville when 84% of his snaps came on the outside in 2018. Ramsey played 145 snaps as a nickel or slot corner in 2018 and 2019 combined but 173 in 2020 alone.

Coach Sean McVay feeling super about Rams despite unanswered questions​

https://www.latimes.com/sports/rams/story/2021-06-14/sean-mcvay-super-bowl-rams

His team’s offseason program complete, Rams coach Sean McVay plans to vacation in New York, Greece and Monaco before training camp begins.

“I’ll be able to live a little, enjoy myself — and then I’ll come back stressed and ready to roll,” McVay joked.

When the Rams report to UC Irvine in late July, the pressure will be on McVay.

The Rams ended the Jared Goff era by trading the quarterback — and two first-round draft picks — to the Detroit Lions for quarterback Matthew Stafford. General manager Les Snead gave Stafford the potential deep threat the team denied Goff last season by signing veteran receiver DeSean Jackson.

Those additions, combined with players such as receivers Robert Woods and Cooper Kupp, and defensive stars Aaron Donald and Jalen Ramsey, could make the Rams one of the favorites to contend for a berth in Super Bowl LVI, which will be played Feb. 13, 2022 in SoFi Stadium.

McVay said he embraces expectations.

“This job is about pressure day in and day out,” he said. “I think that’s what you want. If you start avoiding pressure, if you don’t like it, this is not for you.”

The Rams have made the playoffs three times in four seasons under McVay. They lost in the NFC wild-card round in 2017, advanced to the Super Bowl in 2018, missed the postseason the next year and advanced to the divisional-round last season.

McVay and Snead are banking that Stafford, a 12-year veteran, will provide the missing piece for another Super Bowl run.

“He’s one of those guys that I think is a true igniter,” McVay said of Stafford. “He makes everybody around him better.

“I feel like I’ve become a better coach in the few months that we’ve been able to spend together and we’re looking forward to do a lot of good things together.”

Throughout offseason workouts, Rams players said they were embracing high expectations.

“Last time we were picked to go to the Super Bowl, we went,” Woods said. “So, I think that’s a good thing. … We’re a loaded team. We have all the parts. We have all the pieces to get where we need to go.”

Stafford, the receiving corps and the continuing emergence of second-year running back Cam Akers are reason for optimism about the offense. But the line is in flux after the departure of coach Aaron Kromer and center Austin Blythe. Kevin Carberry replaced Kromer. Austin Corbett could move from guard to center to replace Blythe. Left tackle Andrew Whitworth will turn 40 during the season.

Donald and Ramsey anchor a defense now under the direction of coordinator Raheem Morris, who replaced Brandon Staley. Can lineman A’Shawn Robinson fill the void left the departure of Michael Brockers? Who steps up to replace the talent and leadership of safety John Johnson, now earning millions from the Cleveland Browns?

Those are just a few of the questions that might be answered during training camp when the Rams begin preparing for their Sept. 12 opener against the Chicago Bears.

McVay will continue to hold out starters from preseason games. The Rams might add depth to the roster this summer in preparation for joint practices with the Dallas Cowboys and Las Vegas Raiders, and preseason games against the Chargers, Raiders and Denver Broncos.

Whitworth, a 15-year veteran, said big expectations are “a good thing” for a team accustomed to winning. Whitworth pointed to last season’s wild-card playoff victory over the Seattle Seahawks as a “culture-type win.”

“We didn’t go into that game with any expectation other than win, and it really didn’t matter whether it was the playoffs or the next game on the schedule,” he said. “And I think that’s where you really started to see a culture and franchise that just expects to win.

“And, hopefully, we can keep that mentality and that culture strong.”

That Aaron Donald slipped to 13 in the draft when everybody knew he was awesome just cos he's 'only' 285lbs is one of the great failings of scouting over the last x-years.

Like when someone asked 'IF Russell Wilson was 6'2, what's his downside?' and nobody had anything. https://t.co/tBNZaegVkg

— Sam Monson (@PFF_Sam) June 15, 2021

The Top-25 players under 25 👀

🥇Fred Warner
🥈Josh Allen
🥉Lamar Jackson https://t.co/Zl4VGeaa2N

— PFF (@PFF) June 15, 2021

from https://theramswire.usatoday.com/2021/06/14/rams-draft-ben-skowronek-trent-green-uncle/

Ben Skowronek[‘s] uncle is former Rams quarterback Trent Green, and someone Skowronek has looked up to throughout his life. In a recent interview with team reporter Sarina Morales, Skowronek discussed his relationship with Green and how the ex-NFL quarterback helped him become obsessed with football.

“Throughout this process, just talking to him, he’s given me advice since I was a kid and all that, so I’ve looked up to him,” he said. “I remember going to Rams games as a kid and after I got drafted, my family put up a picture from one of the games we went to and I was like, ‘Wow, that kid really grew up to be drafted by the Rams.’ So it was kind of surreal and full circle. He’s been great for me, just being able to bounce stuff off him. I think he’s the reason I fell in love with the game of football. Being able to go to these NFL games, going on the field after the games, talking to the players. I remember when he was with the Chiefs, after a game, I was just sitting on the curb talking to Dante Hall. It’s crazy stuff. Or Tony Gonzalez. Because of him, I really just became obsessed with the game of football.”

RAMZILLA@elitster
Listening to Flying Coach w Peter Schrager/Coach McVay it’s been great hearing the behind the scenes w Zac Taylor, Matt LaFleur. Sounds like LaFleur could disagree w McVay keep him grounded/humble/identify blind spots. Who on the Rams coaching staff is doing that now?

Inside Rams’ scouting of Jacob Harris: From ‘unicorn’ measurables to an ‘analytics pick’ — how he’ll be molded

Jourdan Rodrigue

https://theathletic.com/2648671/2021/06/14/inside-rams-scouting-of-jacob-harris-from-unicorn-measurables-to-an-analytics-pick-how-hell-be-molded/?source=emp_shared_article

The third day of the draft is usually a big dart-throwing project, as teams try to add players who may — or may not — one day be contributors on their roster. But for the Rams, establishing a rate of success when picking these later-round prospects — and then developing them from fourth-rounder or later to role-player in the lineup — is crucial to their team-building model. How do they identify these prospects — and how do they match their data and analytics team’s findings with what their scouts are watching on film and experiencing when interacting with players in person?

In this three-part series, The Athletic goes behind the scenes of the Rams’ process, focusing on their first three draft picks of Day 3: Defensive tackle Bobby Brown III, cornerback Robert Rochell and tight end Jacob Harris.

THOUSAND OAKS, Calif. — Two years ago, Rams’ Southeastern scout Michael Pierce was on a routine visit to the University of Central Florida and had positioned himself near the corner of the end zone as the Knights worked through their red zone period.

Then-redshirt junior receiver Jacob Harris ran a fade, and the quarterback lofted up a pass — perhaps too high, it first appeared. But suddenly, Harris’ cleats were nearly even with Pierce’s head. He pulled down the catch inbounds, and Pierce tracked him closely from that day until the Rams drafted him at No. 141 in April.

“I’m like, ‘Man, this guy is jumping — his feet are at my head!” Pierce said. “That was a first exposure. Of course, seeing his long frame and seeing him move — that jumped out early. But (that play) was my first exposure.

“Even (the year before he declared for the draft), I can remember thinking, ‘I would love to have this guy on our team.’”

After he was drafted, Harris was described by a source to The Athletic as a “total analytics pick,” a raw prospect offensively who would certainly make the 53-man roster because, outside of his status as a fourth-rounder, he would be expected to activate even to the game day roster each week as a key special-teams contributor. Harris, who is 6-foot-5 and about 215 pounds, technically has just about one full year of relevant live offensive snaps under his belt but was special-teams coordinator Joe DeCamillis’ favorite player in the draft because of his vigor in that phase.

But between then and the Rams’ conclusion of minicamp last week, something notable has been unfolding: Where young players often seem to develop in increments almost too minimal for the untrained eye to track, Harris has seemed to chew off large chunks of the learning curve. In fact, it seems Harris has become a “special project” player for both tight ends coach Wes Phillips — with whom Harris is constantly in orbit receiving instruction — and head coach Sean McVay, who has taken extra time with the rookie during drills on more than one occasion. With veteran No. 1 tight end Tyler Higbee not practicing, McVay also placed Harris into the first-team reps in seven-on-sevens through the entirety of minicamp after building his workload in OTAs the two weeks prior. Seven-on-sevens are run at nearly full speed and built to test mental dexterity in a semi-live situation and stress the mind at a faster rate. To see a rookie not only jump over more veteran players on the roster for those reps — and then thrive in them — is rare air, even without the pads on yet.

“I think he’s just earned it,” said McVay of Harris’ increased role over a rapid period. “I think he’s a guy that has a tremendous amount of upside. Wes Phillips has done a really nice job of getting him up to speed. His natural range, catch radius, body control for a player of his size is pretty rare. I think you guys can see — for NFL guys to stand out the way that he has done, in some of these limited settings, in shorts and in helmets, he’s definitely made a positive impression.”

McVay added that he plans to align Harris in a variety of positions along the line of scrimmage, which means he’ll be in less of the “traditional” tight end role and more of a mismatch option specifically in the passing game. That’s also what Pierce saw in Harris throughout his two years of scouting him.

“If you think that he can be a tight end — which, I think he can be a tight end — then you say, ‘Let him develop, and he’ll win a spot at tight end because he’s so athletic, so fast, he can jump so high and he has that determination that you want out of the position,’” Pierce said. “But then you think, ‘OK, he can be a receiver’ because he’s got that top-shelf speed, he can really get to the top of coverage, he can jump and attack the ball — at the same time, he has some development (needed) … he’s an interesting one.

“I know everyone will (look at) the position and say, ‘What is he?’ but we’ll figure that out.”

In fact, the Rams’ analysts believe that by throwing him in the tight ends room (yet still aligning him virtually everywhere in the passing game) instead of keeping him at strictly wide receiver, Harris’ probability of contributing earlier in his career increases.

“I have done some studies over the past few years, looking at positions where, in those later rounds, what is going to give you the most success?” said Sarah Bailey, who is a manager in the Rams’ football analytics department. “And tight end is one of those positions where the athlete has more probability of actually making it.

“I look at probability of playing, and when he switched his position from wideout to tight end, he actually increased his probability of playing by almost 20 percent. From my perspective, that was a huge ‘Whoa.’ Take it with a grain of salt — you’re still that (fourth-rounder) — but to have that big of an increase, and then you look at his play style and his body type and he could actually fit that mold, too, it doesn’t seem like it might just be an outlier.”

The Rams’ data piles for speed testing (including within its various combinations that match speed with weight, speed with wingspan, etc.) are color-coded. Harris’ data was “all blue,” which means his measurables ranked in the top 10 percent of their overall data pool.

“(Our system) puts him into a percentile of where current pro players are,” Bailey said. “So that’s the top of the percentile … What really stood out was not only his long speed, but his short speed … his three-cone immediately and some of his jumping.”

The Rams’ own measurement systems and evaluation programming aren’t public information (for example, while the public has access to things like 40-times and testing numbers filed at pro days or the NFL combine, the Rams also weigh those against privately-obtained measurables such as GPS tracking data, long-term body composition projections and more), but Harris’ public testing numbers also resulted in a RAS (Relative Athletic Score) of 9.88 out of a possible 10.0 as a receiver — No. 31 out of 2,517 receivers publicly tested since 1987. When his position is switched to tight end in the scoring system, Harris’ speed composite is 9.71, his explosiveness composite is 9.945 and his agility composite is 8.84 — all categorized as either “great” or “elite” via the RAS system.

For reference, No. 4 overall pick Kyle Pitts — lauded as one of the best tight end and overall receiving prospects in a draft class in years — had a RAS of 9.66. Pitts, of course, has the added polish of experience and acumen specifically as a pass catcher, while Harris is considered “moldable” because he has only a few years of football experience after switching over from soccer in college.

Harris’ size composite, however, ranks well-under average for the tight end position (“poor” per RAS). But this is where the Rams will try to blend data with coaching and development — because even though Harris is undersized for a tight end, by placing him in that position group they believe they are increasing his contribution probability as long as they are also able to scheme him in accordance with his athletic traits as a receiver. And, it seems, they are less concerned with “traditional” tight end traits (such as blocking) than they are impressed with Harris’ measurables as they translate into specifically the passing game and his special-teams ability.

“We can be creative with Jacob,” Pierce said. “If you put him at tight end, you could say he’s one of the most athletic tight ends you would look at coming out. He’s as athletic as Pitts if you look at him at tight end. And then at wide receiver, you see maybe one of the most dynamic deep-ball threats as well. My emphasis (in presenting Harris as a prospect) was, ‘He’s moldable.’”

“You say these guys, you have ‘high ceilings and low floors,’” Bailey added, “but he doesn’t have a low floor. His ceiling is high enough to compensate for the risk that you take. … He had the right attributes at that pick. You’re not getting a second-round guy where you’re like, ‘he’s for sure a tight end, he’s for sure this (or that).’ You’re a (fourth-round) guy, you have a really good ceiling.”

Bailey and Pierce also alluded to Harris’ above-average scoring in mental tests and personality evaluations. Pierce said that throughout the evaluation process, Harris was a prospect who, if a coach or scout reached out wanting to have a conversation, he’d call them immediately.

“He’s mature, he has it figured out. He has a why, he’s a genuine person,” Pierce said. “You see all of those things (and) hear all of those things. You get a feel for it when you speak to him. It just really checks the box … (Reports on) him in school, with coaches and all of the staff, it checks off when you talk to him as well. He was an easy interview.”

Harris will still have a long developmental journey ahead and especially so when the pads finally go on in training camp and the real work begins. But Pierce has been scouting and evaluating players for the Rams for over six years, and from that first red zone play over two years ago until the Rams sent in the draft card at about 10:44 a.m. on that Saturday, he has had a feeling in his gut about Harris and his potential.

“You study thousands of players, and you look back 10 years from now and you automatically know those guys,” Pierce said. “In essence, sometimes I call them ‘unicorns.’”

Said Bailey, “I have (drawn) stars on my notes, like, ‘This is the guy you want to bet on.’ It’s really been, the last two years, (about) emphasizing: ‘Hey, if you’re gonna bet on a guy, bet on an athlete.’

“This is what we have with this guy. We have an athlete.”