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 by The Professor
5 years 7 months ago
 Total posts:   53  
 Joined:  Aug 10 2017
United States of America   LA Coliseum
Practice Squad

Here is my first installment of my perspective on Sunday's practice. I first want to mention I ran into Elvis at camp. I've watched practices with him a few times each of the last two years. This time though, I got to meet his wife as well. So that was a big plus on top of seeing the rams!

This was my first camp practice of the year. I got in about 90 minutes before camp and was able to go through the signing area where Fred Dryer and Michael Stewart were signing autographs. I bought a mini football for them to sign. So it was a nice start to the day. Some nice additions from last year are a) the covered bleachers (it was pretty hot), the replay screen (but I was in a bad spot to really be able to see it). It was pointed so that the players could see it well. I was on the 50 yard line and it was on the 30 or so on my side of the field pointing at the field so it was not really helpful for me to see. Both fields have scoreboards which list the clock for each part of practice, which part of practice they are in, the play clock and the down.
I have intentionally avoided reading any of the coverage from Sunday’s practice so this is all from my perspective. McVay runs a tight ship. After the clock ran down on a practice session, that session is whistled over, and the next practice session starts with a new clock on how long that period will last. The practice session counter was not labeled so I was confused about it initially. I noticed it was at 8 when Allen was QB, so I first thought it was listing who was at QB but when it did not change when Goff was QBing I was able to figure it out.
The team started off stretching. One coach would show the team what to do, and every ten or so seconds, McVay would blow a whistle and then the next stretch was modeled. McVay was constantly moving during this time period and sometimes would model the stretch.
After the stretching, the players went to their position groups to work on specific drills. In front of me, Cooper, Nick Holley (RB), and JoJo Natson (WR) were practicing catching punts/KOs from a jugs machine. I doubt Holley or Natson make the squad, so I am not sure who is the real backup. Initially, they were doing it against air, then they did it with one of the others running at them, finally they did it in a set of three kicks. If they caught the first, then they had to catch the second while still holding the first ball and the third while holding both previous balls. Cooper had a chance at catching it when holding the other two, but the punt was way shorter than ANY other I saw in the drill and he could not get there.
The DBs practiced covering the WR coming off the line in press coverage. The DBs would alternate played D or simulating a WR coming off the line. They started off at a jogging pace but picked up the pace and worked on getting their hands on the receiver as the play started.
Goff, Allen and Perez started off just talking with the three centers Allen, Sullivan, and Blythe. Mannion was not there. I learned later on that he had the day off to be with his wife who is very far along in her pregnancy.
The other oline man worked on their hand placement coming out of their stances. Initially, they did this against air, later on against other olinemen.
The special teams kickers were hanging underneath an easy up between the two fields. Next to them were three stationary bikes. Peters and Talib started out stretching by those and then started pedaling.
The other DBs and a two WR/TEs were working on punt coverage/return on each side there would be a gunner and two return team players trying to route the gunner away from the center.
I did not focus a lot on the Dline at this time. I noticed them stretching and at one point they were doing this next to the Oline doing the same.
In the next practice session, the QBs, RBs and WRs ran a drill. I don’t remember if the QB started with the ball of it was snapped by a coach, but the WR would take a jet sweep handoff in front of the QB and run down the line. Another coach would then flip a second ball to the QB and the running back would come out of the backfield and the QB would hit him in the flat.
At the next practice session, the QB would practice play action drop backs and then throw to the RBs. These were the only players in this drill. The simultaneous WR/TE drill had the player run 5 yards one direction 5 yards back and then catch a pass as they go back in the original direction. Later on the receivers were about 20/30 yards from the coach throwing, they had to juke around a coach in between them and catch a pass as they ran towards the coach with the ball.
The olinemen would hit the blocking sled and then drive into another olineman who held a pad to cushion the blow. As there were practices going on both fields, I do not have much to say about the defense’s practice as they were practicing on the far field.
On the offense’s field, the QBs started playing with a RB and four receivers (including TEs). My biggest takeaway of the practices was Perez is not ready for the NFL. He was consistently high with his passes. Many were over the receivers’ heads and gave them no chance to make a play. Allen was better than Perez but not accurate enough. I felt that Mannion improved his chances of being the number 2 and he was not even there. At one point, Goff and Allen were both passing to receivers at the same time (one throwing to the left side the other to the right). The receivers were alternate plating on the right and left side so they got some reps with both QBs. On the other side of the field, Perez was throwing to the 3rd string WRs/TEs. He still was high and again this is against air. I mostly focused on the 1s and 2s, but I did see one of the coaches showing Allen some tips on his footwork after he lofted a throw. During the first part of these drills, one throw was high to Woods and he had to make a one handed grab and then spin to keep his feet in bounds. After hearing a lot of Ooohs and Ahhs from the crowd, he took a bow as he went back to the QBs. I have in my notes that the throw was from Perez, but I am confident that is correct.
When the Offense started playing against the D in 5 on 5, Goff hit Gurley for a TD and shortly afterwards was picked by Christian. Goff was low on a completion to Cooks but for the most part was pretty accurate.
When 11 on 11 started, the starting D seemed to be Westbrooks, Suh, Donald, up front, Littleton, Wilson, and ? as LBs (I did not catch the edge player’s number), and Talib, Peters, Joyner, Johnson, and Robey-Coleman in the secondary. I read that both Peters and Talib would take one side of the field for their teams last year. They were not lining up that way for the Rams. They were often on the same side. Sometimes Peters was in the slot, sometimes playing man and tracking their receiver as he moved presnap.
My notes for these plays are on what I focused on so for many plays may not be what others would report about the exact same play. Remember that a) I could not see a replay, b) sometime missed things as I was taking notes and talking to the fans around me. Now there was no tackling so it maybe hard to judge things but another of my main takeaways from the practice was that there were a lot of runs up the middle for big gains. On one page of my notes (I have six pages but sort of trailed off/stopped after an hour and a half of practice), I have Kelly up the gut for a TD strength to get through plus good burst; Davis up middle nice run, Davis again big run up middle/left. On the next page I also have a big run for Brown and Kelley nice moves/burst. Gurley ran well too but I did not write those down. He did look good nonetheless.
Most of my oline commentary is on the LTs as that was right in front of me. I watched Whitworth vs. Price for a few plays. The first one Price was stood up, on the second Price got through, around Whit but as it was a running play to the right side, this may not have been a win for Price, Whit may have been letting Price take himself out of the play. The next two plays I watched, the left side of the line held up well. Since I am covering the line, I will cover the rest of my notes about the line here. At one point when Goff was in shotgun, he raised his hands to call for the ball and perhaps draw the D offsides, but the LG jumped. Unfortunately, I do not know who it was. The other times the oline was flagged before a play it was on the left side as well. When Noteboom played LT, the first play I watched he was pushed back but held his position (Hill picked Allen on that play but I did not really see it as I was not looking at that aspect of the play). On the next two plays, Noteboom stood up the DE, handed him off to the guard and then picked up the linebacker (Sickles). At this point Lucas was the RT. Late in the practice, Eldrenkamp played RT (as they were going in the other direction at that time I focused on RT). I was not taking a lot of notes by then, but I did write down that he was beat for a “sack” of Perez by Womac.
I will add more comments about the D and the receivers in a second post. It is getting late, so I will be signing off now.

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2 posts Mar 29 2024