Countdown to Camp Goff’s growth should help Rams offense in 2019

[Merlin]

Anyone thinking the Rams OL will be better without Saffold and Sullivan, at least for the first several games, is deluding themselves. The loss of Saffold will expose Whitworths' age and no way Allen recognizes and calls line play like Sully. Allen will get schooled by wiley DT vets early and often.

I hate to be a doom and gloom prognosticator, but losing a pro bowl caliber LG and a vet C who has seen everything, and replacing them with basicly 2 rookies, is bound to have numerous problems before they get it down. I expect major growing pains for the OL and Rams offense.

Saffold was elite in the run game, but only above average in pass pro. So I think the key in the overall change of two positions is that they eliminated a guy who got trucked at Center late in the season. They removed a weakness, and it's having that glaring weakness that coaches like Belichick can isolate and scheme things up to disrupt your plan.

Allen won't make line calls as well as Sully did. But I think acting like Sully is the only guy who can read a defense and make a good call is a bit ridiculous. With our coaching and preparation plus the fact that Allen had an entire season already of snaps and prep through a good portion of every week I see no reason why he can't step in well enough so that the dropoff isn't profound.

I think what we lost is elite run game effectiveness at LG but Boom should be ready to provide a similar "low dropoff" result because like Allen he received plenty of reps and practice last season through the week. That is really important. It's not like these two guys are going to "give it a shot" for the first time in camp. They've been doing it for us for a year in practice, Kromer knows what he has, and every decision the Rams have made has demonstrated their faith in those two guys.

What I expect is our OL to struggle against the more shrewd DCs. Facing a guy like Zimmer with his constant A gap threat of blitzes for example will be more difficult. But these guys are going to improve quickly IMO and as we go forward should go from solid to good players relatively quickly, barring injury.

 

[tomas]

Anyone thinking the Rams OL will be better without Saffold and Sullivan, at least for the first several games, is deluding themselves. The loss of Saffold will expose Whitworths' age and no way Allen recognizes and calls line play like Sully. Allen will get schooled by wiley DT vets early and often.

I hate to be a doom and gloom prognosticator, but losing a pro bowl caliber LG and a vet C who has seen everything, and replacing them with basicly 2 rookies, is bound to have numerous problems before they get it down. I expect major growing pains for the OL and Rams offense.

I put my trust in a Hall of Fame-caliber coach Aaron Kromer.