LA Champs observations on 8-17

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LACHAMP46

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8/17


I arrived to a clear, sunny and a very hot camp day to see defenders rotating through a turnover drill. The DB’s, LB’s and DL’s try to rip a football loose from various teammates. Greg Williams barking out commands. It was my first look at the Rams in person, and like last year, the image of these men is striking. TJ McDonald, Ogletree, Ayers, and, well pretty much every player looks physically imposing.

As I said, it’s a bunch of drills around the entire field. I walk from area to area. I’m looking for standouts. And I see one, it’s Greg Z. booming kicks through the goalposts. Our number 2 kicker, #1, doesn’t quite compare in leg strength. Finally I get to see some offense.

It was a bunch of players…RB’s taking handoffs from coaches. Gurley, Benny, and some #37…QB’s handing off…whistle blows and they’re off….

Wide receivers

In drills, it’s a bunch of passes from Goff, Keenum, and Mannion. Even a #2 gets a few throws in. I see Tavon, Thomas, Cooper, Quick, Britt, and North make catches. Everyone catches…Tough catches, easy catches…Nothing special. These guys are athletes. Players that impressed me were Thomas, Britt, Austin, Quick and Marquez North. Put the ball near these guys in a drill, in a tough location, and watch the crowd go, “oooh”…Duke looks pretty good too. Horn, the defensive backs come on over.

This is where it gets a lil competitive. Certain db’s on my side are Coty Sensabaugh, Joyner, #41. I also have the man known as Kenny Britt in line. There is a certain swagger about Britt. Confident and cocky. He does every rep hard. He always trying to get his feet down inbounds. True professional. And the best part, he usually wins. Sensabaugh, Joyner, whoever goes against Britt is in for a bad rep…And they know it. Marquez North is coming along too. Like, he’s picking up Britt’s energy, and he’s competing. After a while, the only db’s that stand out are Joyner, and Coty. Especially Joyner. I talked bad about those two after last game, but in drills, Joyner competes. He makes it tough. He gets his hands on some balls. Joyner LOOKS BETTER than every other player in one on one drills. Remember, one on ones are totally in the receiver’s advantage. You have to cover too much field. Most of the defenders try to “guess” the route. And they usually guess wrong. On the far side, I see #9 miss a pass, and pound his hand on the ground. He’s been playing up the, I want to compete angle…Hustling…I bet #9 plays Saturday….I catch Pharoh Cooper missing one..then next rep, he makes a corner of the end zone catch…He tells the defender about it. I look back across the field to see Mike Thomas diving in the end zone, laying out to catch a pass. Mike Thomas is a player. Then I see Duke Williams…..Duke is running a fade route, he holds the db back…like he literally holds him off with one hand, and makes a catch with the other. It was an impressive display of strength and coordination….The players celebrate with Duke by leaping up on him, twisting in the air…Horn….All in all, we have receivers…Who stood out…Britt, Thomas, Tavon, Quick, and Duke. North & Cooper can play too…But Cooper is not a natural catcher like Britt and Duke…Guys like that are made to catch red zone passes.

TE’s come over…Kendricks is built up man….Calves & Arms….Geez! Hemingway is a specimen too…I saw some drill where in one instant the TE would lay down after the catch, the other they’d run through the pass….I was disappointed that Higbee wasn’t practicing….But not surprised. Again, these are huge men, and he caught five passes last game. I know he’s still sore…Harkey was the only guy of note I remember with a drop, the other drops were by some player I couldn’t recognize…Again, defenders have little chance of success, and the ones who do just happened to guess right. Horn

Finally some scrimmaging…

Starters are the same…Keenum, Tavon, Britt, Kendricks, Gurley, somebody I’m missing….oh well, line was Robinson, Wichman, Barnes, Brown…and I’m sure it was Saffold…could be wrong… And the reason I rarely have mentioned line play is this, it’s very hard to see exactly who’s going hard, who’s really having to block. I want to preface my comments with, I don’t believe these men are playing all out. I mean, Donald isn’t really going hard. Brockers naw….Hayes & Simms….not really. Scrimmaging is watered down, the lack of intensity is startling… And I blame it on the size of these men… I could see where if some of these guys went at each other at 100%, injuries would be happening left and right…. So, Keenum hands off to Gurley, crowd goes wild….he’s fast man….Keenum throws one to the flat to Benny…Keenum throws another swing pass…Man…I didn’t see anyone throw a pass farther than 10 yards in “live” scrimmage…all day. Talk about vanilla…talk about some 7 & 9 bullshit… Look, I only know what I’d want practice to look like, and it seems we’re practicing to have problems scoring. Fisher yelled out, “:55 seconds on the clock…..”…1st team offense…they drove down to the 10 or so before time ran out….2nd team comes out. Same :55 seconds on the clock, one timeout…think Goff completed ONE pass…maybe two…but the thing is, he was locked on to his receiver to the left, play after play…I finally yelled out, “look to the other side!”…. You know, LA Champ stuff…My wife cringed, the crowd listened…Hell, I know Goff listened, he tried to look to the other side…My take, guys overwhelmed….Best arm on the team, but again, there are large and fast men out there…moving to do damage… I can see why he’s a little anxious…Maybe it’s some…I don’t know…but maybe they ARE installing some bits of the offense…Working on certain things…But to allow a young kid to constantly repeat bad techniques…and staring only to the left for 4 consecutive plays is BAD TECHNIQUE, allowing that seems counterproductive….Every pass in his :55 seconds was contested…Any NFL db is going to bait him, then pick him…My overall impression is, our offense is a work in progress…If the D-Line went hard, our offense would never move…I really want to see what the offense does against KC defense…Especially in the 1st quarter. Horn

We had a little more scrimmaging and it started getting heated, passes contested, big hits, and before the juices on these large men gets going, the final horn sounds. The linemen separate into a large group to stretch. The receivers break off and look like they’re catching passes from #2…Whatever it takes…


Final overview….I got to say I really enjoyed my time. I love football and the people it brings together…I met some ROD guys (what’s up @worldpeas ) & a RFU ( what’s up Elvis)….Beside being reminded 3 times to stay off the fence and stop taking pictures (and NO, I didn’t have a damn camera!) I think the Irvine campus is great. Stuff for kids to do. I’ll be back. For the team, lots of work needed brothers. Not going to sugar coat it. I’m reminded of Hammer….Oh, he was negative. I’ll be gentle.

Offense…What can I say? Not many passes traveled over 10-15 yards…How can you score doing that? When do you practice long passes? Keenum is like the little guy on a high school team…I don’t think we’re using Kenny Britt effectively. And that guy is a stud…He should get 100+ targets. We are focusing on passing. Everything is in shotgun. No use working on running plays while going 75%. Our 2nd unit…Goff’s unit…looks like a mess…I can’t tell what’s wrong with it…but it’s outta shape. It’s funked up…I have a buddy named 3K…He coined a phrase, “Fisherball”. And Jeff Fisher is always fucking with the offense…Always over there…Like he knows what is going on…Maybe he does…But if the offense is ground to a halt, look at Fisher…then Boras, and then Groh….If Goff gets in the end zone this week, everybody can rag on Champ…But, I don’t see Goff leading the team to the end zone. Not this week. I don’t see Keenum either…I expect Mannion to though…Mannion is throwing to Duke, and Thomas, and North….Those guys could start for me and are not the average 3rd stringers….They’ll have the advantage…

Defense…Big ass men….but they don’t really hit. I expect these guys to play better, but still be behind opponents. I did see tighter coverage on the outside. I think I saw Troy Hill on the 2nd team….I did see EJ Gaines…Wearing all white gear….I don’t think I saw him move full speed all day. He was lined up with the starters…Cody Davis started…Mo may be hurt…Barron wasn’t out there either…#50…think that’s Lynch, replace Mark Barron. Say uh-oh…say it like Scooby Doo, ruh-roh….


Players that popped. Kenny Britt. I have been tooting Quick’s horn. He’s like the padawan, Kenny’s the Jedi…No shit, Kenny is the real deal, The guy that reminds me of Kenny the most? Duke Williams. future pro, on this team or the next. he’s just better than the db’s that are sticking him. Strong man. Just like Britt.…Also watch out for Roberson & Hill to make some plays this weekend. Hell, look out for that Joyner & Sensabaugh tandem to really make amends. Joyner is a little guy…But he’s a try hard guy…He’s still getting beat though…But I respect him….Watch out for Mike Thomas…He’s always diving on the ground. Catching passes. He’s exciting to watch in person. I really like him more than Cooper. Cooper is not bad…shifty player…but not a stud. You know who also looked good? Marquez North…He pops. Dude made some really nice catches in drills. I see him getting some time. The #9 guy from U of Arizona…The guy off hard knocks, the one that was mad he didn’t get in the game…Look for him to play a lil….Don’t know about him. He competes hard…Or rather, reacts hard…Slams fist to the ground on every missed play…every single one. Look for that on the next hard knocks….he makes me think he’s acting…lol…Look for Tavon…I think they’re going to Britt & Quick this game….More than Tavon…But if Tavon gets one, he’s going to try to go to the house…He did that in the scrimmage today. Flew across the field. He is fast. Quick is considerably smaller than Britt now..IDK…Look for him to get considerable action on Saturday too. Last player that popped to me was Kendricks. He saw a lot of action in the 11 on 11’s. In fact, besides the backs, the TE’s received the most targets. Kendricks, Hemingway, and that Justice Cunningham. Benny’s big brother…Naw, that guy looks good. Our TE’s look good.

Players that pooped…Well, QB’s….they didn’t throw the ball…Maybe they don’t want to do that in front of the fans…You know…Spies…Put that camera down! I’m sure Pete Carrol & Bruce Arians send down spies in all white Rams gear…because…you know the Rams are SOOOO GOOOOD!.... ahahhahahahah But if Keenum is going to get any better, shouldn’t he like, you know, press the ball downfield a lil? In practice? I couldn’t imagine Brett Farve down here…He’d go crazy. Mannion & Goff have pretty decent arms too…Maybe this was swing practice Wednesday? Can’t say anyone really did badly. Just the lack of intensity, but I understand. Too many huge men. Goff…man…IDK….

My wife’s Facebook page notified her that a year ago today, we went to the Oxnard camp to watch the rams. Missed the fight by one day..dagnabit. I saw the Chase Reynolds fight today. Chase came up after his run with an uppercut to the guy still barking at him. Is Chase feeling some pressure?…I think I’ll go again next week. I hope I can get better, just like our Rams.
 

Gilley

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Thanks for the report, but good Lord I hate training camp. A lot of the reports on Goff are so conflicting.
 

Dieter the Brock

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Great stuff - curious who tree the pass to Duke that he caught with one hand ?
QB's couldn't have been that bad...
 

Dxmissile

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@LACHAMP46 loved reading about your observations from camp.. im glad to hear Joyner and Sensabaugh are stepping it up. I think this preseason game is going to be huge for the 2nd and 3rd stringers we really get to see our depth because the cheifs have some excellent depth players as well.
 

Dxmissile

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Thanks for the report, but good Lord I hate training camp. A lot of the reports on Goff are so conflicting.

I think its just the days its normal for a rookie to have up and down practices. Im sure he still made some good throws though.
 

…..

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great write up. Very interesting take on Britt and his swagger. Add a new question mark to Cooper.
 

DaveFan'51

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It was a bunch of players…RB’s taking handoffs from coaches. Gurley, Benny, and some #37…QB’s handing off…whistle blows and they’re off….
#37 is supposed to be McGee If I'm not mistaken.
I see #9 miss a pass, and pound his hand on the ground. He’s been playing up the, I want to compete angle…Hustling…I bet #9 plays Saturday
You really have me wonder who #9 is , I'll have to check! It Could be Austin Hill or Maybe Duke Williams! IDK!
I see Tavon, Thomas, Cooper, Quick, Britt, and North make catches. Everyone catches…Tough catches, easy catches…Nothing special. These guys are athletes. Players that impressed me were Thomas, Britt, Austin, Quick and Marquez North.
I'm really interested in seeing more of North He's been my 'Dark-Horse' To make the Team!

Real nice Report Champ!! Great Read! Got me Hyped the way you ended it with a Fight!!(y):boxing::popcorn::snicker::shades:
 

DaveFan'51

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@LACHAMP46 .. I just checked, and two of the players you spoke of bt their number are #41 DB - Jabriel Washington and #9 is Austin Hill!
Which brings up a question, I'm now confused about .. Which Hill on the Team, Austin or Troy is the Son of Former Ram David Hill!?
#81 David Hill.jpg
I heard this on the last episode of Hard Knocks, But I don't want to take the time to re-watch the whole show, right now, to find out the answer!
 

LACHAMP46

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Thanks for the report, but good Lord I hate training camp. A lot of the reports on Goff are so conflicting.
Goff can throw...what he can't really do is see the field. He's like me, too much stuff to really see it all. Well, Goff is just focused on, left side of field, throw to back in flat...Left side of field, throw to TE...you do that enough, the defense on the left side is looking for that...and could break up the play...it makes whichever receiver is going out, it makes his task of catching the ball, that much harder. He's not looking for the open man...he's just looking for THAT man...or these 2 men on THIS side...looks nothing like you'd see in the game from good QB's...it's almost like plays are scripted, and Goff is told, "throw it here" and Goff throws it there...no matter what's going on....

Great stuff - curious who tree the pass to Duke that he caught with one hand ?
QB's couldn't have been that bad...
Don't quote me, but I think it was Mannion....or Keenum...they rotate...And the lines are on different sides of the field...Quick, Duke, and looked like Thomas and Tavon were on that side...It was really an impressive catch. And all the wide receivers were pumped up. Jumping on him...chest bumping...QB's...with no pressure in a one on one drill, they have all the time to make perfect throws. Receivers have basically the whole field to make a move...For a defender to make a play, they have to guess right...It's much different to complete a pass in 7 on 7....And it looked almost impossible to complete passes in 11 on 11....the full team drills...we never scored..Feel me?

You really have me wonder who #9 is , I'll have to check! It Could be Austin Hill
It has to be Austin Hill...the guy from Hard Knocks....

Which Hill on the Team, Austin or Troy is the Son of Former Ram David Hill!?
Austin....and...he doesn't have the hands of his daddy...good athlete...but..he's not there yet...and he's got limited opportunities...
 

DaveFan'51

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Goff can throw...what he can't really do is see the field. He's like me, too much stuff to really see it all. Well, Goff is just focused on, left side of field, throw to back in flat...Left side of field, throw to TE...you do that enough, the defense on the left side is looking for that...and could break up the play...it makes whichever receiver is going out, it makes his task of catching the ball, that much harder. He's not looking for the open man...he's just looking for THAT man...or these 2 men on THIS side...looks nothing like you'd see in the game from good QB's...it's almost like plays are scripted, and Goff is told, "throw it here" and Goff throws it there...no matter what's going on....

Don't quote me, but I think it was Mannion....or Keenum...they rotate...And the lines are on different sides of the field...Quick, Duke, and looked like Thomas and Tavon were on that side...It was really an impressive catch. And all the wide receivers were pumped up. Jumping on him...chest bumping...QB's...with no pressure in a one on one drill, they have all the time to make perfect throws. Receivers have basically the whole field to make a move...For a defender to make a play, they have to guess right...It's much different to complete a pass in 7 on 7....And it looked almost impossible to complete passes in 11 on 11....the full team drills...we never scored..Feel me?

It has to be Austin Hill...the guy from Hard Knocks....

Austin....and...he doesn't have the hands of his daddy...good athlete...but..he's not there yet...and he's got limited opportunities...
I think it would be real cool to have a Former Rams Son make the Team!!(y)(y)
 

LACHAMP46

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From what I heard, Goff had a great day..
Ask anyone that saw these guys scrimmage....If that's great, I'd hate to see awful....We ran some 2 minute type offense from the 50 yard line...neither offense (1's or 2's) scored...Goff's unit barely moved...maybe completed 2 passes. No where near the end zone. I don't have any comparison other than the game...and he looked similar....that is, nowhere near scoring...maybe if Pharoh catches that pass...he looked better against Dallas than our defense on Wednesday. Again, this is my opinion.
 

LACHAMP46

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I think it would be real cool to have a Former Rams Son make the Team!!
Slim and none on chances to make the 53...PS....I don't know...I bet he plays Saturday...Getting targeted? don't go crazy expecting that...
 

SteveBrown

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"But Cooper is not a natural catcher like Britt and Duke"-hmmmm interesting.

Best report since Hammer days....thanks a lot for your effort! Ya, I believe Fisher is paralyzing the offense.
Watch the old Titans: TE always was #1 receiver. QB makes safe throws: McNair, Collins and Young....very little anticipation in the throws.

Goff needs some time. So did Brady and Manning. I am not worried about him in 2017.
 

Dagonet

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Great read Champ. Good job man. I've loved reading yours and Bubba's observations. Mostly glad you cats have had fun at camp. Keep them coming if you can. Much appreciated. (y)
 

bubbaramfan

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Thx champ. Getting TC reports form different folks every day brings a different perspective every day. I really like that. Keep reading the same thing I saw on Tues. Pharoh Cooper looks soft. Hope the 4th rounder steps it up.
 

Ram65

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Goff can throw...what he can't really do is see the field. He's like me, too much stuff to really see it all. Well, Goff is just focused on, left side of field, throw to back in flat...Left side of field, throw to TE...you do that enough, the defense on the left side is looking for that...and could break up the play...it makes whichever receiver is going out, it makes his task of catching the ball, that much harder. He's not looking for the open man...he's just looking for THAT man...or these 2 men on THIS side...looks nothing like you'd see in the game from good QB's...it's almost like plays are scripted, and Goff is told, "throw it here" and Goff throws it there...no matter what's going on....

Great report! Enjoyed a meal while reading it.

Could be they were working on plays to that side of the field by design. Sometimes coaches do that and defenses know it. Could be just hoping on my part. The lack of deep throws could also be be design. As you mentioned they could be waiting for closed practice.
 

Roman Snow

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Thx champ. Getting TC reports form different folks every day brings a different perspective every day. I really like that. Keep reading the same thing I saw on Tues. Pharoh Cooper looks soft. Hope the 4th rounder steps it up.

This has been a really puzzling turnaround on Cooper.

He was the talk of the town in OTAs and early camp. Now, it's like he is a pariah. I think the truth may be somewhere in the middle.