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My favorite parts are bolded (and so appropriate for the PD)
While he tries not to beat you over the head with it, Jeff Fisher wants you to know how much he loves seeing Sam Bradford in his huddle. A day rarely goes by since taking over as the Rams' coach when Fisher does not understand what sort of young quarterback he has to work with.
He knew it when he looked at old game tapes of Bradford's first two NFL seasons, knew it when they had their first face-to-face meeting, and merely gained confirmation when he watched Bradford flinging darts all around the practice field and barking out plays in the huddle at minicamp last week.
And just in case you didn't know, he tends to drop an unsolicited compliment to the kid every chance he gets, like last week after the first minicamp practice when someone asked the coach a question about teaching the new system to his players.
"Yeah, they got it down," Fisher said. "And by the way, No. 8 looks pretty good in there, too."
It was not a throwaway line. It was a deliberate message.
Unlike some of the incurable idiots on the Internet and other assorted understudies at Short Attention Span Theater, Fisher understands that his third-year quarterback — the No.1 pick in the 2010 NFL draft — simply is the most important piece of the rebuilding puzzle for this franchise.
While football towns such as Indianapolis and Washington are giddy over the prospects of rookie QBs Andrew Luck and Robert Griffin III becoming franchise cornerstones when the first round of this year's NFL draft is held on Thursday night, there also is a buzz around Rams Park about the fact that they already have their franchise player in place.
Now all they have to do is spend this draft weekend picking up all the right pieces to build around Bradford.
In 1998, Bill Polian was the new general manager of the Colts when he drafted Peyton Manning with the No.1 pick and then spent the next 14 years carefully doing everything he could to make sure Manning could become the great quarterback the organization was convinced he could be. So who better to listen to than Polian to know what an intelligent draft strategy should look like for a team with a top-gun young QB in the fold? There are few people in football smarter than Polian, and he has the résumé to prove it. He has helped build or was the primary architect of playoff and championship-caliber teams in Carolina, Buffalo and Indy and now in semiretirement is an analyst for ESPN.
Last week Polian laid out the blueprint he used in Indy to build around Manning and I think it's one Fisher and general manager Les Snead will follow this weekend with their first NFL draft at Rams Park.
"You have to try and give (a young franchise quarterback) an offense that is capable of A.) protecting him and B.) taking some of the load off him," Pollian said. "If you look at Peyton's career, every rookie quarterback struggles and quarterbacks are not comfortable until after about their fourth year. In their first year, they're simply flummoxed by the speed of the game and the complexity of it. They just barely survive. After an offseason they begin to learn what the game is all about. In the second year, they learn what the defense is trying to do to them. In the third year, they learn what they can do to the defense. In the fourth year, they're now capable of how to control an offense (and how) to manipulate a defense. That's the progression.
"It doesn't matter if it's Peyton Manning or Tom Brady or someone else, they all go through that progression.
"Now the one real detriment to that progression is if you can't protect him and that carries with it two factors: he has to have someone to catch the ball and he has to have people to block, and it would certainly help if he has a running game," Pollian said. "So the priority has to be putting people around him so that he can function and stay healthy."
Last year, the Rams did not keep Bradford healthy. He's been sacked 70 times in two seasons and was battered and bruised nearly all of last year, missing six games due to a high ankle sprain that didn't fully heal until March 1. The reason he was beaten up so badly?
See the previous paragraph about having someone to catch the ball and people to keep the quarterback off his back.
Upgrades at receiver and reconstructing parts of the offensive line are major offseason priorities, and with good reason. As Polian points out, ruining a young quarterback because of injuries is a fear of every GM and coach in the NFL.
"Every one of us in this business who does it or did it for a living is haunted by the specter of Jim Plunkett," said Polian. "(He) had nothing around him in his early years and ended up being injured and didn't end up reaching his potential until much later in his career because of it. You don't want that to occur. What that means is that you have to make a priority to put those kind of people around him."
The fun for the Rams only starts on Thursday night with the likelihood that Oklahoma State wide receiver Justin Blackmon will be the first piece of that offensive puzzle. On Friday, that's when it really starts to get interesting with those two very valuable second-round picks (Nos. 33 and 39 overall) plus the second pick in the third round. The Rams will have three of the first 31 picks on Day 2, and that's when you'll really begin to understand how committed Fisher and Snead are to following the old Colts blueprint.
After Blackmon, will they go with another receiver, a tight end, or begin collecting a few big bodies who can serve as additional protection for Bradford (like, say, Wisconsin 6-3, 322-pound mauler Kevin Zeitler at guard)?
And when faced with the prospect of picking someone who might strengthen your defense rather than continuing to collect even more offensive players?
Pollian's answer was provided without hesitation. Go with the offense every time.
"If you have a young quarterback and you want him to develop," he said, "that's what you have to do."
Read more: http://www.stltoday.com/sports/columns/ ... z1sl993hyW
While he tries not to beat you over the head with it, Jeff Fisher wants you to know how much he loves seeing Sam Bradford in his huddle. A day rarely goes by since taking over as the Rams' coach when Fisher does not understand what sort of young quarterback he has to work with.
He knew it when he looked at old game tapes of Bradford's first two NFL seasons, knew it when they had their first face-to-face meeting, and merely gained confirmation when he watched Bradford flinging darts all around the practice field and barking out plays in the huddle at minicamp last week.
And just in case you didn't know, he tends to drop an unsolicited compliment to the kid every chance he gets, like last week after the first minicamp practice when someone asked the coach a question about teaching the new system to his players.
"Yeah, they got it down," Fisher said. "And by the way, No. 8 looks pretty good in there, too."
It was not a throwaway line. It was a deliberate message.
Unlike some of the incurable idiots on the Internet and other assorted understudies at Short Attention Span Theater, Fisher understands that his third-year quarterback — the No.1 pick in the 2010 NFL draft — simply is the most important piece of the rebuilding puzzle for this franchise.
While football towns such as Indianapolis and Washington are giddy over the prospects of rookie QBs Andrew Luck and Robert Griffin III becoming franchise cornerstones when the first round of this year's NFL draft is held on Thursday night, there also is a buzz around Rams Park about the fact that they already have their franchise player in place.
Now all they have to do is spend this draft weekend picking up all the right pieces to build around Bradford.
In 1998, Bill Polian was the new general manager of the Colts when he drafted Peyton Manning with the No.1 pick and then spent the next 14 years carefully doing everything he could to make sure Manning could become the great quarterback the organization was convinced he could be. So who better to listen to than Polian to know what an intelligent draft strategy should look like for a team with a top-gun young QB in the fold? There are few people in football smarter than Polian, and he has the résumé to prove it. He has helped build or was the primary architect of playoff and championship-caliber teams in Carolina, Buffalo and Indy and now in semiretirement is an analyst for ESPN.
Last week Polian laid out the blueprint he used in Indy to build around Manning and I think it's one Fisher and general manager Les Snead will follow this weekend with their first NFL draft at Rams Park.
"You have to try and give (a young franchise quarterback) an offense that is capable of A.) protecting him and B.) taking some of the load off him," Pollian said. "If you look at Peyton's career, every rookie quarterback struggles and quarterbacks are not comfortable until after about their fourth year. In their first year, they're simply flummoxed by the speed of the game and the complexity of it. They just barely survive. After an offseason they begin to learn what the game is all about. In the second year, they learn what the defense is trying to do to them. In the third year, they learn what they can do to the defense. In the fourth year, they're now capable of how to control an offense (and how) to manipulate a defense. That's the progression.
"It doesn't matter if it's Peyton Manning or Tom Brady or someone else, they all go through that progression.
"Now the one real detriment to that progression is if you can't protect him and that carries with it two factors: he has to have someone to catch the ball and he has to have people to block, and it would certainly help if he has a running game," Pollian said. "So the priority has to be putting people around him so that he can function and stay healthy."
Last year, the Rams did not keep Bradford healthy. He's been sacked 70 times in two seasons and was battered and bruised nearly all of last year, missing six games due to a high ankle sprain that didn't fully heal until March 1. The reason he was beaten up so badly?
See the previous paragraph about having someone to catch the ball and people to keep the quarterback off his back.
Upgrades at receiver and reconstructing parts of the offensive line are major offseason priorities, and with good reason. As Polian points out, ruining a young quarterback because of injuries is a fear of every GM and coach in the NFL.
"Every one of us in this business who does it or did it for a living is haunted by the specter of Jim Plunkett," said Polian. "(He) had nothing around him in his early years and ended up being injured and didn't end up reaching his potential until much later in his career because of it. You don't want that to occur. What that means is that you have to make a priority to put those kind of people around him."
The fun for the Rams only starts on Thursday night with the likelihood that Oklahoma State wide receiver Justin Blackmon will be the first piece of that offensive puzzle. On Friday, that's when it really starts to get interesting with those two very valuable second-round picks (Nos. 33 and 39 overall) plus the second pick in the third round. The Rams will have three of the first 31 picks on Day 2, and that's when you'll really begin to understand how committed Fisher and Snead are to following the old Colts blueprint.
After Blackmon, will they go with another receiver, a tight end, or begin collecting a few big bodies who can serve as additional protection for Bradford (like, say, Wisconsin 6-3, 322-pound mauler Kevin Zeitler at guard)?
And when faced with the prospect of picking someone who might strengthen your defense rather than continuing to collect even more offensive players?
Pollian's answer was provided without hesitation. Go with the offense every time.
"If you have a young quarterback and you want him to develop," he said, "that's what you have to do."
Read more: http://www.stltoday.com/sports/columns/ ... z1sl993hyW
