- Joined
- Jul 31, 2010
- Messages
- 8,874
Putting family first is Rams’ policy
• By Jim Thomas
http://www.stltoday.com/sports/foot...cle_05321b79-e9b7-55a6-b1bc-b6c8d78931c7.html
Some things are more important than football — even NFL football. So when defensive end William Hayes lost his grandmother the night before the Rams’ Nov. 30 contest with Oakland, coach Jeff Fisher was more than understanding.
Hayes played in that 52-0 victory, but after the game he headed home to North Carolina to be with his family for the funeral.
Hayes said his grandmother was “my baby — my best friend. Me and my parents are very close, too. She was just a different type person.”
Fisher learned that first-hand.
“He knew how much my grandma meant to me,” Hayes said. “He’s had plenty of conversations with her. She loved Coach Fisher; she thought they were married.
“She met him the first time this year face-to-face. But Coach Fisher and my grandma talked probably once a month. She’d be like, ‘Where’s my husband?’ She was so serious, it wasn’t like a joking thing. ... So it was pretty awesome.”
When Grandma was on the phone, Hayes would come upstairs to Fisher’s office.
“And even with my door shut, he’d open it, and he’d have her on his phone and we’d Face Time,” Fisher said.
(Face Time is a form of video call or video conference.)
What would they talk about?
“She just wanted to make sure that William was behaving,” Fisher said, smiling.
Even without the familiarity, sending a player home for the better part of a week is not an issue for Fisher under such circumstances.
“We just feel that those things are more important than what we’re doing,” Fisher said. “Losses of loved ones — I think they need to go spend time and be able to grieve and put things in perspective, and spend time with their family.”
A similar thing happened a week earlier to reserve defensive end Eugene Sims. After Sims lost his mother a year ago, Sims’ father died just a few weeks ago. Sims missed the practice week leading up to the Oakland game, returning the Saturday night before that contest.
“Eugene did a real nice job when he came back,” Fisher said. “It speaks a lot, too, for both of them to be able to play at a high level without the preparation time.”
Fisher presented Sims and Hayes with game balls after the Oakland game. Sims is having it decorated with his father’s name, Calvert Sanders, on it.
“He wasn’t around when I was young, but I forgave him when he flew out to see us play at Arizona,” Sims said.
That was 4½ weeks ago. Now, with the Cardinals coming to town for Thursday night football, his father is gone. He passed away Nov. 24, the Monday of Oakland week.
Last week, while in North Carolina with his family, Hayes made sure he studied and worked out. He communicated with defensive line coach Mike Waufle every day.
“Even with Eugene Sims the week before, I put all my (film) cutups that I do for the run and for our pass-rush,” Waufle said. “I put them on the iPad as soon as I can during the week anyway so they can study them at home.”
Sims and Hayes both had a trainer to work with them in their hometowns, as well as someone to work with on technique.
“They both played really well,” Waufle said. “That’s the thing that I was surprised with, because neither one of them really had practice time, and they both went out there and performed really well.”
Even with the time to grieve, it was tough to leave home and come back to the team.
“Yeah, it was probably one of the hardest things I ever had to do,” Hayes said. “I was just telling the guys, you lay your best friend in the ground, then you’ve gotta come (back to work). It was very rough.”
But Hayes is grateful that Fisher allowed him to get away.
“It means a lot, Hayes said. “I was gonna come in earlier (last) week and he was like, ‘Just take your time and cope with everything.’ I needed it, because I would have been no good here. It speaks volumes of how great of a man he is.”
Against Washington, Hayes registered his fourth sack of the season, and according to unofficial press box stats, had two tackles for loss. His playing time has decreased the past two games now that Chris Long is back from foot surgery. But before that, he started 10 consecutive games while Long was sidelined and played a lot.
Long, in fact, thanked Hayes for holding down the left defensive end spot until Long returned to action against the Raiders.
“Because he’d never played so many snaps in his life,” Long said. “He said he felt like he was 40 years old all of a sudden. I just personally wanted to thank him because he’s been my guy through it all, and not only supported me but was there taking the reps, and the extra load on game day. And played well.”
Entering Thursday’s game against Arizona, Hayes’ 64 tackles leads all Rams defensive linemen, and is the second highest total of his career, which began in 2008 with Fisher in Tennessee. Besides his four sacks, he has a team-high 35 quarterback pressures, plus a forced fumble and fumble recovery.
After an offseason that included three operations, it took a while for Hayes, 29, to get going in the regular season. But the seventh-year pro from Winston-Salem State has shown once again why he has been perhaps the Rams’ top free-agent pickup in the three seasons of the Fisher-Les Snead regime.
“He’s played well,” Fisher said. “He missed the (training) camp and the offseason with the multiple surgeries, but he’s been steady for us. He’s really good against the run. With Chris being down, he stepped up. His numbers have increased. And to come up with a sack (Sunday) after what he went through is pretty impressive.”
No doubt, Grandma would be proud.
==========
• By Jim Thomas
http://www.stltoday.com/sports/foot...cle_05321b79-e9b7-55a6-b1bc-b6c8d78931c7.html
Some things are more important than football — even NFL football. So when defensive end William Hayes lost his grandmother the night before the Rams’ Nov. 30 contest with Oakland, coach Jeff Fisher was more than understanding.
Hayes played in that 52-0 victory, but after the game he headed home to North Carolina to be with his family for the funeral.
Hayes said his grandmother was “my baby — my best friend. Me and my parents are very close, too. She was just a different type person.”
Fisher learned that first-hand.
“He knew how much my grandma meant to me,” Hayes said. “He’s had plenty of conversations with her. She loved Coach Fisher; she thought they were married.
“She met him the first time this year face-to-face. But Coach Fisher and my grandma talked probably once a month. She’d be like, ‘Where’s my husband?’ She was so serious, it wasn’t like a joking thing. ... So it was pretty awesome.”
When Grandma was on the phone, Hayes would come upstairs to Fisher’s office.
“And even with my door shut, he’d open it, and he’d have her on his phone and we’d Face Time,” Fisher said.
(Face Time is a form of video call or video conference.)
What would they talk about?
“She just wanted to make sure that William was behaving,” Fisher said, smiling.
Even without the familiarity, sending a player home for the better part of a week is not an issue for Fisher under such circumstances.
“We just feel that those things are more important than what we’re doing,” Fisher said. “Losses of loved ones — I think they need to go spend time and be able to grieve and put things in perspective, and spend time with their family.”
A similar thing happened a week earlier to reserve defensive end Eugene Sims. After Sims lost his mother a year ago, Sims’ father died just a few weeks ago. Sims missed the practice week leading up to the Oakland game, returning the Saturday night before that contest.
“Eugene did a real nice job when he came back,” Fisher said. “It speaks a lot, too, for both of them to be able to play at a high level without the preparation time.”
Fisher presented Sims and Hayes with game balls after the Oakland game. Sims is having it decorated with his father’s name, Calvert Sanders, on it.
“He wasn’t around when I was young, but I forgave him when he flew out to see us play at Arizona,” Sims said.
That was 4½ weeks ago. Now, with the Cardinals coming to town for Thursday night football, his father is gone. He passed away Nov. 24, the Monday of Oakland week.
Last week, while in North Carolina with his family, Hayes made sure he studied and worked out. He communicated with defensive line coach Mike Waufle every day.
“Even with Eugene Sims the week before, I put all my (film) cutups that I do for the run and for our pass-rush,” Waufle said. “I put them on the iPad as soon as I can during the week anyway so they can study them at home.”
Sims and Hayes both had a trainer to work with them in their hometowns, as well as someone to work with on technique.
“They both played really well,” Waufle said. “That’s the thing that I was surprised with, because neither one of them really had practice time, and they both went out there and performed really well.”
Even with the time to grieve, it was tough to leave home and come back to the team.
“Yeah, it was probably one of the hardest things I ever had to do,” Hayes said. “I was just telling the guys, you lay your best friend in the ground, then you’ve gotta come (back to work). It was very rough.”
But Hayes is grateful that Fisher allowed him to get away.
“It means a lot, Hayes said. “I was gonna come in earlier (last) week and he was like, ‘Just take your time and cope with everything.’ I needed it, because I would have been no good here. It speaks volumes of how great of a man he is.”
Against Washington, Hayes registered his fourth sack of the season, and according to unofficial press box stats, had two tackles for loss. His playing time has decreased the past two games now that Chris Long is back from foot surgery. But before that, he started 10 consecutive games while Long was sidelined and played a lot.
Long, in fact, thanked Hayes for holding down the left defensive end spot until Long returned to action against the Raiders.
“Because he’d never played so many snaps in his life,” Long said. “He said he felt like he was 40 years old all of a sudden. I just personally wanted to thank him because he’s been my guy through it all, and not only supported me but was there taking the reps, and the extra load on game day. And played well.”
Entering Thursday’s game against Arizona, Hayes’ 64 tackles leads all Rams defensive linemen, and is the second highest total of his career, which began in 2008 with Fisher in Tennessee. Besides his four sacks, he has a team-high 35 quarterback pressures, plus a forced fumble and fumble recovery.
After an offseason that included three operations, it took a while for Hayes, 29, to get going in the regular season. But the seventh-year pro from Winston-Salem State has shown once again why he has been perhaps the Rams’ top free-agent pickup in the three seasons of the Fisher-Les Snead regime.
“He’s played well,” Fisher said. “He missed the (training) camp and the offseason with the multiple surgeries, but he’s been steady for us. He’s really good against the run. With Chris being down, he stepped up. His numbers have increased. And to come up with a sack (Sunday) after what he went through is pretty impressive.”
No doubt, Grandma would be proud.
==========
