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Boras diving into new coordinator duties
• By Jim Thomas
http://www.stltoday.com/sports/foot...cle_6d8b19f8-55c1-5c3b-a727-5914f732f548.html
Rob Boras is sleep-deprived. More sleep-deprived than is usually the case for assistant coaches in the middle of a football season. Two days on his new job feels like a month.
“My wife’s still waiting for me to call,” Boras quipped.
Even his texts back to the home front have been streamlined to save time. “Emojis now,” Boras explained. “So you don’t have to type a whole word. I just type a heart.”
As in “I (heart) you.” Or “I (heart) offense.”
Boras found out at midday Monday he was replacing Frank Cignetti as the Rams’ offensive coordinator. Although he was given the extra title of assistant head coach/offense this season, Boras’ main responsibility since coming to St. Louis in 2012 as part of Jeff Fisher’s original Rams staff has been tight ends coach.
As such, he worked closely with only four to five players every day. Now, he’s basically responsible for half the roster — the entire offense. That’s called raising your profile. Are the players treating him any differently?
“A couple of ’em have learned my name,” Boras joked. “No, it’s a great group of guys. We all have our ups and downs, but the thing we’ve said since we’ve been here — we have really good people in the locker room. They’re willing to do what they’re asked to do. We’ve just gotta be smart to ask ’em to do the right things.”
Wednesday marked Boras’ first practice as offensive coordinator, and yes, Fisher said Boras knew where to stand.
“He did great,” Fisher said, smiling.
On Sunday against visiting Detroit, Boras will do his first play-calling since 2003, when he was offensive coordinator at the University of Nevada-Las Vegas. So there will be an adjustment period.
“I’d be lying if I said, ‘No,’” Boras said. “Yeah, there’s gonna be an adjustment. That’s part of the process and it’s not gonna be perfect. Football isn’t perfect. I’m not gonna be perfect. Plays aren’t perfect — that’s why you trust your players to move forward.”
But Fisher re-iterated Wednesday that he has no qualms about Boras’ play-calling on game day, despite his lack of experience.
“The big challenge is the game plan during the week,” Fisher said. “Getting the plays called and getting ’em in, no he’s not gonna have any difficulty. No concerns about that.”
Cignetti’s dismissal came as a total surprise, Boras said. From a player’s vantage point, it underscored the point that little is guaranteed in the NFL. Or in life.
“We’ve had a lot of eye-opening things happen on this team the last couple weeks,” Boras said. “Stedman (Bailey, who was shot recently). ‘Cig.’ All we’re guaranteed is today.”
With that in mind, the new mantra at Rams Park, Boras said, is “let’s win today.” To win Sunday, the Rams obviously must do much better on offense, in which they are at or near the bottom in several key categories. But it’s impossible to reinvent the wheel 12 games into the season. So radical changes in terms of play-calling or philosophy aren’t going to take place.
“I don’t know how much can change,” said Boras, although he did volunteer that he has some “different thoughts” when it comes to running the offense. “But at the end of the day, we’re pretty far down the road right now,” he continued. “There’s not gonna be a whole lot that’s gonna change. You hope to become more efficient. We’ve gotta try to put guys in the best position we can to make plays.
“But it can’t be a huge change — guys can’t handle that right now. We’re too far entrenched with our system to think there’s gonna be wholesale changes.”
Besides, the issues are still the issues. Third-down conversions. Completing passes. Catching passes. Opening holes in the running game. And, oh yeah, scoring points.
With all that in mind, Boras and the offensive staff started on some third-down work Tuesday night, and continued in that vein Wednesday night. The plan remains to get the ball to the team’s best playmakers — Todd Gurley and Tavon Austin — as much as possible.
Adding another layer of adjustment to Boras’ ascension is the fact that the Rams are switching quarterbacks, or re-switching QBs. Back from his concussion, Case Keenum will make his second start of the season against the Lions. Cignetti was fairly hands-off when it came to the quarterbacks, and that should be even more of the case with Boras.
“I’m not gonna pretend to go in there and be a quarterback coach,” Boras said. “Of course, I sat in the quarterback room (Wednesday) and was involved with it, but I’m not gonna sit there and correct his footwork and things like that. I mean, we have a quarterback coach (Chris Weinke) doing that.”
=============
• By Jim Thomas
http://www.stltoday.com/sports/foot...cle_6d8b19f8-55c1-5c3b-a727-5914f732f548.html
Rob Boras is sleep-deprived. More sleep-deprived than is usually the case for assistant coaches in the middle of a football season. Two days on his new job feels like a month.
“My wife’s still waiting for me to call,” Boras quipped.
Even his texts back to the home front have been streamlined to save time. “Emojis now,” Boras explained. “So you don’t have to type a whole word. I just type a heart.”
As in “I (heart) you.” Or “I (heart) offense.”
Boras found out at midday Monday he was replacing Frank Cignetti as the Rams’ offensive coordinator. Although he was given the extra title of assistant head coach/offense this season, Boras’ main responsibility since coming to St. Louis in 2012 as part of Jeff Fisher’s original Rams staff has been tight ends coach.
As such, he worked closely with only four to five players every day. Now, he’s basically responsible for half the roster — the entire offense. That’s called raising your profile. Are the players treating him any differently?
“A couple of ’em have learned my name,” Boras joked. “No, it’s a great group of guys. We all have our ups and downs, but the thing we’ve said since we’ve been here — we have really good people in the locker room. They’re willing to do what they’re asked to do. We’ve just gotta be smart to ask ’em to do the right things.”
Wednesday marked Boras’ first practice as offensive coordinator, and yes, Fisher said Boras knew where to stand.
“He did great,” Fisher said, smiling.
On Sunday against visiting Detroit, Boras will do his first play-calling since 2003, when he was offensive coordinator at the University of Nevada-Las Vegas. So there will be an adjustment period.
“I’d be lying if I said, ‘No,’” Boras said. “Yeah, there’s gonna be an adjustment. That’s part of the process and it’s not gonna be perfect. Football isn’t perfect. I’m not gonna be perfect. Plays aren’t perfect — that’s why you trust your players to move forward.”
But Fisher re-iterated Wednesday that he has no qualms about Boras’ play-calling on game day, despite his lack of experience.
“The big challenge is the game plan during the week,” Fisher said. “Getting the plays called and getting ’em in, no he’s not gonna have any difficulty. No concerns about that.”
Cignetti’s dismissal came as a total surprise, Boras said. From a player’s vantage point, it underscored the point that little is guaranteed in the NFL. Or in life.
“We’ve had a lot of eye-opening things happen on this team the last couple weeks,” Boras said. “Stedman (Bailey, who was shot recently). ‘Cig.’ All we’re guaranteed is today.”
With that in mind, the new mantra at Rams Park, Boras said, is “let’s win today.” To win Sunday, the Rams obviously must do much better on offense, in which they are at or near the bottom in several key categories. But it’s impossible to reinvent the wheel 12 games into the season. So radical changes in terms of play-calling or philosophy aren’t going to take place.
“I don’t know how much can change,” said Boras, although he did volunteer that he has some “different thoughts” when it comes to running the offense. “But at the end of the day, we’re pretty far down the road right now,” he continued. “There’s not gonna be a whole lot that’s gonna change. You hope to become more efficient. We’ve gotta try to put guys in the best position we can to make plays.
“But it can’t be a huge change — guys can’t handle that right now. We’re too far entrenched with our system to think there’s gonna be wholesale changes.”
Besides, the issues are still the issues. Third-down conversions. Completing passes. Catching passes. Opening holes in the running game. And, oh yeah, scoring points.
With all that in mind, Boras and the offensive staff started on some third-down work Tuesday night, and continued in that vein Wednesday night. The plan remains to get the ball to the team’s best playmakers — Todd Gurley and Tavon Austin — as much as possible.
Adding another layer of adjustment to Boras’ ascension is the fact that the Rams are switching quarterbacks, or re-switching QBs. Back from his concussion, Case Keenum will make his second start of the season against the Lions. Cignetti was fairly hands-off when it came to the quarterbacks, and that should be even more of the case with Boras.
“I’m not gonna pretend to go in there and be a quarterback coach,” Boras said. “Of course, I sat in the quarterback room (Wednesday) and was involved with it, but I’m not gonna sit there and correct his footwork and things like that. I mean, we have a quarterback coach (Chris Weinke) doing that.”
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