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Rhaney is next man up for battered O-line
• By Jim Thomas
http://www.stltoday.com/sports/foot...cle_df96bcf5-9cf8-51bd-b00b-530daf39f0c5.html
He was one of the surprises of training camp, a quick, athletic interior lineman who came close to winning a starting job from out of nowhere on the depth chart.
As it turned out, Demetrius Rhaney didn’t win the starting center job; it went to University of Missouri product Tim Barnes instead. Nonetheless, Rhaney became more than the answer to the trivia question: Who did the Rams take in the seventh round after Michael Sam in 2014?
The word at Rams Park was that with a year of getting bigger and stronger, Rhaney could earn a starting job in the future and perhaps become a fixture on the offensive line for years to come. But unlike many other positions in football, if you’re not a starter on the O-line then you’re not playing at all, except maybe as a blocker on the extra point/field goal unit on special teams.
So as the regular season progressed, Rhaney faded into the background, a forgotten man. Until now, that is.
As the injury bug continues to spread on the offensive line, Rhaney will make his first NFL start Sunday against Cincinnati.
“I finished the preseason playing guard, Timmy won the starting spot,” Rhaney said. “He earned it. He’d been here. He was more mentally ready for it. So I just stepped back and kept taking the mental reps and waited for my number to be called.”
Rhaney became the next man up early in the second quarter last week against Baltimore when rookie Andrew Donnal suffered a knee injury. Donnal is expected to miss several weeks with an MCL injury, giving Rhaney a chance to start at guard.
Although he has gotten most of his practice reps at center, Rhaney did get some work at left guard in training camp, including practicing against Dallas during the Rams’ practices in Oxnard, Calif.
“I’m pretty comfortable anywhere in the middle,” said Rhaney, taken 250th overall out of Tennessee State. He missed the entire ’14 season after suffering a knee injury on the practice field in training camp.
Once Donnal went down in Baltimore, Rhaney finished out the game at right guard, playing basically three quarters.
“It felt pretty good,” Rhaney said. “Mentally I was locked in. No mental mistakes. My technique could’ve been better, but this week it looks like I’m gonna be starting at left guard. So technique should be a lot better this week. That’s the main thing I’m focusing on improving.”
Baltimore has a stout defensive front, but Rhaney said things went better than expected against the Ravens’ Timmy Jernigan.
“From watching film I thought Jernigan was gonna be a handful,” Rhaney said. “I thought he was gonna be similar to Aaron Donald. But he (wasn’t). The biggest problem for me was the nose guard. It was 98.”
That would be Brandon Williams, a mammoth of a defensive tackle who played his high school ball at Rockwood Summit in suburban St. Louis.
“He beat me across my face one play and got to Todd Gurley in the backfield,” Rhaney said of Williams. “We got to the sideline I told Coach Boo, ‘I gotta cut him. That’s a grown man out there.’”
(Coach Boo is offensive line coach Paul Boudreau.)
As for attempting to block Williams, the above play that Rhaney described was his welcome-to-the-NFL moment.
“Yeah, it was a rude awakening,” Rhaney said.
As he watched the game unfold from the sideline, coach Jeff Fisher said he was “a little concerned” with Rhaney’s play.
“But when you watch the tape, he got it done,” Fisher said. “Those guys are big inside and they’re penetrators. He gave up a play, but he battled in there.”
There will be another challenge this week for Rhaney and the rest of the Rams’ interior offensive line against the 8-2 Bengals and a front headlined by one of the game’s top “3-technique” defensive tackles, Geno Atkins.
“They’re pretty good,” Rhaney said. “But we practice against one of the best, too, every week. You got Aaron Donald, Michael Brockers, Robert Quinn. We practice against the best, so they shouldn’t be too much to handle.”
Rhaney will be the ninth Rams offensive lineman to start a game this season, as the injuries continue to pile up. Three offensive linemen are out for the season: Rodger Saffold, Jamon Brown, and Darrell Williams. Two others — Donnal and Rob Havenstein — are out with injury but still on the active roster.
Rookie Cody Wichmann, a sixth-rounder from Fresno State, became the eighth Rams offensive lineman to start a game, doing so last week in Baltimore. With Rhaney set to start at left guard, and Wichmann at right guard, the Rams will start their fourth different line combination in the past five weeks.
Hardly the way to build the kind of continuity essential to strong offensive line play. Left tackle Greg Robinson and center Tim Barnes are the only opening-day starters still standing on the offensive line at this point.
“We’ve been working all season as the second-team unit to get our shot,” Wichmann said. “And finally getting out there and seeing what we can actually do in a live situation, it’s a weight off the shoulders.”
Wichmann had his own welcome to the NFL moment (or two) last week against the Ravens.
“I might’ve got put on my butt once or so,” Wichmann said. “Definitely things to work on. Just technique here and there. Keeping the feet moving and what-not. You gotta use you experiences and build off those.”
• By Jim Thomas
http://www.stltoday.com/sports/foot...cle_df96bcf5-9cf8-51bd-b00b-530daf39f0c5.html
He was one of the surprises of training camp, a quick, athletic interior lineman who came close to winning a starting job from out of nowhere on the depth chart.
As it turned out, Demetrius Rhaney didn’t win the starting center job; it went to University of Missouri product Tim Barnes instead. Nonetheless, Rhaney became more than the answer to the trivia question: Who did the Rams take in the seventh round after Michael Sam in 2014?
The word at Rams Park was that with a year of getting bigger and stronger, Rhaney could earn a starting job in the future and perhaps become a fixture on the offensive line for years to come. But unlike many other positions in football, if you’re not a starter on the O-line then you’re not playing at all, except maybe as a blocker on the extra point/field goal unit on special teams.
So as the regular season progressed, Rhaney faded into the background, a forgotten man. Until now, that is.
As the injury bug continues to spread on the offensive line, Rhaney will make his first NFL start Sunday against Cincinnati.
“I finished the preseason playing guard, Timmy won the starting spot,” Rhaney said. “He earned it. He’d been here. He was more mentally ready for it. So I just stepped back and kept taking the mental reps and waited for my number to be called.”
Rhaney became the next man up early in the second quarter last week against Baltimore when rookie Andrew Donnal suffered a knee injury. Donnal is expected to miss several weeks with an MCL injury, giving Rhaney a chance to start at guard.
Although he has gotten most of his practice reps at center, Rhaney did get some work at left guard in training camp, including practicing against Dallas during the Rams’ practices in Oxnard, Calif.
“I’m pretty comfortable anywhere in the middle,” said Rhaney, taken 250th overall out of Tennessee State. He missed the entire ’14 season after suffering a knee injury on the practice field in training camp.
Once Donnal went down in Baltimore, Rhaney finished out the game at right guard, playing basically three quarters.
“It felt pretty good,” Rhaney said. “Mentally I was locked in. No mental mistakes. My technique could’ve been better, but this week it looks like I’m gonna be starting at left guard. So technique should be a lot better this week. That’s the main thing I’m focusing on improving.”
Baltimore has a stout defensive front, but Rhaney said things went better than expected against the Ravens’ Timmy Jernigan.
“From watching film I thought Jernigan was gonna be a handful,” Rhaney said. “I thought he was gonna be similar to Aaron Donald. But he (wasn’t). The biggest problem for me was the nose guard. It was 98.”
That would be Brandon Williams, a mammoth of a defensive tackle who played his high school ball at Rockwood Summit in suburban St. Louis.
“He beat me across my face one play and got to Todd Gurley in the backfield,” Rhaney said of Williams. “We got to the sideline I told Coach Boo, ‘I gotta cut him. That’s a grown man out there.’”
(Coach Boo is offensive line coach Paul Boudreau.)
As for attempting to block Williams, the above play that Rhaney described was his welcome-to-the-NFL moment.
“Yeah, it was a rude awakening,” Rhaney said.
As he watched the game unfold from the sideline, coach Jeff Fisher said he was “a little concerned” with Rhaney’s play.
“But when you watch the tape, he got it done,” Fisher said. “Those guys are big inside and they’re penetrators. He gave up a play, but he battled in there.”
There will be another challenge this week for Rhaney and the rest of the Rams’ interior offensive line against the 8-2 Bengals and a front headlined by one of the game’s top “3-technique” defensive tackles, Geno Atkins.
“They’re pretty good,” Rhaney said. “But we practice against one of the best, too, every week. You got Aaron Donald, Michael Brockers, Robert Quinn. We practice against the best, so they shouldn’t be too much to handle.”
Rhaney will be the ninth Rams offensive lineman to start a game this season, as the injuries continue to pile up. Three offensive linemen are out for the season: Rodger Saffold, Jamon Brown, and Darrell Williams. Two others — Donnal and Rob Havenstein — are out with injury but still on the active roster.
Rookie Cody Wichmann, a sixth-rounder from Fresno State, became the eighth Rams offensive lineman to start a game, doing so last week in Baltimore. With Rhaney set to start at left guard, and Wichmann at right guard, the Rams will start their fourth different line combination in the past five weeks.
Hardly the way to build the kind of continuity essential to strong offensive line play. Left tackle Greg Robinson and center Tim Barnes are the only opening-day starters still standing on the offensive line at this point.
“We’ve been working all season as the second-team unit to get our shot,” Wichmann said. “And finally getting out there and seeing what we can actually do in a live situation, it’s a weight off the shoulders.”
Wichmann had his own welcome to the NFL moment (or two) last week against the Ravens.
“I might’ve got put on my butt once or so,” Wichmann said. “Definitely things to work on. Just technique here and there. Keeping the feet moving and what-not. You gotta use you experiences and build off those.”