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These are the Rams training-camp battles to watch
Changes at running back and linebacker get the most attention, but unproven players will be counted for many key roles.
www.dailybulletin.com
An offseason of veteran departures has left Rams coaches to audition unproven pros for key roles when training camp shifts this week into padded practices and bare-knuckled competition for jobs.
One position, middle linebacker, illustrates the challenge and the potential.
Two summers ago, the Rams had to replace their leading tackler. The previous March, they’d unloaded Alec Ogletree and his $10 million-a-year contract. They took a chance on an undrafted player who’d been used mostly on special teams until then. That was Cory Littleton.
Now Littleton is the team-leading tackler the Rams must replace. They let him go to the Raiders as a free agent in March. Littleton’s replacement might be as untested as he once was. Micah Kiser is the presumed leader among a handful of candidates, and he hasn’t played a defensive down in the NFL.
The coaches hope lightning strikes again.
Said Joe Barry, the linebackers coach and assistant head coach, on broadcaster J.B. Long’s Rams Revealed podcast: “We’ve got a group of guys that aren’t household names. But four years ago, three years ago, Cory Littleton wasn’t a household name.”
With preseason games canceled because of the coronavirus pandemic, full-speed, full-contact practice sessions and intrasquad scrimmages will be the best chance coaches get to pick players for unsettled starting positions and backup roles.
This most intense phase of training camp begins Tuesday at California Lutheran University in Thousand Oaks. Coach Sean McVay has said the team plans to hold scrimmages at SoFi Stadium. But the Rams haven’t released details.
An official depth chart won’t be released until closer to the Rams’ season opener against the Dallas Cowboys at SoFi Stadium on Sept. 13, although we maintain an unofficial depth chart online.
Here are 10 battles to pay attention to.
We’ll start with the defense, where the biggest changes are happening.
ILB: Kiser vs. Troy Reeder
It sounds as if Kiser has first crack at the position, where the 2018 fifth-round draft pick was on track to start in 2019 before a season-ending pectoral injury in the second exhibition game.
Reeder stepped in as an undrafted rookie after Kiser and then Bryce Hager got hurt and started eight games. Hager wasn’t re-signed.
Behind those two, seventh-round draft pick Clay Johnson, Travin Howard and Kenny Young should compete for snaps. Johnson is trying to bounce back from a knee injury that ended his senior year at Baylor.
OLB: Ogbonnia Okoronkwo vs. Terrell Lewis vs. Natrez Patrick vs. Jachai Polite vs. Justin Lawler
Free-agent signing Leonard Floyd and fourth-year Ram Samson Ebukam look certain to start, replacing Dante Fowler and Clay Matthews.
Lewis, a third-round draft pick (Alabama), is a candidate to start in the future. He was on the Reserve/COVID-19 list for the first two weeks of training camp after testing positive at the end of July.
DT: Sebastian Joseph-Day vs. Greg Gaines
Free-agent signing A’Shawn Robinson’s reported cardiovascular condition re-opens the door for Joseph-Day and Gaines to divide the snaps in the middle of the defensive line.
DB: Darious Williams vs. David Long vs. Terrell Burgess vs. Jordan Fuller vs. Dont’e Deayon
The battles are for slot-cornerback and backup safety roles, because Jalen Ramsey and Troy Hill will be the starting corners and John Johnson and Taylor Rapp the starting safeties.
The roles might be indistinct, given hints that new defensive coordinator Brandon Staley will take full advantage of players’ versatility. Burgess, the third-round pick (Utah), can play both the slot and safety.
Now, the offense:
RB: Cam Akers vs. Darrell Henderson
The hope must be that Akers, the Rams’ top draft pick (second round out of Florida State), earns Todd Gurley’s old starting role. It could be that he and Henderson, last year’s third-rounder, open the season in a running-backs committee with Malcolm Brown, the career backup.
WR: Josh Reynolds vs. Van Jefferson
Robert Woods and Cooper Kupp are the first and second, or second and first, wide receivers. The Brandin Cooks trade allows Reynolds to step up into No. 3. Jefferson, the later second-round draft pick (Florida), will get his chance and the question is how soon.
TE: Johnny Mundt vs. Brycen Hopkins
A backup battle behind Tyler Higbee and Gerald Everett. Mundt partnered with Higbee when Everett was hurt. Hopkins, a fourth-round pick (Purdue), is in the HIgbee mold.
QB: John Wolford vs. Josh Love vs. Bryce Perkins
Another backup battle, behind Jared Goff. Wolford, who spent last season on the practice squad, is the clear favorite over the two undrafted free agents.
None of the three has thrown a regular-season pass in the NFL, with the coronavirus danger on top of everyday injury risks to a starting quarterback.
OL: Austin Corbett vs. David Edwards vs. Joe Noteboom
Corbett and Edwards, who started at the end of 2019, and Noteboom, who started before getting hurt, compete for two guard positions. That assumes Austin Blythe remains at center, while Andrew Whitworth holds down left tackle and Rob Havenstein takes right tackle back from Bobby Evans.
It might be unwise to assume anything about how the offensive line will line up after a season of injuries and mixing and matching.
Finally, one important special-teams battle:
K: Sam Sloman vs. Lirim Hajrullahu vs. Austin MacGinnis
The Rams might have to get creative on the practice field to replicate the pressure of games as they choose Greg Zuerlein’s replacement as kicker from among Sloman, a seventh-round pick (Miami of Ohio); Hajrullahu, a veteran of the CFL, and MacGinnis, an, uh, veteran of the XFL’s truncated season.
