So, some content creator takes part of a Breer article from SI and tries to make it a story. Whatever. I'm pretty sure it's a stadium usage thing and not a Chargers thing. Here's the relevant quote:
And I’ve heard that if the stadium were a one-team stadium—if it had been just the Rams there—then they very well may have gone with a grass surface.
One of the main concerns with a grass field is having sufficient time (and other resources) between games for the field to recover/recharge. (
see here, for example). The theory is that two team usage would create more wear and tear on the field while also lessening the time for the field to recover/recharge. Whether the theory is correct or not overlooks one thing, there's a profitable concert schedule, concurrent with the NFL season, affecting field usage/recovery. An alternative question arises: Are they willing to sacrifice concert income to ensure having a proper pitch for NFL games? One can presume an answer.
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What's much more interesting, imo, is other stuff from the Breer article:
Rams’ Nicole Blake
One leftover from my Myles Garrett reporting: Nicole Blake is a name you need to know. She is, by title, the Rams’ director of scouting, strategy and analytics. If you read
my follow-up story on the blockbuster trade, you may have glossed over her name because you didn’t recognize it as part of the team’s inner circle.
As we detailed in the story, the Rams and Browns both kept the information during the three-month negotiation as tight as they could, and few people even internally knew. GM Les Snead was the point man for Los Angeles, and as you’d imagine, he had top executives Kevin Demoff and Tony Pastoors, coach Sean McVay and of course ownership in the need-to-know category initially. He then brought in his assistant GM, John McKay, as McVay did his defensive coordinator, Chris Shula, pretty early on. And Snead had Blake on that list, too.
How she climbed into that trust tree is pretty interesting.
After graduating from Duke, Blake entered the NFL’s rotational program, then went to get her MBA from Stanford. During the 2020–21 academic year, her first there, she took a class taught by ex-Sixers GM Sam Hinkie, who brought Demoff in to speak at a time when all class sessions happened over Zoom. Blake was part of the presenting group in the class, and as her group presented, Hinkie sent a message over to Demoff saying that Blake wanted to work in the NFL. One problem: The message, intended to be private, went to the whole class.
It was the sort of screwup that was pretty routine for the time. But soon enough, Demoff connected Blake with Snead and Pastoors, telling them how smart she was and that she loved football and, “if we’re a good organization, we should be able to figure this out.”
She interned with the Rams in the summer of 2021 and was hired the next year to work alongside Jake Temme under director of scouting strategy James Gladstone. Last year, she essentially replaced Gladstone when he landed the Jaguars’ GM job and took Temme with him to be Jacksonville’s senior VP of football analytics.
That rise, of course, seems pretty meteoric—from business school four years ago to being a top-level executive for an NFL power. But it has been earned, too. Blake has shown a lot of the things Gladstone did in being able to blend scouting, analytics and coaching into a collective vision for what the Rams are looking for. She also has provend herself a great communicator with a great demeanor, and she has earned the full respect of McVay.
Nicole Blake has moved up the ranks quickly with the Rams. | Kirby Lee-Imagn Images
Anyway, I had someone tell me last week when I was asking around about her that she’d be the NFL’s first woman general manager.
She’s definitely not the only one in the running to earn that distinction. But to those she has worked with, she has shown over and over again she belongs on that list.
Myles Garrett
I did have one last note from the Garrett trade, and that’s what the Rams saw on film of him. I asked a couple different guys in Los Angeles what they saw when they actually sat down and studied him in a way you wouldn’t if you were just getting ready to play against the Browns.
They all, of course, already knew the top-line stuff, what a freakish athlete he was, how his motor ran and how he could beat almost anything an offense threw at him.
What they learned a lot more about while doing the full vetting was just how smart a football player Garrett is. As one Rams evaluator put it, you could see “how football is something of a science to him.” It became apparent to the team, in the evaluation, in breaking down the kitchen-sink list of looks offenses would give him, and how it wasn’t just “I’ll out-athlete everyone” for Garrett. They saw he knew the opponent well and was prepared for anything.
It’s an interesting thing because Garrett has a bit of a different personality and wasn’t necessarily a first-in-the-building/last-out-of-the-building guy in Cleveland.
I don’t think many would consider him a gym rat, necessarily. He has a lot of interests outside of football. But the proof was in the obvious—he always kept himself in ridiculous shape (just look at him) and, again, he was always very ready to play on Sunday.
Which is just another reason
why the Rams had the conviction they did to make the move.
Patrick Mahomes's record-breaking deal underscores the importance of the first four years of a deal. Plus, a Myles Garrett trait the Rams liked and more.
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