mfranke |
http://www.ramview.com/
RamView, August 4, 2012
Scrimmage Report from the Edward Jones Dome
The Rams are... who we think they are. This may not be a world-beating or a playoff team, but it's much more cohesive offensively than the team at last year's scrimmage was, even with two offensive line starters missing. The team is better than it was last year, and that's a start.
* QB: 2011 doesn't appear to have left any lasting scars on Sam Bradford. He looks a lot more like 2010 Sam Bradford; he looks confident again. He showed a strong, accurate arm and stood tall in the pocket. Unlike last year, Bradford looks a lot more comfortable in this offense, knows better what's going on, and gets the ball out more quickly and decisively. That'll lead to a lot of short passes. And Bradford's first deep ball of the day, on a free play, was a good five yards short of Brandon Gibson. But he also threw two perfect balls to Gibson, one medium sideline route and one deep corner route inside the 5, to remind everybody what the Rams have got here. Anything less than a perfect throw either time, it's not a completion. Bradford put a flourish on his scrimmage by leading the offense to a TD in the 2:00 drill. Austin Davis got an eye-popping number of reps. Kellen Clemens was not on the field much (and continues to bother with his poor accuracy when he is), and Tom Brandstater's as buried on the depth chart as Taylor Potts, Kirk Farmer or Dave Ragone ever was. He had to get Davis to warm up with him between personnel changes just to get any action. You could see Davis' height working a little against him today, and he had some costly lapses in consistency. In the red zone drill, all he has to do is throw Jamie Childers open to the corner of the end zone for a TD, but he drills the ball at Childers' feet. He did hit Cory Harkey with a play-action pass for a TD later, but took far longer to get rid of the ball than he'll ever get in a real game. He also chucked a dumb deep ball up for grabs for the only INT I scored today. Of course, Clemens made a similarly-dumb throw during the 2:00 drill that was dropped. I don't know if Brandstater's hurt, but he's certainly buried. Davis currently looks like the clear QB3.
* RB: I've always found it difficult to judge the running game from scrimmages, so there's just a couple of guys to talk about. I'm sounding the yellow alert on Isaiah Pead's hands. He had a just-brutal drop of a swing pass and dropped a pass on a red-zone wheel route that wasn't well-thrown, but still should have been a TD instead of the incomplete result. Pead also bobbles the ball fielding kickoffs. I don't remember this being an issue for him in college, so I will reason it's because he's a rookie, has a lot of stuff being thrown at him, so his concentration's down a bit for now. Still, yellow alert. Say hello to Chase Reynolds, who seems unchallenged at RB3 right now, with Daryl Richardson missing yet another day injured. Reynolds looks pretty steady. He catches the ball well and pass-protected well, really drilling Scott Smith once. Brit Miller remains FB1. Calvin Middleton got reps, I believe as FB3 but he could have been RB4. Without a Ben Guidugli sighting today, I'm starting to think I need to find a new fan club to run. Todd Anderson may have been limited; only saw him warm up.
* Wide receivers: OK, so the Rams have this receiver. He's not terribly fast, but he's big, he gets open and he made some fantastic catches today. A sideline catch with Janoris Jenkins draped all over him. A sensational leaping catch inside the 5 to set up a TD. Didn't drop a thing that I saw. Give that guy a long look, right? Yep, it's Brandon Gibson, still #1 on our depth charts if not in our hearts. Any other guy, I'd be talking about how he made the team today with one of the best outings of anyone on the roster. Chris Givens had the next-best play of the day, making a shake-and-bake that left Quinton Pointer jockless and got him open by 15 yards. Where Clemens proceeded to overthrow him by 5 more. Danario Alexander was limited to position drills, where he had one of the groan-inducing drops of the day. The other was by Brian Quick, coming back for a sideline pass in 11-on-11. Yes, I know, be patient, but Quick clearly is not setting the world on fire so far. Greg Salas didn't seem to have as much of a role, with the offense in a lot of multi-TE, multi-RB sets. But he did catch the short TD that won the 2:00 drill for the first-string offense.
* Tight ends: Sudden attrition in the TE corps today, with Lance Kendricks and DeAngelo Peterson out, and Mike Hoomanawanui didn't appear to be used much. So it was step-up time for Mike McNeill, and he did. Looked like he knew what he was doing as a blocker, and Bradford found him a couple of times in full-team drills. Caught well and appears to run good routes. If they keep four TEs, I think he's got it. Cory Harkey caught a goal-line TD and could give him a run; we'll see. Should at least be a good contest.
* O-line: Surprise! Rodger Saffold sat out scrimmage, along with Ryan McKee, and of course, Scott Wells. Bigger surprise! In the Rams' biggest upset since beating the Saints last season, the offensive line held its own against the defensive line. They gave up a couple of sacks, but they did not get destroyed like they did at last year's scrimmage, which has to be the positive development of the day. Jason Smith held his own against Chris Long, which I was not expecting. Pretty much held him to draws 1-on-1, though Long was able to generate good bull rush on him at times. Smith also won his matchups with William Hayes and comes away as one of the positive surprises of the day. Robert Turner really impressed me at center. If you do not beat him off the ball, he becomes a tree trunk you cannot move. I like what I've seen of Wells from video of Packers games, but in a truly open competition, I think Turner could give him a serious run. Two good centers on the 2012 team, vs. zero the whole Spagvaney era. Quinn Ojinnaka struggled in 1-on-1s, struggling big-time with speed, which I think put LG1 in Brian Mattison's hands for the day. That and Mattison stepping up and stuffing Darell Dorell Scott twice 1-on-1. Mattison, Turner and Harvey Dahl made for a pretty solid midline, and Bradford was kept mostly clean. I have to call that a win for the o-line. Now, I think it's possible they told Robert Quinn to take it easy. Jose Valdez, nominally LT3 but today's starter, looked terrible against the d-line scrubs, and Quinn beat him so terribly in 1-on-1s, and early in 11-for-11 for one of the day's obvious sacks, I assumed we'd be hearing Quinn's name all day, but we didn't. But I can't believe that was because Valdez is any good. Rokevious Watkins is coming along. He showed mauling power at one point of 1-on-1s by putting Matt Conrath on the ground. And he recovered nicely the next rep after Conrath had him initially outquicked. Watkins had no answer for Michael Brockers, though. But not bad given his late start. Joe Long also looked good. He pancaked Justin Cole 1-on-1 (which he should given that size mismatch) and pwned Eugene Sims. Unfortunately, though, that did not translate to 11-on-11, where Rocky McIntosh beat him on a blitz for a sack. Barry Richardson and Kevin Hughes got away with a lot of false starts 1-on-1, especially Hughes. Hughes also had one of the few penalties, for holding, declared by today's replacement referees. Just too many mistakes. Richardson got beat for a sack in 11-on-11. Finally, the struggles of T-Bob Hebert. Cornell Banks really pushed him around a couple of times, he had several really bad, low shotgun snaps, and Darell Dorell whipped him a couple of other times. T-Bob got T-boned.
* Defense: The defensive line didn't own the day, but they weren't bad. Robert Quinn's day, though, still confuses me. He smoked Valdez once in 1-on-1's and got pancaked by him once. He whipped him for a sack in 11-on-11 but kind of blended into the background after that. Maybe they told him to concentrate on the run and take it easy on the third-stringer. Michael Brockers and Matt Conrath got their butts worked off today. They worked the middle of the line on all three shifts. Brockers is definitely strong, and definitely quick off the ball. Harvey Dahl could hold him off in 1-on-1s, but just barely. He definitely gives the Rams push up the middle like they haven't had often in St. Louis. He destroyed Ojinnaka twice in 1-on-1s, smoking him outside once and killing him with a partial spin move another time. Brockers dominated Watkins later. Conrath penetrates by outquicking people. You saw that speed when he shot the gap to blow up a run vs. Watkins early in 11-on-11. If you get your hands on him, though, he's done, which Turner and Watkins showed in 1-on-1s. Scott Smith continues to “pop” at DE and has to be considered a serious roster candidate. He drew a hold from Hughes 11-on-11 and really gave him troubles with his speed 1-on-1. Sammy Brown had similar moments. The two have to get a lot more serious as run defenders, though. Reynolds had the biggest run of the day, pretty much unopposed and into the secondary, Smith and Brown completely missing their responsibilities while going after the QB. Smith did stuff a run in the rookie 11-on-11 period. Jamar Jarrett dominated that period, steamrolling Valdez, scoring a sack, whipping Hughes to force a scramble, batting down a pass and stuffing a run, all in a five-play sequence. Eugene Sims whipped Valdez repeatedly during the 2:00 drill. We ripped Billy Devaney for last year's third day draft picks all being gone by midseason; I'm not sure this year's team is going to get anything out of its seventh round in 2012. Richardson can't get on the field, and Aaron Brown really looks lost at LB, leaving Harkey all alone in the end zone on a play-action pass for a TD. The first-string had just defended a similar play beautifully, picking up the fullback out of the backfield and blanketing the TE in the back of the end zone.
* Secondary: I observed the front four a lot more than the back seven. Same starting defense as it's been so far in camp, with no really notable depth chart movement other than Conrath working with the ones, sometimes replacing Brockers. Craig Dahl is still FS1, with Darian Stewart mostly inactive, along with Jerome Murphy, Josh Gordy and Kendric Burney. Bradley Fletcher had a nice pass break-up in the end zone but was the victim on one of Gibson's deep catches. He got back later by blanketing Steve Smith on a deep pass in the 2:00 drill. Jenkins got beat by Gibson the one time on the sideline, but he had virtually perfect coverage. Trumaine Johnson had the only INT I scored, on a dumb deep chuckaway by Davis. Clemens got away with one later because Quintin Mikell dropped it, the other groan-inducing drop of the day.
* Special teams: The kickers repeated their performance of last weekend. Garrett Lindholm came up and hit FGs from 39, 44 and 49 as nice as you please, then Greg Zuerlein came in booming, hitting from the same distances but putting the ball much higher in the net. Then the ante was upped. They backed Zuerlein up to take a 54-yarder. And he crushed it. Then they moved him back to 59. And he hit that with room to spare. Then they backed him up to 64, where he finally missed, barely wide left. Kid has a legitimate 65-yard leg. (Lindholm also got to try the long FGs but came up short on the last two.) Despite talk to the contrary, Amendola appears to be the #1 kick returner as well as punt returner. If they do look elsewhere for that role, I hope they give it to Jenkins, who is much more secure with the ball and sure-handed than Pead. Johnny Hekker looked about as good at punter in early warmups as advertised. Good leg, needs more consistency. But they're already not really giving anything up over last year's Donnie Jones, which may not be great but isn't a bad floor for a rookie punter.
* Strategery: Gee, has the offensive philosophy changed around here any? Opening play of scrimmage, the package has 2 TEs and a fullback, with Gibson the only wideout. A lot of those heavy sets today. Brian Schottenheimer really had play-action working to set up passes to the TEs, including down on the goal line. You know, stuff the opposition has gotten over on the Rams for years but the Rams can never get to work on their own. Today's twist that worked: third-and-long on the first 2:00 drive, a draw to Jackson for a first down. Today's twist that should be shredded, then burned, then launched into space, then atomized by a giant laser: the Wildcat. It was a disaster. First, they had the defense completely confused, and I don't think Bradford was even covered split wide right, but they took their sweet time snapping the ball. Then Amendola (who took the snap) and Pead blew the option exchange. Let's see how much further this staff decides to go with that. Last year's would have whipped it out on the goal line about week 10 without ever having practiced it.
* Cheers: That's a pretty nice building the Rams had their scrimmage in today. Maybe they should think about scrimmaging there more often, maybe even stay a while. Looked like about the same crowd the past scrimmages at Lindenwood got, in the 6,000-7,000 range. Roaming around on the field (which season ticket holders were allowed to do as part of “FanFest”) and the stadium, you could run into just about anybody, and I did. Saw Kevin Demoff surveying the gift shop and Joe “Road Warrior Animal” Laurinaitis on the field. Yes, that was a rush. Couldn't understand a word of Les Snead's pre-practice speech, though, or anything said over the P.A., because the Dome sound system is still the piece of trash it's always been. If the city doesn't end up tearing the east side of the dome down for the Rams' proposed upgrade, the least they can do is tear down that piece of crap. Old-timey field announcers with megaphones would work better. Fisher runs longer practices than any Rams coach since Vermeil, and in case you don't know already, get there at least 15 minutes before the official start time. Special teams gets going early.
* What's next?: The Rams will play their first real game that doesn't count next Sunday in Indianapolis against Peyton, er, Andrew Luck and the Colts. Talk about two teams that have changed a lot from last year. Will the new Colts regime remember to look out for the dreaded Jeff Fisher preseason fake punt? With all the changes and position battles both teams have going on, and about 500 rookies on the field at the same time, this will be a battle of which team's executing the fundamentals better at this early stage. The Rams don't have to win the game, but I'd hate to be them on Monday if they play sloppy on Sunday.
