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Q&A: Rams head coach Jeff Fisher on big move to LA, free agency and SoCal traffic
Advice for players from Rams head coach Jeff Fisher: Living in Orange County and training in Thousand Oaks, it’s not going to work.
By Vincent Bonsignore, Los Angeles Daily News
http://www.dailynews.com/sports/201...-big-move-to-la-free-agency-and-socal-traffic
BOCA RATON - With the Rams headed to Los Angeles, head coach Jeff Fisher fielded questions on a number of different topics at the NFL’s annual league meetings in Florida.
Q: Case Keenum has been named the starting quarterback. What has he shown you in his time with the Rams?
JF: “When we first watched Case play, we just thought he was (a) very talented, very productive, instinctive-type player that moves around and makes plays. When we had the first time to get him in, we saw every bit of that.
Then (Houston Texans General Manager) Rick (Smith) called and said, ‘Hey, sorry, but I’m going to have borrow Case from you for a little bit – off the practice squad. We’ll make him available to you after.’ And I said, ‘What does that mean?’ Well, it meant a seventh (round draft pick) – or whatever it was.
Anyway, we got Case back. Nick (Foles) had kind of flattened out and was having a rough time a little bit last year, and we decided to go with Case. I thought he did a really nice job. We’re a blocked field goal away in the final game at San Francisco from winning four straight with Case.”
Q: What part of Case’s job as QB is to sell the team to the fans and media and how much is it about just football?
JF: “He’ll be all football, but they’re going to be curious about Case because he’s our quarterback. I think he’ll step in the door, all football. But, he’ll do that by winning games. I think that’s how he was when he backed up.”
Q: You were the head coach of the Oilers when they moved to Tennessee. How does that experience help in this move?
JF: “I think just from a players’ standpoint, relatively speaking, the most important thing from our perspective is what you do with the players and how you handle the players and your ability to communicate with them. We learned that in a lot of ways the hard way with the first move.
The major lesson that were learned is you have to stay in constant communication with the players and let them know when, where and how – whenever you can. We’ve started that process with that meeting, which went really well.”
Q: Have you noticed any technological differences this time around compared to the Oilers move?
JF: “Back then, for coaches, you grabbed your Beta (video) machine and your monitor, and that was all you had. As long as you took that with you, you got your tapes and you were fine. But now we’ve got all kinds of systems. We’ve got scouting systems, we’ve got EXOS, we’ve got football systems – we have everything.
It’s all electronic, so you have to make sure it’s all up and running with servers and things like that. It’s a little bit more sophisticated than that. You need Wi-Fi in the rooms and all of those things. But our guys are capable of getting everything set up, and they’ve ensured us that they will be set up in plenty of time.”
Q: Do free-agent players and draft prospects ask about the move?
JF: “Yes. Everybody wants to know. Any time we express interest or someone has interest in us, that’s where we go first. We had several guys in. We had what we call top 30 visits – we had three of our top 30 visits. These were non-combine players. We had them in to St. Louis.
The approach was, you’re experiencing history here. You walk down the halls, and there’s nothing left on the walls. Boxes are packed, and some things are stacked in my office. Coaches’ boards are down, and there’s no video to watch. If they had any question of whether we were moving or not, those were answered.”
Q: At what point does this cease to be about relocation and become just football?
JF: “Well, our approach is that the rest of the league doesn’t care what we’re doing. There are 31 other teams that are getting ready for the offseason program and training camp and the regular season, so we have to do the same thing. The sooner we get set up and ready to go, the better off we’re going to be.
I’m not looking at this as a distraction or an excuse. We have to develop younger players. We still have a few players that we have some interest in, in the second-tier of free agency. Obviously, we have a lot of work to do right now with the staff and the scouting department to get on the same page in respect to the draft, and we’ll go from there.
Wherever we open, we know where we’re playing home games, but whether we open at home or open on the road – they count. Players know that.”
Q: How much have you talked to the players about the major lifestyle change coming?
JF: “First and foremost, you’ve got to talk to them and tell them where we’re going to be located and where we’re going to be training. We’ve done that. We’ve had this meeting with them already.
We’re constantly talking to them, not necessarily about the lifestyle change but where you’re going to relocate. As we’ve told them, there’s traffic patterns, and we’ve explained to them the travel distance from a lot of different areas. They have a general idea where we’re going to set up our temporary (facility). Now, a temporary’s one thing and it’s important because it’s probably three years. So, for the next three years, in September, you’re basically working out at the same facility. You’re going to want to live somewhere in the vicinity of that temporary facility for the next three years.
Our hope is that the permanent (facility) is also built in the same area so we don’t have to move twice.
With respect to the players, yes, we spend a lot of time with them. You can’t live in Orange County and train in Thousand Oaks. You just can’t. Not with the hours that we put in. We have to be on time. We have meeting start times that fluctuate during the regular season. We have meeting end times that fluctuate, so they need to be on time. We also had some former players come in and talk about that – guys that were familiar with LA. They have been given direction, and they appreciate it.
Q: Do you feel you achieved what you wanted in free agency thus far?
JF: “Our players that we were able to retain (include) some of our guys that were important to us. We knew going in that there was a chance that we were probably going to lose one of the four defensive backs, I didn’t anticipate losing two. But, we have depth on our roster. We’ve drafted … (S) Cody (Davis who) proved last year that he has athletic ability, can play. (S) Maurice (Alexander) can play. We have (S) T.J. (McDonald) coming back. (CB) E.J. (Gaines) is a starter who is coming back. Important to us were (DE) Will Hayes and (DE) Eugene Sims and (C) Tim Barnes – talking about starters or almost starters for us. And (TE) Cory Harkey – these guys were important to us. We were very pleased that we were able to get them back.”
As we got into it, our focus, specifically, was to address the defense because we had the potential to lose quite a few players. To think that we kept (S) Mark (Barron) and (DE) Eugene (Sims) and (DE) William (Hayes), that’s good stuff from our standpoint to be able to hang on to them because there was considerable interest out there. Then to be able to lock (CB) ‘Tru’ (Trumaine Johnson) up for hopefully a long time is beneficial.”
Q: Where do you see improvements coming offensively?
JF: “I think it’s a combination. There’s still some players out there. We did re-sign our starting center (Tim Barnes), so it starts there. But, yes, I still think there’s players out there. No. 1, we’ll turn to the draft, No. 2, and also implied that we’ve said this … I’ve said this for a long time and we were able to accomplish it last year was I’ve always wanted to draft four or five offensive linemen in the same draft, and we did that. They all got to play and all developed. A need now becomes a strength for us. Obviously, having drafted (RB) Todd (Gurley) and (with WR/PR) Tavon’s (Austin) production, some potential tweaks on offense – we’re going to be productive.”
Q: You lost starting CB Janoris Jenkins in free agency. Can you touch on that loss:
JF: “We were a lot closer than people think. I was a little disappointed. I thought we’d get him. He really wanted to come back. I spoke to him several times during the process and prior to the process. I expected that we were going to get things worked out. The money did take off. The market was there, but we were a lot closer than people think. I was disappointed to see him go, but this is the first time since we’ve been here that we’ve had to deal with unrestricted free agents ... because we drafted him, what, four years ago? We developed them and (are) now trying to keep them while we can. The staff did a great job, especially developing the DBs. You can see it.”
Q: You signed CB Coty Sensabaugh and DE Quinton Coples. What do you like about each player?
JF: “Coty’s an instinctive, smart, productive player that can plug in and play either side. He sees things well. He relates. He doesn’t have any difficulty learning defenses. He just makes plays. Coples, on the other hand, we think he’s probably better suited with his hand down and rushing in an even front type of thing. Now, we’ll do some variation stuff with him, but he was just a little out of place. Between his willingness and his lack of production and his ability to spend time with (defensive line coach Mike) ‘Wauf’ (Waufle), I think that will translate into some good things for him. I think it will translate into some solid production for us as a backup (defensive) end.”
Advice for players from Rams head coach Jeff Fisher: Living in Orange County and training in Thousand Oaks, it’s not going to work.
By Vincent Bonsignore, Los Angeles Daily News
http://www.dailynews.com/sports/201...-big-move-to-la-free-agency-and-socal-traffic
BOCA RATON - With the Rams headed to Los Angeles, head coach Jeff Fisher fielded questions on a number of different topics at the NFL’s annual league meetings in Florida.
Q: Case Keenum has been named the starting quarterback. What has he shown you in his time with the Rams?
JF: “When we first watched Case play, we just thought he was (a) very talented, very productive, instinctive-type player that moves around and makes plays. When we had the first time to get him in, we saw every bit of that.
Then (Houston Texans General Manager) Rick (Smith) called and said, ‘Hey, sorry, but I’m going to have borrow Case from you for a little bit – off the practice squad. We’ll make him available to you after.’ And I said, ‘What does that mean?’ Well, it meant a seventh (round draft pick) – or whatever it was.
Anyway, we got Case back. Nick (Foles) had kind of flattened out and was having a rough time a little bit last year, and we decided to go with Case. I thought he did a really nice job. We’re a blocked field goal away in the final game at San Francisco from winning four straight with Case.”
Q: What part of Case’s job as QB is to sell the team to the fans and media and how much is it about just football?
JF: “He’ll be all football, but they’re going to be curious about Case because he’s our quarterback. I think he’ll step in the door, all football. But, he’ll do that by winning games. I think that’s how he was when he backed up.”
Q: You were the head coach of the Oilers when they moved to Tennessee. How does that experience help in this move?
JF: “I think just from a players’ standpoint, relatively speaking, the most important thing from our perspective is what you do with the players and how you handle the players and your ability to communicate with them. We learned that in a lot of ways the hard way with the first move.
The major lesson that were learned is you have to stay in constant communication with the players and let them know when, where and how – whenever you can. We’ve started that process with that meeting, which went really well.”
Q: Have you noticed any technological differences this time around compared to the Oilers move?
JF: “Back then, for coaches, you grabbed your Beta (video) machine and your monitor, and that was all you had. As long as you took that with you, you got your tapes and you were fine. But now we’ve got all kinds of systems. We’ve got scouting systems, we’ve got EXOS, we’ve got football systems – we have everything.
It’s all electronic, so you have to make sure it’s all up and running with servers and things like that. It’s a little bit more sophisticated than that. You need Wi-Fi in the rooms and all of those things. But our guys are capable of getting everything set up, and they’ve ensured us that they will be set up in plenty of time.”
Q: Do free-agent players and draft prospects ask about the move?
JF: “Yes. Everybody wants to know. Any time we express interest or someone has interest in us, that’s where we go first. We had several guys in. We had what we call top 30 visits – we had three of our top 30 visits. These were non-combine players. We had them in to St. Louis.
The approach was, you’re experiencing history here. You walk down the halls, and there’s nothing left on the walls. Boxes are packed, and some things are stacked in my office. Coaches’ boards are down, and there’s no video to watch. If they had any question of whether we were moving or not, those were answered.”
Q: At what point does this cease to be about relocation and become just football?
JF: “Well, our approach is that the rest of the league doesn’t care what we’re doing. There are 31 other teams that are getting ready for the offseason program and training camp and the regular season, so we have to do the same thing. The sooner we get set up and ready to go, the better off we’re going to be.
I’m not looking at this as a distraction or an excuse. We have to develop younger players. We still have a few players that we have some interest in, in the second-tier of free agency. Obviously, we have a lot of work to do right now with the staff and the scouting department to get on the same page in respect to the draft, and we’ll go from there.
Wherever we open, we know where we’re playing home games, but whether we open at home or open on the road – they count. Players know that.”
Q: How much have you talked to the players about the major lifestyle change coming?
JF: “First and foremost, you’ve got to talk to them and tell them where we’re going to be located and where we’re going to be training. We’ve done that. We’ve had this meeting with them already.
We’re constantly talking to them, not necessarily about the lifestyle change but where you’re going to relocate. As we’ve told them, there’s traffic patterns, and we’ve explained to them the travel distance from a lot of different areas. They have a general idea where we’re going to set up our temporary (facility). Now, a temporary’s one thing and it’s important because it’s probably three years. So, for the next three years, in September, you’re basically working out at the same facility. You’re going to want to live somewhere in the vicinity of that temporary facility for the next three years.
Our hope is that the permanent (facility) is also built in the same area so we don’t have to move twice.
With respect to the players, yes, we spend a lot of time with them. You can’t live in Orange County and train in Thousand Oaks. You just can’t. Not with the hours that we put in. We have to be on time. We have meeting start times that fluctuate during the regular season. We have meeting end times that fluctuate, so they need to be on time. We also had some former players come in and talk about that – guys that were familiar with LA. They have been given direction, and they appreciate it.
Q: Do you feel you achieved what you wanted in free agency thus far?
JF: “Our players that we were able to retain (include) some of our guys that were important to us. We knew going in that there was a chance that we were probably going to lose one of the four defensive backs, I didn’t anticipate losing two. But, we have depth on our roster. We’ve drafted … (S) Cody (Davis who) proved last year that he has athletic ability, can play. (S) Maurice (Alexander) can play. We have (S) T.J. (McDonald) coming back. (CB) E.J. (Gaines) is a starter who is coming back. Important to us were (DE) Will Hayes and (DE) Eugene Sims and (C) Tim Barnes – talking about starters or almost starters for us. And (TE) Cory Harkey – these guys were important to us. We were very pleased that we were able to get them back.”
As we got into it, our focus, specifically, was to address the defense because we had the potential to lose quite a few players. To think that we kept (S) Mark (Barron) and (DE) Eugene (Sims) and (DE) William (Hayes), that’s good stuff from our standpoint to be able to hang on to them because there was considerable interest out there. Then to be able to lock (CB) ‘Tru’ (Trumaine Johnson) up for hopefully a long time is beneficial.”
Q: Where do you see improvements coming offensively?
JF: “I think it’s a combination. There’s still some players out there. We did re-sign our starting center (Tim Barnes), so it starts there. But, yes, I still think there’s players out there. No. 1, we’ll turn to the draft, No. 2, and also implied that we’ve said this … I’ve said this for a long time and we were able to accomplish it last year was I’ve always wanted to draft four or five offensive linemen in the same draft, and we did that. They all got to play and all developed. A need now becomes a strength for us. Obviously, having drafted (RB) Todd (Gurley) and (with WR/PR) Tavon’s (Austin) production, some potential tweaks on offense – we’re going to be productive.”
Q: You lost starting CB Janoris Jenkins in free agency. Can you touch on that loss:
JF: “We were a lot closer than people think. I was a little disappointed. I thought we’d get him. He really wanted to come back. I spoke to him several times during the process and prior to the process. I expected that we were going to get things worked out. The money did take off. The market was there, but we were a lot closer than people think. I was disappointed to see him go, but this is the first time since we’ve been here that we’ve had to deal with unrestricted free agents ... because we drafted him, what, four years ago? We developed them and (are) now trying to keep them while we can. The staff did a great job, especially developing the DBs. You can see it.”
Q: You signed CB Coty Sensabaugh and DE Quinton Coples. What do you like about each player?
JF: “Coty’s an instinctive, smart, productive player that can plug in and play either side. He sees things well. He relates. He doesn’t have any difficulty learning defenses. He just makes plays. Coples, on the other hand, we think he’s probably better suited with his hand down and rushing in an even front type of thing. Now, we’ll do some variation stuff with him, but he was just a little out of place. Between his willingness and his lack of production and his ability to spend time with (defensive line coach Mike) ‘Wauf’ (Waufle), I think that will translate into some good things for him. I think it will translate into some solid production for us as a backup (defensive) end.”
