Rams-Chargers Recap: Winners and Losers

[Tano]

Couple of thoughts after reading this thread…

Jourdan mentioned that Shelton has been dealing with a toe in the Q&A after one of her articles. That would probably explain his sudden challenges in camp and this preseason game. A toe injury would kinda explain how his performance has suddenly fallen off the cliff.

I’m pretty much convinced that Hopkins is a goner despite his 4th round draft status. He doesn’t love football like almost all other Snead picks do and it shows in camp and the preseason game. Some might call it a lack of heart. Not something that McVay is likely to want around his other players. Hard to understand how Ram scouts missed such a critical requirement.

Evans is an OT, apparently. Coaches might as well accept it. Actually, I think he could be a pretty damned good RT. But Carberry is probably wasting everybody’s time playing Evans at OG. Same thing with Boom. Stop with forcing a square peg in a round hole with these two.

Stop with the complaints about Atwell’s diminutive size, already! He may put on a very few pounds during his career, but we should be focusing on what he CAN do and CAN be right now And enjoy watching him drive D’s crazy. He is a weapon that Snead/McVay really wanted at pick 57 and early reports from camp and certainly this Charger preseason game show us why. IOW, it’s not about his size, it’s all about his production.

Prior to the draft I considered OLB and ILB to be Rams biggest weaknesses. But I was wrong and I now think that Rams are far better in both areas than last year and my faith in these Ram coaches has been simply reinforced.

I’ve seen some pundits and a few fans claim that Rams are thin at CB. Not me, though. Our overall secondary is loaded plus several players are like chess pieces that Morris can move around and/or change assignments on the fly. Our secondary is the least of our problems.

Our WR corps is a legit 7 deep even without the injured Skowronek or the scintillating Harris (whom I consider a bit of a WR anyway). Trishton Jackson and Koski are numbers 6 and 7, respectively. I can’t recall a Ram WR corps with such quality this deep in all my 54 years of fandom.

It is my hope and expectation that Ram starters will overcome rustiness from lack of action in preseason and jump out to a quick start come September.

It's the rustiness that concerns me in the first game.

It took the Rams a game to get over the rustiness last year.

 

[PhillyRam]

I'm curious as to why Kendall Blanton, Dont'e Deayon, or Travian Howard didn't get any snaps.

Noticed that as well. Was wondering if that meant Deayon has the 4th CB locked up & if Howard is safe? I assume Blanton was nicked or something, but if they keep 4 TE's, leaning towards him for his potential as a blocker.

As for ILB, who goes? Can't keep 4.

Jones
Kiser
Howard
Reeder

At OLB who goes? I can only imagine at most 5 stick. Would hate to keep Lewis if he can't stay healthy, while cutting Garrett if they feel he has upside. And Obo/Lawler only have one yr left on their contracts so does one of them go?

Floyd
Hollins
Obo
Lewis
Lawler
Garrett

Hoping we can at least trade a few guys for late picks. Can always package late picks to move up slightly in a round to get a guy you want. So there is value there.

 

[Tano]

Noticed that as well. Was wondering if that meant Deayon has the 4th CB locked up & if Howard is safe? I assume Blanton was nicked or something, but if they keep 4 TE's, leaning towards him for his potential as a blocker.

As for ILB, who goes? Can't keep 4.

Jones
Kiser
Howard
Reeder

At OLB who goes? I can only imagine at most 5 stick. Would hate to keep Lewis if he can't stay healthy, while cutting Garrett if they feel he has upside. And Obo/Lawler only have one yr left on their contracts so does one of them go?

Floyd
Hollins
Obo
Lewis
Lawler
Garrett

Hoping we can at least trade a few guys for late picks. Can always package late picks to move up slightly in a round to get a guy you want. So there is value there.

I wasn't that impressed with Garrett on the first drive. However, he did have 1 pass rush that he did well on.

I didn't re-watch the later drives to see how he was doing.

 

[Kupped]

Most interesting things to me..
Perkins is ahead of Duck for 3rd QB and I think would still make it to PS.
Garrett looks fairly explosive and like he has a future. With Lewis' injury situation, seems like a lock for the team. I think he needs to get stronger and, obviously, he has a lot to learn.
Ernest Jones looked small.. but definitely moved well and seemed to have good recognition. He's gonna be solid.
Anchrum is a keeper. Like so many others on here mentioned... looks like Evans can't adjust enough to inside. I hope Anchrum can.. he's built for it.
Lawler is a decent backup OLB and this roster's best hope to replace Morgan Fox this season. They are almost clones, physically.
RBs... nothing to make me feel confident... although Calais as a speed back looks fun.
Tutu looked just fine to me. Explosive enough to scare defenses and continues to catch the ball like a WR, not a converted RB or something.
Calais and Tutu are promising on returns.. really could use some free yardage this season.
Harris is fun to watch... if he can hold on to the ball, he should do well. I think it'll be fun to see bunch formations with him and Tutu involved.. when defenders switch on those.. those are such different assignments.
Not too much more to take from game one for me.

 

[Merlin]

Jourdan mentioned that Shelton has been dealing with a toe in the Q&A after one of her articles. That would probably explain his sudden challenges in camp and this preseason game. A toe injury would kinda explain how his performance has suddenly fallen off the cliff.

To say his performance has suddenly fallen off a cliff insinuates that he was actually a really good player at some point prior. When did you see that 43? Because I cannot recall it. All I can recall is him being part of a bunch of depth guys we haven't seen a snap from in two years due to COVID.

This is one of the reasons I enjoyed that preseason game so much in fact. Just because it was so damn nice to get a look at these guys. Also, while we're on Shelton, for me his play was actually better than I anticipated. But maybe that's just because I didn't have him built up in my mind. I have been guilty of doing that plenty btw, just not with Shelton.

 

[CoachAllred]

Anchrum played so well that I find myself asking why he was not competing at RG with Evans from the beginning of camp. He's a better player and I have zero doubt would be better at RG than Evans too.

I just find it really disappointing that once again there seems to have been faulty slotting logic with our OL in camp. Last year it was the same shit with Boom at LG over Edwards. I figured that would be a thing of the past with Kromer gone but it's impossible for me to understand how/why Anchrum wasn't tried at RG in some sort of competition.

Oh and note that last year many of us saw that coming. This year I can't say that admittedly. I had hoped Anchrum would compete a bit at RG or as part of the starting 5 but did not know enough about any of these depth guys to feel conviction one way or the other. I realize we're only one game into the preseason sched but I hope to see some juggling of roles with these guys in the upcoming games.

Merlin just curious about this sudden change with Corbett no longer at center.

I am interested in everyone's thoughts on this Question
Was Corbett moved back to guard due to Allen really stepping up or was it because Evans was playing so poorly
at guard that we couldn't afford to have Corbett at center?

 

[Merlin]

Merlin just curious about this sudden change with Corbett no longer at center.

I am interested in everyone's thoughts on this Question
Was Corbett moved back to guard due to Allen really stepping up or was it because Evans was playing so poorly
at guard that we couldn't afford to have Corbett at center?

I don't think we're gonna know for sure until we see Allen week one. I do think Evans playing poorly insinuates that he was part of that equation, we can probably make that assumption. But until we see Allen we won't know both sides of it unfortunately.

And aside from all this I think McVay is frustrated by the OL and has been for some time. I think that's why he fired Kromer. And I think Carberry getting COVID fucked up their ability to see things clearly early in camp.

Nothing would suck more, though, than to see a bad OL this year when we have so many pieces aligned. For the record I think our OL is going to be better. But I'd be a liar to say I wasn't worried just a bit.

 

[blackbart]

Atwell as a receiver bears no relationship to Tavon Austin. Austin was mostly lost/ MIA as a WR. Atwell can really track and catch the ball.

That would be awesome. Hopefully a lot more DeSean and very little Tavon.

 

[CoachAllred]

I don't think we're gonna know for sure until we see Allen week one. I do think Evans playing poorly insinuates that he was part of that equation, we can probably make that assumption. But until we see Allen we won't know both sides of it unfortunately.

And aside from all this I think McVay is frustrated by the OL and has been for some time. I think that's why he fired Kromer. And I think Carberry getting COVID fucked up their ability to see things clearly early in camp.

Nothing would suck more, though, than to see a bad OL this year when we have so many pieces aligned. For the record I think our OL is going to be better. But I'd be a liar to say I wasn't worried just a bit.

Hopefully we will get it worked out.
Are we still cross training as Kromer did or has that gone out the window?
If so maybe that's why we havn't seen Anchrum working guard reps.

 

[1maGoh]

We should convert Evans to RB. Solve the short yardage problem and maybe he'll be ok at pass protection back there too.

I'm not entirely serious, but I'm also not really joking either.

 

[Tano]

And aside from all this I think McVay is frustrated by the OL and has been for some time. I think that's why he fired Kromer. And I think Carberry getting COVID fucked up their ability to see things clearly early in camp.

And they still didn't draft an OL until their last pick.

 

[Merlin]

Hopefully we will get it worked out.
Are we still cross training as Kromer did or has that gone out the window?
If so maybe that's why we havn't seen Anchrum working guard reps.

IIRC according to our camp reporters they had guys moreso in defined roles in this camp. Interested to hear @bubbaramfan, @VeteranRamFan, or @theduke take on that.

 

[FarNorth]

That would be awesome. Hopefully a lot more DeSean and very little Tavon.

No guarantees about his size, it may matter but to me how much is hard to say. I'm hopeful he will evade direct hits much more often than not.

Atwell is still only 10 pounds lighter than DJax. He's probably faster than Jackson now, and may even be faster than DJax was at the same age getting out of college.

And like DJax, and unlike Tavon, Atwell has both speed AND serious skills as a receiver.

Rams rated Atwell with elite speed, quickness, AND ball tracking. https://www.therams.com/news/what-s...de-receiver-draft-classmates-similar-skillset.

 

[AZRams]

Finally finished watching the game last night...Lawler was everywhere and I loved Jacob Harris' athleticism.

 

[Tano]

Just saw a tweet that Morris had the wrong button press on his headset and did not communicate once in the first drive.

He stated Earnest Jones called all the plays on his own on that first drive.

That is fairly impressive to me for a rookie to call the plays even though SD did get a field goal on that drive.