Rams set to take on Raiders
• By Jim Thomas
http://www.stltoday.com/sports/foot...cle_6f0039f8-f63b-5044-9f60-d9efbaa362ce.html
The last time Nick Foles stepped foot in O.Co Coliseum, home of the Oakland Raiders, he threw seven touchdown passes.
That came as a Philadelphia Eagle on Nov. 3, 2013, and it tied an NFL single-game record. He won’t throw seven TD passes Friday in the Rams’ preseason opener in Oakland. (Kickoff is 9 p.m. St. Louis time.) In fact, Foles might not even throw seven passes before he gives way to backups Case Keenum, Austin Davis and Sean Mannion.
Foles is expected to play only a series or two in his Rams debut, but coach Jeff Fisher couldn’t be happier with what he has seen from Foles so far, particularly from a leadership standpoint.
“Nick’s had a really good camp,” Fisher said. “I’m just really proud of him and happy that he’s here, so it will be fun to watch him play a little bit.”
For openers, Fisher wants Foles to get the ball out quick and wants the Rams’ inexperienced offensive line to give him a clean pocket.
“We want to protect him,” Fisher said. “We don’t want to get him hit. Get rid of the ball. Coach (Jack) Del Rio is a good football coach, a defensive guy. And he’s going to have them rolling off (the line). So we just have to be smart offensively.”
Del Rio, a former head coach in Jacksonville but most recently defensive coordinator for Denver, is the Raiders’ new head coach.
Protecting the quarterback obviously is a must no matter what style of offense you’re running. But in the case of the Rams, getting the ball out quickly will be standard operating procedure behind a young offensive line.
So regardless of who’s at quarterback, it wouldn’t be surprising to see the Rams throw a lot of short stuff, using play-action to go deep once the running game has been established.
With rookies Rob Havenstein and Jamon Brown scheduled to start at right tackle and right guard, respectively, and with an inexperienced player at center no matter who wins that competition, the Rams need to get the ball out quick early in the regular season while the O-line settles in. Friday’s game could start to set that tone.
Many of the Rams’ frontline players will be rested against Oakland due to a variety of aches and injuries. Others will play sparingly. But that’s the way of the world in preseason openers: It’s all about evaluating the younger players, particularly those on the back end of the 90-man training camp roster.
“We’re going to play younger players, particularly in the second half,” Fisher said. “When you look at the roster and you start looking at the 51st, 52nd, and 53rd player, so much of it has to do with their ability to contribute on special teams.
“We’re going to give guys opportunities to do some things and show us some things on special teams. But at the same time being mindful of the fact that if they’re playing every snap on defense, and then going out and covering every kick, that’s hard.”
The idea throughout is to see how the newcomers, and relative newcomers, respond to pressure. The kind of pressure that can only be applied by playing guys in opposing uniforms.
“That’s always the first thing that we’re looking at,” Fisher said.
And when that happens, the rose-colored glasses start to come off. The happy talk of the first couple of weeks of training camp is replaced by errant blocks, false starts, dropped passes and missed tackles.
As defensive coordinator Gregg Williams put it: “We all have strengths and we all have weaknesses. ... When I see them have their strengths then we’ll package those guys into those strengths.”
And when he sees their weaknesses exposed, Williams then tries to minimize those risks when those players are in the game.
“It’s important for me to get a chance to see them in competition,” Williams said. “These preseason games are important that way.”
Naturally, those that display too many weaknesses won’t be around when the roster is cut to the final 53 in early September.
Preseason game or not, Fisher is hoping for fewer penalties and better execution, even in what’s more of a free-form setting with next to no game-planning.
“We just want to go out and let players play,” Fisher said. “When you’re playing your vets and your starters early in the game, you want it clean. We want to avoid penalties. We want to avoid the line of scrimmage things and the things that have victimized us in years past. Hopefully, our emphasis here on the practice field will carry over.”
Following Friday’s game, the team will stay in California for most of the week, moving south to the Los Angeles area for practices against the Dallas Cowboys on Monday and Tuesday. The Rams will practice by themselves on Wednesday in Oxnard, the Cowboys’ camp home, before flying back to St. Louis.
For fans of the old Los Angeles Rams, it will be a glimpse of the team that owner Stan Kroenke is trying to move to the West Coast in 2016. The Cowboys usually practice before big crowds in camp practices there; the appearance by the Rams should bolster those numbers.
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