Rams Running Back Options?

[MadGoat]

Dillon is not good in the passing game. He doesn't have natural hands. I doubt he's the guy. I also don't agree we need a power HB. We just need an effective HB who can contribute on all three downs.

To clarify, while he isn't a great receiver. He's a very good pass blocker, possibly one of the best in this class.

 

[jrry32]

To clarify, while he isn't a great receiver. He's a very good pass blocker, possibly one of the best in this class.

Eh, he has the potential to be one. He relied more on physicality, size, and strength than skill. That allowed him to initially halt momentum, but he failed to sustain blocks (because he was blowing guys up with his body instead of using his hands). I also saw him miss some assignments because he misread the blitz. But the big problem with him is his unnatural hands in the passing game. I just don't see that flying with McVay.

 

[LA_Rams_#29]

Our Head Coach doesn't use a FB, and we don't need a powerhouse HB. Bringing Dillon in would tip our hand to some extent and make us more predictable. I don't see McVay going for that. If he wants a power HB, Moss is a better pick. But I'm far from sold that McVay cares about power. 5 yards is 5 yards, regardless whether you use power or elusiveness to get there. JMO.

Hopefully our coach is realizing that diversifying our formations and our offense is something we need to do, and thus far his assistant coaching changes show that he's heading in that direction. There is a reason why they selected a RB coach with a specialty in the fullback area...and if I remember McVay drafted a FB in his first draft..the guy never made the team, but I recall McVay waxing poetically about the different ways he could use that fullback. Unfortunately he didn't follow through with that, which supports my theory that McVay's progressively predictable offense has been one of our problems. But anyway, hopefully we are past that. Hopefully McVay remembers that a power back helped us make it to the Super Bowl in a major way in CJ Anderson.

 

[jrry32]

Hopefully our coach is realizing that diversifying our formations and our offense is something we need to do, and thus far his assistant coaching changes show that he's heading in that direction. There is a reason why they selected a RB coach with a specialty in the fullback area...and if I remember McVay drafted a FB in his first draft..the guy never made the team, but I recall McVay waxing poetically about the different ways he could use that fullback. Unfortunately he didn't follow through with that, which supports my theory that McVay's progressively predictable offense has been one of our problems. But anyway, hopefully we are past that.

I'm confused as to why you keep saying that Thomas Brown has a specialty in the FB area. He was a NFL HB who was a RB Coach in college (with a short stint as Miami's OC) following his career.

Yeah, McVay did draft Sam Rogers, but he hasn't used a FB during his time here. Instead, he has occasionally used his 3rd TE as a FB. I don't know why people think diversifying personnel packages and formations matters. The key is to not be predictable. McVay is generally not predictable. If you can run 90% of your plays out of 11 personnel and not be predictable, go for it.

Hopefully McVay remembers that a power back helped us make it to the Super Bowl in a major way in CJ Anderson.

But it had nothing to do with Anderson being a power back. He was simply effective in the scheme. You could have subbed in a speed or elusive back who fit in the scheme and saw the same sort of gains.

 

[Merlin]

But it had nothing to do with Anderson being a power back. He was simply effective in the scheme. You could have subbed in a speed or elusive back who fit in the scheme and saw the same sort of gains.

I disagree. While we are all aware McVay doesn't seem to value a power back, that doesn't mean Anderson's contributions during 2018's final stretch weren't extremely valuable.

I really liked the look of that power run game with the way McVay uses play action. As soon as CJ came aboard you immediately saw defenses adjust and their LBs going back to biting hard on the play action fakes. Because they knew that dude would require real tackles to bring down.

McVay probably won't draft that type of back, we're on the same page there. But I wish he would.

 

[Merlin]

Running back Darrynton Evans, a 5-foot-10, 203-pound running back out of Appalachian State was the first to meet with the Rams. While he was not on many scouting projections for an early draft selection, he had a huge NFL Scouting Combine performance which catapulted him into the face of many NFL draft scouts. He showed stunning speed at the 40-yard dash, which served to punctuate his entire Combine performance.

To be clear, the Rams want to become much faster on the offensive side of the ball.
Evans is the second player from Appalachian State who has attracted the Rams’ interest. Evans adds plenty of production in both the running game and pass receptions. But the Rams may be giving Evans a look at the special team’s return specialist for 2020. He is incredibly versatile, super speedy, and would be a great addition to the team in multiple ways.

Evans would have been a nice sleeper type but I don't see as much flashing as I'd like to see on his film for the level of competition. He definitely has that passing game skill set the Rams want, but like Hendy he's going to need a lot of dev in pass pro at this level. I also think Hendy is more elusive with better power too when he wants to use it. But yeah I could see us taking him as long as he doesn't climb too high thanks to that workout.

Evans vs the Ragin' Cajuns...

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mOy_RFcl5VY

 

[Merlin]

Yeah, McVay did draft Sam Rogers, but he hasn't used a FB during his time here. Instead, he has occasionally used his 3rd TE as a FB. I don't know why people think diversifying personnel packages and formations matters. The key is to not be predictable. McVay is generally not predictable. If you can run 90% of your plays out of 11 personnel and not be predictable, go for it.

Re: the FB type role I'm pretty much done looking at the TEs and there's some guys who could fit in the TE2 role in this offense who will be available to us. Deguara for example round 5ish range. Or Pinkney late or as UDFA. So I wouldn't rule that type of pick out.

Thing is I'm not sure any of them would be able to challenge for a roster spot. Mundt seems to have that on lockdown given how well he developed last year. Seems like a luxury to me right now given the other needs we have. I mention Deguara because I love his compete level but yeah there's guys if they want to explore the FB type role.

 

[dieterbrock]

I dont want to derail the thread, but this just isnt true. Countess was an RFA who was given an original round tender. Which was a 6th round pick. He wasnt signed to an offer sheet by anyone, the Rams wanted him to take a pay cut and he wouldnt so they waived him. Philly claimed him off waivers so they didnt need to send draft comp.
Littleton was tendered as a 2nd rounder but he wasnt signed by anyone, so he played the year on the tender figure of 3 mill.
Seems to me the RFA is pretty cut and dry. 1st round tender, 2nd round tender or original round tender. The Rams used the original round tender on Brown last year, and since he was UDFA they only had opportunity to match. Detroit signed him to offer sheet which paid him less annually than the tender, so the Rams matched it and kept him.
So Cleveland hit him with the 2nd round tender, he has 30 days to find an offer otherwise he's on a 1 year deal for 3 mill. Then Cleveland can trade him for whatever they want

 

[LA_Rams_#29]

I'm confused as to why you keep saying that Thomas Brown has a specialty in the FB area. He was a NFL HB who was a RB Coach in college (with a short stint as Miami's OC) following his career.

New LA Rams RB coach Brown signals fullback likely returning to offense

LA Rams hiring former South Carolina RB coach Thomas Brown is welcome news for their plans to turn-around the team's running game. That's Brown's specialty

ramblinfan.com

Yeah, McVay did draft Sam Rogers, but he hasn't used a FB during his time here. Instead, he has occasionally used his 3rd TE as a FB. I don't know why people think diversifying personnel packages and formations matters. The key is to not be predictable. McVay is generally not predictable. If you can run 90% of your plays out of 11 personnel and not be predictable, go for it.

The Rams usage of the 11 formation in terms of how often they use it is on the high side in the league. in 2018 we used it more than any time in the league at 89% (2nd was Green bay at 77% which is interesting because much of Rodgers problem with McCarthy was the predictability). 2019 we got it down to 73% of the time, but that was still in the top 3 in the league. I couldn't disagree more about McVay's predictability. In 2017 we seemed far more diverse in our sets and play calling, but got locked into the 11 formation in 2018. We were super successful that season, but when it really counted our predictability lined up perfectly for Belichek's game planning in the super bowl.

McVay himself has pretty much copped to the fact that as a staff we need to be making more adjustments and that seems to be a guiding principle in the assistant coaching changes.

Also I think we need to remember that McVay's success in his brief period of time as a head coach shouldn't hide the fact that he's still an inexperienced solo play caller. IF he was the primary play caller in his last season at Washington (which is up for debate), but even of he was, it was under the supervision of Jay Gruden, who is known to be a more controlling offense coach. That would give McVay, the youngest head coach in NFL history at the time of his hire, his 3 years with us as the only primary play calling experience he's had in his young life. Thus we shouldn't take the trends during this young coach's 3 years experience as some established norm that needs no adjustments. Although his track record is successful, its brevity should provide us some context. It should also provide us some hope that this young successful coach is evolving and developing which is a very good thing.

But it had nothing to do with Anderson being a power back. He was simply effective in the scheme. You could have subbed in a speed or elusive back who fit in the scheme and saw the same sort of gains.

CJ Anderson's downhill running provided and needed change up from what we were doing in 2018 prior to him joining the team. CJ Anderson wasn't effective for us (coming off of his couch after getting cut by 2 teams) because using the 11 formation almost 90% of our plays played to his strengths. He was effective for us because he provided a CHANGE of style from a team that used the 11 formation so much.... ie, we were far less PREDICTABLE. Than we had been.

 

[jrry32]

New LA Rams RB coach Brown signals fullback likely returning to offense

LA Rams hiring former South Carolina RB coach Thomas Brown is welcome news for their plans to turn-around the team's running game. That's Brown's specialty

ramblinfan.com

That's a major reach. Thomas Brown had nothing to do with the offensive systems in place. Wisconsin has always run that style of offense. And he coached under Mark Richt at UGA and Miami, who also used an old school pro style system. As for South Carolina, they demoted their 2019 OC and replaced him with Mike Bobo, who spent the vast majority of his career working as Mark Richt's OC. Basically, they're transitioning from more of a spread to more of a pro style offense. The mistake the author of the article makes is assuming correlation equals causation. Brown wasn't the reason for those offenses having FBs.

The Rams usage of the 11 formation in terms of how often they use it is on the high side in the league. in 2018 we used it more than any time in the league at 89% (2nd was Green bay at 77% which is interesting because much of Rodgers problem with McCarthy was the predictability). 2019 we got it down to 73% of the time, but that was still in the top 3 in the league. I couldn't disagree more about McVay's predictability. In 2017 we seemed far more diverse in our sets and play calling, but got locked into the 11 formation in 2018.

First, I'm not trying to be a jerk in nitpicking here, but 11 personnel describes the players on the field, not the formation. You can use 11 personnel with a number of different formations. 11 personnel means that we're using 1 RB, 1 TE, and 3 WRs. Second, we used 11 personnel on 80% of our plays in 2017. In 2017 and 2018, we finished #1 and #2 in the NFL in scoring, respectively. Predictability in personnel packages doesn't really matter to me. Even predictability in formation doesn't matter. The question is if teams are able to figure out tendencies based on the players on the field and pre-snap alignment/movement/tells.

What McVay is tremendous at is disguising his plays pre- and post-snap to prevent defenses from being able to know what's coming. That's why they've struggled to stop us despite our offense not being overly complex. They can't look at how our players are aligned and who is on the field and know that it's a run or a certain type of pass. It leaves them guessing after the snap.

We were super successful that season, but when it really counted our predictability lined up perfectly for Belichek's game planning in the super bowl. McVay himself has pretty much copped to the fact that as a staff we need to be making more adjustments and that seems to be a guiding principle in the assistant coaching changes.

McVay is right that he needs more perspectives. He'll have to continue to adjust as teams adjust to him. But what Belichick exploited was McVay's hubris. Football is very much a chess match. You try to key into the opponent's tendencies. That allows you to beat them before the ball is even snapped. The one thing some of us kept reiterating during the two weeks leading up to the Super Bowl was that McVay needed to abandon his tendencies and come out with a novel gameplan that Belichick hadn't seen before. McVay didn't do that. He thought he could win strength versus strength.

His problem is that Belichick came out there and thew something completely new at him. He abandoned all his tendencies and used the two weeks to implement a style of defense they had rarely played. It confused the hell out of Goff and McVay, and they never recovered. That was where Belichick's experience allowed him to school the confident kid. But that was anomalous because teams don't typically have the sort of time to do that from week to week.

Also I think we need to remember that McVay's success in his brief period of time as a head coach shouldn't hide the fact that he's still an inexperienced solo play caller. IF he was the primary play caller in his last season at Washington (which is up for debate), but even of he was, it was under the supervision of Jay Gruden, who is known to be a more controlling offense coach. That would give McVay, the youngest head coach in NFL history at the time of his hire, his 3 years with us as the only primary play calling experience he's had in his young life. Thus we shouldn't take the trends during this young coach's 3 years experience as some established norm that needs no adjustments. Although his track record is successful, its brevity should provide us some context. It should also provide us some hope that this young successful coach is evolving and developing which is a very good thing.

Nobody is saying don't adjust. What I'm saying is that you don't waste a roster spot on a FB you're barely going to use. It's not McVay's style of offense. You can adapt and evolve without completely changing styles. Andy Reid has done that throughout his career. To the extent we need a FB, our 3rd TE can handle the job.

CJ Anderson's downhill running provided and needed change up from what we were doing in 2018 prior to him joining the team. CJ Anderson wasn't effective for us (coming off of his couch after getting cut by 2 teams) because using the 11 formation almost 90% of our plays played to his strengths. He was effective for us because he provided a CHANGE of style from a team that used the 11 formation so much.... ie, we were far less PREDICTABLE. Than we had been.

I disagree. He was effective because our system and blocking were effective. Gurley was an absolute monster that year before his injury. We would have been better off with a healthy Gurley, but C.J. did an admirable job.

 

[jrry32]

I disagree. While we are all aware McVay doesn't seem to value a power back, that doesn't mean Anderson's contributions during 2018's final stretch weren't extremely valuable.

I really liked the look of that power run game with the way McVay uses play action. As soon as CJ came aboard you immediately saw defenses adjust and their LBs going back to biting hard on the play action fakes. Because they knew that dude would require real tackles to bring down.

McVay probably won't draft that type of back, we're on the same page there. But I wish he would.

It doesn't have anything to do with power, though. It's about having a credible running threat. It doesn't matter if you elude or run through tackles. If you're an effective HB, the LBs have to respect you (as long as your OL can open up holes). They weren't biting because C.J. was a power guy. They were biting because he was running effectively. Alternatively, it's also why NE's LBs weren't biting. Because they figured out how to disrupt our running game using their DL.

Re: the FB type role I'm pretty much done looking at the TEs and there's some guys who could fit in the TE2 role in this offense who will be available to us. Deguara for example round 5ish range. Or Pinkney late or as UDFA. So I wouldn't rule that type of pick out.

Thing is I'm not sure any of them would be able to challenge for a roster spot. Mundt seems to have that on lockdown given how well he developed last year. Seems like a luxury to me right now given the other needs we have. I mention Deguara because I love his compete level but yeah there's guys if they want to explore the FB type role.

I'm a big Devin Asiasi guy. Really like his skill-set.

I dont want to derail the thread, but this just isnt true. Countess was an RFA who was given an original round tender. Which was a 6th round pick. He wasnt signed to an offer sheet by anyone, the Rams wanted him to take a pay cut and he wouldnt so they waived him. Philly claimed him off waivers so they didnt need to send draft comp.
Littleton was tendered as a 2nd rounder but he wasnt signed by anyone, so he played the year on the tender figure of 3 mill.
Seems to me the RFA is pretty cut and dry. 1st round tender, 2nd round tender or original round tender. The Rams used the original round tender on Brown last year, and since he was UDFA they only had opportunity to match. Detroit signed him to offer sheet which paid him less annually than the tender, so the Rams matched it and kept him.
So Cleveland hit him with the 2nd round tender, he has 30 days to find an offer otherwise he's on a 1 year deal for 3 mill. Then Cleveland can trade him for whatever they want

Are you responding to me, dieter? I can't tell. With Hunt, once he signs his tender, the Browns can trade him to anybody they want for any price.

 

[jrry32]

Evans would have been a nice sleeper type but I don't see as much flashing as I'd like to see on his film for the level of competition. He definitely has that passing game skill set the Rams want, but like Hendy he's going to need a lot of dev in pass pro at this level. I also think Hendy is more elusive with better power too when he wants to use it. But yeah I could see us taking him as long as he doesn't climb too high thanks to that workout.

Evans vs the Ragin' Cajuns...

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mOy_RFcl5VY

I'm not a fan. I think he's too soft in pass pro and too soft as a runner. He doesn't run with much oomph between the tackles and doesn't seem to want to grind for extra yardage. He's fast, has quick feet and loose hips, and can be elusive in space, but I don't like him between the tackles. I know we run a lot of outside zone, and he fits well in that sort of system, but I don't want to have a guy who is relegated to only that style of play.

 

[OldSchool]

Ouch my eyes are bleeding. Just read the Monday mock thread on reddit and most of those idiots have us drafting Dobbins or Swift in the 2nd round. I need a drink

 

[simonblaze]

Im excited at the thought of Rams getting Moss. It seems like his best attributes are his ability to catch the ball and break tackles. He's a perfect fit...check down option for Goff and has the ability to make some of his own plays via breaking tackles (our line might not do him very many favors)...

 

[oldnotdead]

I think the Rams move to a power gap type scheme. You can draft a blocking FB in the mid or late rounds if they want to draft one. Or they can use Mundt as a H-back lead blocker if they go to a 12 personnel look. They would still have 3 receivers in 2 wideouts, and a TE if they play action. O'Connell watched that while at SDSU during the Tomlinson days and TE Gates built a HOF career off of River's play action. When they see that lead block into the line it holds the LBs and SS and the receivers are in single man coverage. The Niners use it today. Defenders really don't know if it's run or pass.

Looking at this draft there are two or 3 RBs who fit the Rams scheme who probably will be on the board in the second round. One is JK Dobbins who has good agility, runs with good speed and surprising power, exactly what you want in the inside power attack. He's the one who is most likely to be on the board when the Rams pick in the second round. He also has experience in pass protection. When you look at him he checks almost if not all the boxes. Dobbins is the kind of RB the Rams hoped they had in Brown, but Dobbins has the speed Brown lacks.

This is going to be a different offense this year. We got a glimpse of it towards the end of the year when they first put Edwards and Evans in on the right side. If they would have had a lead blocker last year both Gurley and Henderson would have had a lot more yards even with the shoddy o-line blocking. Many times it needed just that one block to spring the RB. That will make defenses more predictable. They will see more zone coverage and give Goff time and these receivers will shred it.

Don't be fooled by looking at 2018 & 2019, I think we will see a return of the run attack but in a totally different scheme. Both the Niners and Hawks will see how it feels to be run on. I think they might trade up for a RB in the second and IMO the Dolphins at 39 or Bears at 43 would position them nicely for either an edge or RB since they have the comp pick in the 3rd round.

 

[Mojo Ram]

Hopefully our coach is realizing that diversifying our formations and our offense is something we need to do

x 1000

 

[Elmgrovegnome]

It se end that the Rams have to add a quality started at runningback, maybe two. John Kelly has not impressed and Henderson had two injuries last year, plus there was rumor that he wasn't the most dedicated when it came to the playbook.the

the injuries alone are a big reason they can't rely on him. Hopefully they can find a good pass blocker that can start.

 

[PressureD41]

they gotta feel comfortable that they can add a RB on Day 2 or the top of day 4. Need someone to push Henderson 7 days a week!!!

 

[dieterbrock]

Are you responding to me, dieter? I can't tell. With Hunt, once he signs his tender, the Browns can trade him to anybody they want for any price.

After his 30 day window has expired they can trade him sure.
RFA dont sign the tender like franchise players do. After being tendered, he can sign an offer sheet.