Maybe get Harrison in RD 2 then Willie Gay in Rd4

TexasRam said:

Nice Mock!

I think we might end up with Malik Jackson one way or another. He will probably be the best available ILB when we pick in RD 2.

Hennessy and Moss check off boxes of huge need for us.

This draft looks like a real possibility.

I would rather see a guard in late rounds like Stenberg or Bredeson rather than all these WR, RB’s though.

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Lets hope we can play Evans @ LG and get Hav back into the line up. Evans could be a plus OG w/ his feet

I like what I've seen as well. He's pretty smooth.
Look forward to seeing what he does as he feels more and more comfortable/relaxed.

(BTW - laugh every time I read your sig - well done).

bluecoconuts said:

Hah, didn't even think about that, the only thing I remember from that game is Spruce at the end at the kickoff return at the beginning!

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That was a crazy ass preseason game! Hated how it was Daks coming out game and everybody on his nuts for 1.5 years after words.

How Sean McVay and the Rams are Handling an Offseason of Transition
In an unusual offseason for all 32 teams, the Rams are saying goodbye to some veterans and hello to some new coordinators. Here's how Sean McVay's staff is managing. Plus, ranking the deepest positions in the draft, the questions about Tua, the Browns' uniform tweak and more.

ALBERT BREER 23 HOURS AGO

With respect to everything going on in our world—and for how small pro football’s place is in it, given the global crisis at hand—there’s part of this that really does suck for Sean McVay.

And that part has smacked him right in the face over the last month. Repeatedly.

Yeah, he’s trying to make the most of circumstances he, the Rams, and the other 31 coaches and teams are facing. But that didn’t make it easier, not getting to invite Todd Gurley—an absolute centerpiece of the facelift he’s performed— into his office to put a bow on the last three years, like he wanted to. Nor did it simplify calls to Brandin Cooks, who he calls “one of my favorite players,” or Clay Matthews, who he grew close to in their year together.

There are certain things you can replicate on the screen of a laptop. There are others you can’t, and it didn’t take long for McVay to realize it, with the Gurley gut punch as a catalyst.

“The one thing, especially this time when you have a lot more time than you’re normally accustomed to, to be reflective, to look back on the three years that we’ve spent together, it gives you nothing but an appreciation,” McVay said, late Wednesday from his house outside L.A. “And that’s the tough part about it. There’s still a human element. People say, ‘It’s not personal, it’s business.’ Well, there’s still a personal relationship, a personal appreciation, and a humanity that exists. …

“Certainly, it’s for the right reasons, as we fight the coronavirus. But it’s been a really difficult collaboration as we’ve made some tough decisions, and it only makes it worse when you can’t look guys in the eye and you have to communicate the information through the phone or on some of these social platforms that isn’t as personal as a face-to-face is.”

It’s also a reminder how much has changed with the Rams. McVay’s got three new coordinators. The way the team is building has, subtly but significantly, shifted. New leaders in the locker room will have to emerge. The new stadium is about to open, even if the pandemic has created uncertainty on when the ribbon will actually be cut.

This is a different offseason for everyone. It remains a very big one in LA.

And maybe you don’t realize how much has changed in L.A. until you start to add it up, because it’s not like there’s a new GM, head coach or quarterback coming in. Consider…

• McVay hired Kevin O’Connell to be offensive coordinator (a title that sat vacant since Matt LaFleur left two years ago), Brandon Staley as defensive coordinator and John Bonamego as special teams coordinator, while saying goodbye to one of the great defensive minds in recent NFL history, in Wade Phillips, and a long-time Rams staple, in John Fassel.

• Cornerstones like Gurley, Cooks, Cory Littleton and Dante Fowler are gone.

• The team was far more restrained in its spending. One series of moves that signaled the change? The Rams took on economical reclamation projects A’Shawn Robinson and Leonard Floyd for the price it would’ve cost to keep Fowler, without yielding the long-term flexibility they would’ve had to in order to re-sign the star edge rusher.

• The Rams are swallowing over $40 million in dead money on the Cooks and Gurley deals, which is a tacit admission of mistakes made, and a price paid for pushing money from today to tomorrow to build the Super Bowl roster of 2018.

It’s not a total rebuild, of course. But there was enough here for McVay to make what, with the benefit of retrospect, wound up being a pivotal decision in the mosaic of the mess of 2020. He kept his coordinators home for the duration of the combine, and only went himself for a day, to try and make sure the identity of his team would be better cemented.

During that week, McVay would spend half the day with O’Connell, going over the team’s scheme, how to best build it for the players on hand, and the trouble areas that they wanted to fix, and the other half of the day doing the same with Staley. The coordinators, then, spent the other halves of their days working through specific position groups in the draft class, and looking at their fit for the team, to make up for the work lost in Indy.

“It was getting a jump on the teaching progression, and working in collaboration with them, being in a really good spot specific to where you typically are in an offseason, especially when it’s a newer system,” McVay said.

McVay says now that, at the time, the idea was “being intentional” about relationship building, and the unintentional benefit since has been obvious. The rapport within a staff working remotely is there now, at least in part, because of the time spent together then. And so just as unfortunate as the way the head coach had to say goodbye to guys was, McVay’s excited about trying to create advantages, in going forward with some purpose.

The age edge. McVay is hesitant to call his age, he’s 34 now, an advantage. And the truth is, in working through Zoom and Microsoft Teams, it hasn’t been all the time.

“I do know sometimes I’ll be looking, and I’ll have the camera still faced on me, and I’m talking about a play I’m narrating,” he said. “And they’ll say, ‘Hey Sean, shut the hell up and flip the camera back around.’ … That’s happened on more than one occasion where you say, ‘OK, so you see this guy right here, see what’s happening on this specific technique?’ The coaches are like, ‘Bro, we’re still seeing your face, we’re not seeing the film.’”.

But the fact that he, Staley (37) and O’Connell (34) grew up with the internet can’t hurt, and it may be why the staff as a whole has plowed forward without trepidation, even with the attendant mishaps factored in (which support staff guys like Billy Nayes, Jeff Graves and Dan Dmystirin have helped them work through).

“How we’re able to be diligent and efficient in our work, that’s been a real positive,” McVay said. “I don’t know if it’s necessarily exclusive to the age, but just how efficient our coaches, our scouts have been with that adaptability on some of these technological platforms that allow you to operate in a very similar manner to what you would if you were present in the building.”

Building an identity. Part of the reason for Staley’s arrival in L.A. was McVay’s respect for, and the trouble he’s had with, the Vic Fangio system—Staley was with Fangio in Denver and Chicago. Part of O’Connell coming aboard was how highly regarded he was with old friends of McVay’s in Washington. But the overarching idea here for McVay was being able to tie together the team’s offensive and defensive identities.

As we talked about that, I brought up how Bill Belichick toggles between sides of the ball to ensure his team has that. Likewise, McVay has spent more time with the defense the last couple years than most people know, and that’s continued with new coordinators aboard.

“One of the things that was exciting about Brandon and a lot of the visions he had, there was a very similar philosophy, in terms of how it’ll best suit our players but also marry with that team approach,” McVay said. “When you look at some of these teams, it’s about winning football as a team, not playing separately as far as offense, defense and special teams. …

“There are different ways to do it. [But] you referenced New England, they’ve done as good a job as anybody being able to adjust and adapt their system specific to their opponents but still have an identity with how they want to operate week in and week out. And I think that’s why they’ve been the most consistent program over the last handful of years.”

Being ready for the players. On April 27, two days after the draft wraps, the Rams offseason program will start under the same sort of circumstances that McVay’s coaching meetings have taken place. And McVay hopes that going through the former, and having to put together a revised scheme on one side of the ball, and a new one on the other, will prove a good dry run for the latter.

But there are pieces of it he acknowledges will be touch and go, under the NFL’s new rules. One will be the normal give and take—McVay likes his players to take ownership of what they’re being taught—that happens in meetings. It’s possible, to be sure, players will be more hesitant to speak up into their laptops than they would be in a meeting room. And with new coaches in the mix, it may be complicated even further. Which means that there’ll probably be adjustments and tweaks along what’s clearly an uncharted path.

“What’s going to be interesting to see is when you get into those larger quantity meetings where you’ve got 35 or 40 guys in a unit meeting, and the team meetings, those will certainly be a challenge,” McVay said. “We’ve practiced on one another, and we’ve tried to be intentional to make sure our time is spent where it’s efficient, it’s engaging, it’s entertaining for the guys, it’s educational. You don’t want it to get monotonous.

“You’ve got this time allotted. We want to make sure it’s maximized and it’s something that keeps these guys knowing you always have an intent in what you’re trying to get done.”

All this time has given McVay plenty of space to think too, and that’s where we got back to Gurley. Before the Rams cut him, McVay remembered Gurley’s incredible stretch run in 2017—he went over 100 scrimmage yards in nine of his final 10 games that regular season, as the Rams improbably won the division—and his important role in the Super Bowl season of 2018, and it came back to him again, how much Gurley meant to him personally.

“How fortunate and blessed I feel to have gotten a contract extension after my first deal, he’s been as instrumental and influential on the success that we’ve had as anybody,” McVay said. “He’s helped set me up, and my family up, for a lot of really nice things. You don’t get those opportunities and you don’t achieve a level of success without getting to work with players like him. I mean, it’s really special. … His resume for the five years he played as a Ram, and I was with him for three of those, it’s up there with the all-time greats.”

And just the same as McVay missed the chance to give Gurley the send-off he deserved, he is missing being at the facility, around his staff, and it’ll hit him again, he’s sure, in a week and a half, when he’s staring at his players in Brady Bunch-style boxes on a laptop, instead of addressing them in an auditorium.
But that’s where he, the Rams and we all are right now.

“I heard [L.A. Clippers coach] Doc Rivers, I’ve gotten to be friends with him, and he’s talking to his team about winning the wait right now,” McVay said. “It’s a little bit different, they’re waiting, they’re in a holding pattern. But it’s the same in that it’s winning the moment.”

And if that means just remembering to flip the camera on the laptop, then McVay will try to do that too.

PressureD41 said:

Today Von Miller has report as convid-19, not sure of full details yet..was driving and heard it in Sirius XM Football Ch88

Denver Broncos linebacker Von Miller, former Super Bowl MVP, tests positive for COVID-19

Denver Broncos linebacker Von Miller, the MVP in Super Bowl 50, has tested positive for the novel coronavirus..

www.usatoday.com

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But Brian Allen was the First!!

Draft selections from Top 100 in McVay era: RB Darrell Henderson

As part of theRams.com's coverage leading into this year's NFL Draft, we will be examining selections from the Top 100 in the Sean McVay era. The series continues with a look at running back Darrell Henderson.

Before joining the Rams...

Henderson became more involved in Memphis' offense as his college career wore on:

As a freshman: 719 yards from scrimmage (482 rushing, 237 receiving) and eight total touchdowns (five rushing, two receiving, one kickoff return).

As a sophomore: 1,380 yards from scrimmage (1,154 rushing, 226 receiving) and 11 total touchdowns (nine rushing, two receiving).

As a junior: 2,204 yards from scrimmage (1,909 rushing, 295 receiving) and 25 total touchdowns (22 rushing, three receiving).

Besides establishing himself as a running back capable of making plays in the passing game, he also earned a reputation as one of the most explosive players in college football. He averaged 8.9 yards per rushing attempt as a sophomore and junior, and his rushing total of 1,909 in 2018 was second nationally to Wisconsin's Jonathan Taylor, who had 2,194.

Henderson's strong junior season also coincided with First Team All-American honors from the Associated Press as well as First Team All-Conference USA honors. He was one of three finalists for the Doak Walker Award, given to the most outstanding running back in the country, along with Taylor and Clemson's Travis Etienne.

After a decorated three years at Memphis, Henderson declared for the NFL Draft and later received a Round 2-3 projection from NFL Media analyst Lance Zierlein. Another NFL Media analyst, Daniel Jeremiah, regarded Henderson as one of the Top 100 prospects in the 2019 class.

Eventually, that pedigree led to the Rams scooping up Henderson in the third round with the No. 70 overall pick.

Rams highlights

Though he saw limited action across the 13 games he appeared in, Henderson still showed he could be a valuable contributor to the Rams' offense and special teams.

At running back, Henderson finished with 39 carries for 147 yards, adding four receptions for 37 yards. The bulk of that production came in Weeks 6, 7 and 8 when he stepped into the No. 2 running back role after Malcolm Brown, the primary backup to starter Todd Gurley, injured his ankle against the 49ers in Week 6 and missed the next two games.

Henderson tallied 11 carries for 40 yards against the 49ers, then 11 for 31 plus one reception for nine yards against the Falcons in Week 7. Week 8 produced Henderson's best outing of the season: 11 carries for 49 yards and two receptions for 20 yards against the Bengals in London.

When starting kick returner JoJo Natson landed on injured reserve in early December, Henderson took over those duties and averaged 19.3 yards on three returns.

Following Gurley's release, Henderson could potentially take on an expanded role in the Rams' backfield in 2020.

Cooper Kupp hasn’t had discussions with Rams on new contract

Los Angeles Rams wide receiver Cooper Kupp is in the final year of his contract with the team, but the two sides have yet to begin discussions on an extension.

Kupp told Gary Klein of the Los Angeles Times his camp have yet to discuss terms with the team, but also noted a new contract was not a “priority” amid the craziness of the coronavirus pandemic. He also believes something will get done in due time (via Charean Williams of Pro Football Talk):

Kupp, 26, heads into the final year of his rookie deal unconcerned about the future. He will make a $2.13 million base salary this season and expects a new deal to take care of itself.
The sides, though, have not begun talks on an extension.

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“We haven’t done anything yet,” Kupp said, via Gary Klein of the Los Angeles Times. “There’s so much going on in the world right now. It’s really not a priority at this time.”

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The 26-year-old burst onto the scene with 62 receptions for 869 yards and five touchdowns in his rookie season, and Kupp also tallied over 566 yards receiving despite missing half of the 2018 campaign due to injury.

Kupp put it all together last year, hauling in 94 catches for 1,161 yards and 10 touchdowns while also leading the Rams in receptions, receiving yards and receiving touchdowns.

The Rams might be wary of doling out massive contracts to receivers after they shippedBrandin Cooks off to the Houston Texans. But Kupp has been very impressive in his first three seasons, and the Rams will likely do everything they can to extend before he reaches free agency.

Good point, flavio



lol at Villa-del-fear, took me a sec to get that one

dieterbrock said:

I didnt complete the entire statement,
"Only two wideouts to measure 6’4” & 235 pounds or bigger have run a sub-4.45 in the 40-yard dash at the NFL Scouting Combine since 2003"

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That sounds accurate. He's very much a freak athlete. I won't be upset if we draft him. McVay will figure out how to utilize him. But I have to say that I do prefer Tee Higgins. We might not have the chance with Tee, though.

I'm with the "let the draft come to us" crowd, unless ...

"Les, we've got Bill O'Brien on line 2 ..."

kurtfaulk said:

.

is this what you saw @flv ?

Login to view embedded media
.

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or...?

Corbin said:

How simple is it? Give the fans what the fans want.

Stay classic and true to your own heritage and history. You've sucked for so long and still have so many loyal fans.

It isn't rocket science, Demoff should demand his money back from the monkeys he had working on our branding and give it to the guys who did the Browns.

Login to view embedded media View: https://twitter.com/Browns/status/1250453851980914688?s=20


This is my sole issue I have with Demoff. Stop trying to make your mark on this gloried franchise to say " Look at what I added to it", be humble and change these shitty ass Logo's.

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Good news Browns fans....the Browns swear to be true to who they’ll always be.
Bad news Browns fans....the Browns swear to be true to who they’ll always be.

Bill O'Brien getting all of the off-season accolades this year. I've never been a fan.

I posted a link to an article by Tony Pauline somewhere on the forum. He believes that GMs who came up as Scouts and are still doing some scouting in person have a big advantage over the more executive types of GMs, when it comes to this draft. Scouting GMs will be better prepared to make a quick decision and will have the needed knowledge first hand where executive types really heavily on others to relay information. It will be interesting to see if that is so.

I saw it was a 16 minute video and moved on

Doesn't want to embed, but hopefully the mods can fix that.

CGI_Ram said:

Hill is the kind of player you hold on to. He fills a key role, well, at a fair price.

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True. But the way I see Hill used would be in the event an impact round 1 type corner slides and they want to jump a little bit and take him.

Hill on the cheap is nice and all but pairing a young stud corner with Ramsey would be better. There is no telling which top group player on the Rams board will slide so they should be ready to move up if necessary and sieze the day as it were.

Rams News: John Johnson III Looking To Bounce Back From Injury; Not Concerned About Contract Situation

Rams News: John Johnson III Looking To Bounce Back From Injury; Not Concerned About Contract Situation - Rams Nation

Los Angeles Rams safety John Johnson III is looking to bounce back from injury in 2020 and is not concerned about his contract situation.

ramsnation.com

I dont think these signings alter drafting/not drafting a kicker. If they like a kicker and he's there late? Could happen. Always room on the practice squad

What are Les Snead’s draft tendencies?

Les Snead has been the general manager of the Rams since 2012, starting in St. Louis, staying with the team as they moved to Los Angeles, and then again as they fired Jeff Fisher and replaced him with Sean McVay. He has drawn praise for his aggressive trades and exception draft picks like Aaron Donald, but criticism as of late for the Rams’ salary cap issues and the cost paid to not have players such as Todd Gurley and Brandin Cooks.

Snead is now preparing for his ninth draft with the team next week, again doing so without a first round pick. It would not be surprising to see Snead try and get aggressive again, especially now that he has two second round picks because of the Cooks trade. Over at NFL.com, they posted an interesting video quickly outlining the draft history of each NFL general manager.

What did they have to say about Snead?

I wouldn’t say it was emphatically in-depth or anything, which is fine as they were hammering in 32 teams in a 20-minute video. Here’s the two takeaways:

The Pro Bowl stuff is fine. I mean, think of the players the Rams have drafted who haven’t made a Pro Bowl: Trumaine Johnson, Michael Brockers, Alec Ogletree, Cooper Kupp, Lamarcus Joyner, Taylor Rapp, Tyler Higbee.

Some really good players. Some young players who haven’t had much of a chance yet to make a Pro Bowl. It’s early yet and the Pro Bowl qualifications go way beyond how good a player is and we know that.

We know that Snead is aggressive and we know that he seems to prefer consolidating his draft resources into upper-tier players over maybe spreading it out and hoping for depth and more scratch tickets. Snead has used the draft to come away with players like Marcus Peters, Jalen Ramsey, Aqib Talib, Dante Fowler, and so forth. Now that the Rams have two second and two third round picks, the idea of them making deals on day two would not be a wild fantasy. We also know he isn’t afraid of not drafting until round three, which happened in 2017, 2018, and almost 2019.

yrba1 said:

Gurley shook the market, good for elite RBs though. Hoping he avoids any long-term injury woes being a bellcow halfback

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yeah i'm sure Run CMC is a big fan of Gurley right now