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1,000,000 ROD posts
- By flv
- RAMS / NFL TALK
- 26 Replies
According to the forum statistics ROD just broke the 1,000,000 post barrier. I just thought that deserved a mention. Yay ROD. 
Los Angeles Rams Remain First in HCR’s Game Control Index
- By -X-
- RAMS / NFL TALK
- 9 Replies
https://www.headcoachranking.com/los-angeles-rams-remain-first-hcrs-game-control-index/
By HCR Staff | Oct. 26, 2018
Before the 2018 season began, HCR introduced a new metric for measuring success in the NFL: the Game Control Index. A proprietary metric combining key factors that we believe are indicative of winning football games, the Game Control Index results from the 2017 season fell into place with how the teams finished: Eight of the top 10 teams made the playoffs, and only one of the 12 playoff teams did not finish in the top 15.
As a reminder, here’s how it works:
The Game Control Index tracks how often a team comes away with points via long drives (starting at their own 30-yard line or deeper) and short drives (starting at the 50 or in opponent’s territory). We do the same for each team’s defense, i.e., how well does a team prevent long drives and short drives. We calculate total points scored on these drives and average points per drive – for both offense and defense. “Throwaway drives” – if a team is kneeling at the end of a half or just running out the clock – are not counted.
That’s eight different factors to rank, and the average of the eight factors produces the Game Control Index. The lower the number, the better that team did in converting opportunities to control games.
Through seven weeks of the 2018 season, the undefeated Los Angeles Rams continue to dominate the GCI rankings. Three weeks ago, the Rams were at the top and then-undefeated Kansas City was second. The Chiefs have actually dropped to third, with the Baltimore Ravens moving into the No. 2 spot.
Here are a few key takeaways:
• There are three teams with losing records – all sitting at 3-4 — in the top 10: the Denver Broncos are eighth; Atlanta Falcons ninth; and New York Jets 10th. Does their GCI ranking imply that these teams might be better than their records indicate? Worth keeping an eye on.
• After Week 4, we noted that the Jacksonville Jaguars – despite a 3-1 record – had a mediocre GCI score. They ranked 18th at the time. Since then, they have dropped even further – tied for 24th – and, coincidentally, lost three straight games.
• The team Jacksonville is tied with at 24 is the Green Bay Packers. At 4-2-1, the Packers have the lowest GCI among teams with a winning record. The Packers are tied for first in the NFC North with the Minnesota Vikings – whose GCI score is only two spots better at No. 22.
• The biggest riser over the last three weeks has been the Houston Texans. After Week 4, they ranked 21st in GCI. After Week 7, they are fourth.
• Two teams dropped the farthest since Week 4: The Seattle Seahawks fell from sixth to 16th; the Packers went from 14th to tied for 24th.
By HCR Staff | Oct. 26, 2018
Before the 2018 season began, HCR introduced a new metric for measuring success in the NFL: the Game Control Index. A proprietary metric combining key factors that we believe are indicative of winning football games, the Game Control Index results from the 2017 season fell into place with how the teams finished: Eight of the top 10 teams made the playoffs, and only one of the 12 playoff teams did not finish in the top 15.
As a reminder, here’s how it works:
The Game Control Index tracks how often a team comes away with points via long drives (starting at their own 30-yard line or deeper) and short drives (starting at the 50 or in opponent’s territory). We do the same for each team’s defense, i.e., how well does a team prevent long drives and short drives. We calculate total points scored on these drives and average points per drive – for both offense and defense. “Throwaway drives” – if a team is kneeling at the end of a half or just running out the clock – are not counted.
That’s eight different factors to rank, and the average of the eight factors produces the Game Control Index. The lower the number, the better that team did in converting opportunities to control games.
Through seven weeks of the 2018 season, the undefeated Los Angeles Rams continue to dominate the GCI rankings. Three weeks ago, the Rams were at the top and then-undefeated Kansas City was second. The Chiefs have actually dropped to third, with the Baltimore Ravens moving into the No. 2 spot.
Here are a few key takeaways:
• There are three teams with losing records – all sitting at 3-4 — in the top 10: the Denver Broncos are eighth; Atlanta Falcons ninth; and New York Jets 10th. Does their GCI ranking imply that these teams might be better than their records indicate? Worth keeping an eye on.
• After Week 4, we noted that the Jacksonville Jaguars – despite a 3-1 record – had a mediocre GCI score. They ranked 18th at the time. Since then, they have dropped even further – tied for 24th – and, coincidentally, lost three straight games.
• The team Jacksonville is tied with at 24 is the Green Bay Packers. At 4-2-1, the Packers have the lowest GCI among teams with a winning record. The Packers are tied for first in the NFC North with the Minnesota Vikings – whose GCI score is only two spots better at No. 22.
• The biggest riser over the last three weeks has been the Houston Texans. After Week 4, they ranked 21st in GCI. After Week 7, they are fourth.
• Two teams dropped the farthest since Week 4: The Seattle Seahawks fell from sixth to 16th; the Packers went from 14th to tied for 24th.
Kinda Funny
- By Realign
- RAMS / NFL TALK
- 20 Replies
Thought this was pretty funny. I am glad those days are behind us.
Sam Shields... in his own words...
- By LARams_1963
- RAMS / NFL TALK
- 25 Replies
Great account by Sam of the hell he went through...
https://www.theplayerstribune.com/en-us/articles/sam-shields-rams
The Tylenol wasn’t doing shit.
It was three o’clock in the morning on some night in January 2017. I forget which one. I’d had a lot of bad nights around that time, but this one was the worst. I couldn’t sleep. It felt like my brain was cramping, or like it was trying to break out of my skull or something. I was rolling around in my bed, whipping my body back and forth, trying to escape the pounding inside my head.
Next thing I know, I’m curled up in the fetal position, shaking and crying.
I had spent the previous couple of months literally living in the dark, sitting inside my house in Sarasota, Florida, with the curtains closed because I couldn’t handle the sunlight. Anything in the house that lit up was turned off. I couldn’t look at my phone for more than a few seconds. And forget about watching TV.
I tried listening to music, but sound had the same effect. I even tried turning the bass down — I went straight treble — and I still couldn’t handle it.
You ever sit alone, in silence, in the dark, for weeks at a time, where all your mind can do is wander and think whatever it wants?
Believe me, you’ll think up some scary shit.
I was thinking about how maybe this was gonna be my life now. This was it. It would just be me, in the darkness, trapped inside my own head … forever.
One thing I didn’t think about was football.
Actually, scratch that … I was thinking about football.
I was thinking, F**k football.
I didn’t even care about it anymore.
I just wanted to get my head right.
But I couldn’t.
I was thinking, F**k football. I didn’t even care about it anymore. I just wanted to get my head right.
Now it was 3 a.m., and I was curled up in a ball, sobbing uncontrollably.
I needed help. I needed medicine. I needed God.
I needed my mama.
It’s funny. It doesn’t matter who you are or how old you get. Even when you’re a grown-ass man and you got money and you got your own kids and shit …
Sometimes, you just need your mama.
She lived right down the street, so I called her up, and I remember just moaning into the phone.
“Ohhh, shit … make it stop … ahhhh, please help me … please come, Mama!”
“I’m on my way, baby.”
That’s all she said.
Five minutes later, she was there with me, sitting on my bed, stroking my forehead like I was a little baby, telling me everything was gonna be O.K. She asked if I wanted some Tylenol, and I told her I had already taken some but it wasn’t doing anything. So she went into the kitchen and made me some soup because … moms, right? They be thinking soup can fix anything.
But the soup didn’t help. Nothing did. Nothing could stop the pounding. I knew that. All I could do was wait. It would pass.
I hoped.
People have been asking me why.
Why come back? After five concussions and basically missing two full seasons — and after being in that dark place and knowing that one hit could potentially put me back there — why risk it? Why come back?
Well, first off, I’ve been back playing and hitting for a while now, and everything’s been cool. And I plan on everything staying cool — knock on wood.
But the reason I came back is …
Love, man.
Love for this game.
I know it’s hard for some people to understand because … it is just a game. And I guess the best way I can explain it is to ask you to think about something you love. Something you live for. Something that’s as big a part of you as anything. Something that defines you. Something that makes you feel powerful. Something that makes you feel special. Something that makes you feel alive.
I know you got something like that in your life, and you’d probably sacrifice everything for it. Everybody’s got their own shit.
Football is my shit.
That’s why I came back. To finish what I started and pick up where I left off on the football field in Week 1 of the 2016 season when I came up and laid a hit on T.J. Yeldon, and it was lights out.
I was only down for a second, and honestly, when I got up, I felt O.K. I was a little woozy, but overall, I was straight.
The trainers wanted to take a look at me anyway.
This was before they had the little blue tent on the sidelines, so they took me into the training room to check me out. I walked off the field and disappeared into the darkness of the tunnel, still feeling O.K. Then I walked into the training room and back into the light … that’s when everything hit me. It was instant headache. I guess the adrenaline had worn off, because all of a sudden it was like I had a giant heart beating inside my head. My vision started fading in and out as my head throbbed, like I was seeing strobe lights.
I was buggin’ out, man. I’d had concussions previously, but I had never felt anything like this.
I sat on the training table, closed my eyes as hard as I could, put my head in my hands and started rubbing and squeezing it to try and stop the pain.
Then I just started crying — I mean sobbing like a little baby.
I looked up at the trainers, like, What the f*** is wrong with me?
Ronald Martinez/Getty Images
For the next few weeks, my head was constantly hurting. I couldn’t eat. I couldn’t sleep. I had to call the trainers in the middle of the night sometimes to bring me sleep medication. They would check up on me and track my progress. Some days they’d bring me in and give me these little tests where they’d show me a shape — like a triangle or something — then they’d have me focus on some other task. When I was done, they’d ask me to go back and remember the shape they had shown me.
I couldn’t.
They kept giving me this test over and over, and I just couldn’t remember the f***ing shape, man.
One time I got so pissed about it that I got up and left the facility. I went home and sat by myself in the dark.
About a month later, the Packers put me on IR. I felt like I had to get out of Green Bay, so I went home to Sarasota to be with my family and my three daughters.
But things just got worse.
There were so many days and nights when I’d be home by myself in the dark, crying on my bed, my head just blasting. It felt like it was never going to stop.
That was my life for about three months. I had good days and bad days, but the night in January when I had to call my mom to come over was the worst. That was rock bottom.
A couple of weeks after that, I was sitting in my house in the middle of the afternoon in the dark when I got a phone call from my agent.
The Packers had released me.
I guess I was wrong.
This was rock bottom.
I’ll be honest with you: When the Packers released me, that shit hurt. Even though in my mind I was basically done with football, and I knew that their decision was just business, I was still sad as a motherfucker.
I just felt like they hadn’t given me a chance, you know? They just put me on IR, then I didn’t hear much from until they cut me loose.
And that was that.
I’ve never had any hard feelings about it all, though. I’ll always have love for the Packers. They gave me my chance as an undrafted free agent. They paid me when it was time for me to get paid. The fans were always crazy supportive — they still show me love today — and I loved all the guys I played with and the people I met in the organization. So the fact that they just cut me loose like that … I don’t know. I mean, I get it. Business is business, right?
I just didn’t like the way they went about that business.
Ronald Martinez/Getty Images
But in a weird way, getting cut was a turning point for me. It opened my eyes to the fact that if I was going to get better, I was gonna have to have to get off my ass and actually do something about it — and I’d have to do it myself. I didn’t have no team to help me. No trainers to call. It was gonna be on me. And whatever I had been doing — sitting in the dark and just waiting for shit to get better — damn sure wasn’t working.
I started doing some research. It was tough because I couldn’t look at my phone or computer screen for more than a couple of minutes. But over the course of a few weeks, I came across a lot of people who had been dealing with the same things as me.
I found this one woman who was out in L.A., and she had worked with doctors at UCLA, where they had some of the best programs for people dealing with post-concussive stuff like I had. I reached out to her and told her my situation, and she straight up told me that I needed to come out there ASAP.
A week later, I went and met her in L.A.
I spent the whole summer out there working with the neurologists at UCLA, and man … I wish I could explain everything they told me. I learned so much. But the main thing I learned was that what I had been doing — staying at home all day in the dark and just waiting for my head to get right on its own — was the worst thing I could have possibly done. They told me that my brain was like any other muscle. And when you pull a hamstring or something — sure, you gotta give it some time, but then you have to rehab it. You have to work it.
They had me doing all these crazy drills, like I’d be running on a treadmill while they asked me a bunch of different questions or gave me math problems to solve. They were basically retraining my brain to multitask. After a while, they even gave me that test the trainers had given me back in Green Bay — the one with the shapes — to see how I had been progressing.
This time, I actually remembered that shit!
It was a long process. I had some good days and some bad. There were nights where I couldn’t sleep because of migraines, and nights where I slept great. But as the months went on, I started having more good days than bad, until, eventually, I started to feel like my old self again.
In November — after about six months at UCLA — I went back home to Sarasota.
I remember the first time I went back into my house. It was the middle of the day, and I walked in, pulled the curtains open for the first time in I don’t know how long, and just let the sunlight in.
No headache.
No nothing.
I thought about my daughters and how they had their dad back. About my parents, who had stuck by me through everything.
Then I thought about football.
And I thought, Maybe it’s not over for me.
Sam Shields' first day back on the field
That video is from January 3, 2018. My first day back on the football field since Week 1 in 2016.
There had been moments when I thought I was 100% done with football. But I never turned in my retirement papers because I didn’t want to make that kind of a decision while I was in such a crazy state of mind. I didn’t want it to be an emotional decision.
And I know that video above might not look like much, but man … just being on the field, digging my cleats into the grass, moving my body and sweating from something other than a paralyzing migraine….
I knew right then that Sam Shields was gonna be back.
So I got back on my grind and had my agent put the word out.
“I’m baaaaack,” I told him. “Better let ’em know!”
Two teams showed interest in working me out: the Browns and the Rams. I had seen the things the Rams had done in 2017, and I thought, Man, I could really be a part of that.
Usually, when a team brings you in for a workout, it’s for one day. You come in, you work out, and their people call your people if they’re down.
The Rams kept me there for like three or four days. They ran all kinds of tests to make sure my head was right and I was healthy enough to play. I had already been cleared by doctors, but the Rams did their due diligence, for sure.
Then, on the day of my actual on-field workout, I thought there would be a couple of people — maybe the head coach, the D-coordinator and the DBs coach — but the whole damn staff was out there. I asked one dude why so many people were there, and he said, “We’ve all seen you play, and we love your game. We just wanted to be out here to watch you.”
The first drill we did was a ball-tracking drill. I lined up, the coach hiked the ball, I stayed low and backpedaled out, and when the coach brought the ball up to his shoulder to indicate pass, I flipped my hips, turned and ran.
As I was running, I heard somebody yell out, “That’s it!”
It was Coach McVay.
“That’s all we need to see,” he said. “We’re good here. Call your agent and let him know we’re ready to sign you.”
I was like, “Shiiiiiiit, I’m ready, too!”
That was that. I came back the next day and met with the staff, and everybody was extra real with me throughout the whole process. No bullshit. They told me right off the bat that they were about to trade for Aqib Talib and Marcus Peters, so they’d be pretty stacked at corner. But I hadn’t put pads on in 16 months, man. I wasn’t even thinking about defense. I just wanted to get back on the field on special teams and prove to myself and everybody else that I could still ball.
I told them straight up, “You give me an opportunity, and I’m gonna ride for you.”
And we did the deal.
Courtesy of Sam Shields
I’ll never forget training camp my rookie year in Green Bay in 2010. I was an undrafted guy who had only been playing corner for one year — I switched over from receiver before my senior year at Miami — and I was having a lot of trouble learning the defensive schemes. I would get called on in meetings and not know the answers to basic questions about different coverages. The coaches wouldn’t even give me reps in practice because I didn’t know the plays.
I went back to my room one night after meetings and my roommate, Morgan Burnett, was there.
“I can’t do this shit,” I told him. “I just can’t! I’m gonna quit.”
He was like, “Nah, man. You’re not gonna quit. You’re gonna stay. You can learn this shit, and I’m gonna teach you.”
After that, every day during camp, Morgan stayed up late and studied with me. And I don’t know if he said something to the other guys or what, but one day at practice I was over with all the DBs — Charles Woodson, Tramon Williams, Jarrett Bush and the rest of the vets — and they were like, “Hey, man, we got you. You’re gonna get this.”
And they took me under their wings.
Then my secondary coach, Joe Whitt, came to me one day with some flash cards. He had taken this stack of little white cards, and on each one he had drawn up an offensive formation on one side, and on the other, the defensive audible we were supposed to call against that formation. And I’m telling you, that shit worked. Between the flash cards, working with the vets and hitting the playbook harder than I ever had in my life, everything started making sense.
Those guys — the vets in Green Bay and my man Joe Whitt — man, without them? I don’t know if I would have ever made it in this league.
They taught the kid how to play.
I remember all this so vividly now because I remember how it all felt — being the new guy, learning a new defense and how to play with new teammates, playing special teams to prove that I belonged. And I felt the exact same way when I took the field for the first time with the Rams this past offseason.
I felt like a rookie all over again.
But with the advantage of that veteran wisdom.
And you know what? It’s been fun, man. Especially after everything I’ve been through. The headaches. The stress. The frustration. All that I had to cope with. It was just a lot. What I went through, I wouldn’t wish it upon my worst enemy.
So to be here, right now, with this team? Man … I just feel blessed.
Honestly, this team reminds me a lot of that Packers team we had back in 2010. It was a fun, exciting team. We had a tight defense, just like we got here in L.A., and we had an offense that was lighting it up. It’s a little different now, though, because I think we snuck up on some people back in 2010. Now, this Rams team … we’re 7–0 and everybody’s talking about us. Teams are coming at us every week, giving us their absolute best, trying to knock us off.
And that’s a lot of fun, too.
Peter Read Miller via AP
My whole goal was to get back on the field on special teams and just be ready if the team needed me on defense. Now, with Talib out, they’ve needed me a little bit. And honestly, I’m still climbing back. It’s been a long two years, man. And I’m just now getting my groove back. I’m this close to being all the wayback.
And that’s why I came back. For the camaraderie and being around a group of guys like we got here in L.A. For a chance to be on a team that can compete every week. A chance to be back, doing the thing I love most.
A chance to ball out again, man.
Right now, I’m just riding the wave. And the way we prepare and the way we show up on Sundays … this team we got right here? I think we can ride all the way to the Super Bowl. I honestly believe that.
I just feel blessed to be a part of it. Blessed to be back. I’m happy to be riding this wave. It’s been a good one.
So I’mma just keep ridin’ it.
https://www.theplayerstribune.com/en-us/articles/sam-shields-rams
The Tylenol wasn’t doing shit.
It was three o’clock in the morning on some night in January 2017. I forget which one. I’d had a lot of bad nights around that time, but this one was the worst. I couldn’t sleep. It felt like my brain was cramping, or like it was trying to break out of my skull or something. I was rolling around in my bed, whipping my body back and forth, trying to escape the pounding inside my head.
Next thing I know, I’m curled up in the fetal position, shaking and crying.
I had spent the previous couple of months literally living in the dark, sitting inside my house in Sarasota, Florida, with the curtains closed because I couldn’t handle the sunlight. Anything in the house that lit up was turned off. I couldn’t look at my phone for more than a few seconds. And forget about watching TV.
I tried listening to music, but sound had the same effect. I even tried turning the bass down — I went straight treble — and I still couldn’t handle it.
You ever sit alone, in silence, in the dark, for weeks at a time, where all your mind can do is wander and think whatever it wants?
Believe me, you’ll think up some scary shit.
I was thinking about how maybe this was gonna be my life now. This was it. It would just be me, in the darkness, trapped inside my own head … forever.
One thing I didn’t think about was football.
Actually, scratch that … I was thinking about football.
I was thinking, F**k football.
I didn’t even care about it anymore.
I just wanted to get my head right.
But I couldn’t.
I was thinking, F**k football. I didn’t even care about it anymore. I just wanted to get my head right.
Now it was 3 a.m., and I was curled up in a ball, sobbing uncontrollably.
I needed help. I needed medicine. I needed God.
I needed my mama.
It’s funny. It doesn’t matter who you are or how old you get. Even when you’re a grown-ass man and you got money and you got your own kids and shit …
Sometimes, you just need your mama.
She lived right down the street, so I called her up, and I remember just moaning into the phone.
“Ohhh, shit … make it stop … ahhhh, please help me … please come, Mama!”
“I’m on my way, baby.”
That’s all she said.
Five minutes later, she was there with me, sitting on my bed, stroking my forehead like I was a little baby, telling me everything was gonna be O.K. She asked if I wanted some Tylenol, and I told her I had already taken some but it wasn’t doing anything. So she went into the kitchen and made me some soup because … moms, right? They be thinking soup can fix anything.
But the soup didn’t help. Nothing did. Nothing could stop the pounding. I knew that. All I could do was wait. It would pass.
I hoped.
People have been asking me why.
Why come back? After five concussions and basically missing two full seasons — and after being in that dark place and knowing that one hit could potentially put me back there — why risk it? Why come back?
Well, first off, I’ve been back playing and hitting for a while now, and everything’s been cool. And I plan on everything staying cool — knock on wood.
But the reason I came back is …
Love, man.
Love for this game.
I know it’s hard for some people to understand because … it is just a game. And I guess the best way I can explain it is to ask you to think about something you love. Something you live for. Something that’s as big a part of you as anything. Something that defines you. Something that makes you feel powerful. Something that makes you feel special. Something that makes you feel alive.
I know you got something like that in your life, and you’d probably sacrifice everything for it. Everybody’s got their own shit.
Football is my shit.
That’s why I came back. To finish what I started and pick up where I left off on the football field in Week 1 of the 2016 season when I came up and laid a hit on T.J. Yeldon, and it was lights out.
I was only down for a second, and honestly, when I got up, I felt O.K. I was a little woozy, but overall, I was straight.
The trainers wanted to take a look at me anyway.
This was before they had the little blue tent on the sidelines, so they took me into the training room to check me out. I walked off the field and disappeared into the darkness of the tunnel, still feeling O.K. Then I walked into the training room and back into the light … that’s when everything hit me. It was instant headache. I guess the adrenaline had worn off, because all of a sudden it was like I had a giant heart beating inside my head. My vision started fading in and out as my head throbbed, like I was seeing strobe lights.
I was buggin’ out, man. I’d had concussions previously, but I had never felt anything like this.
I sat on the training table, closed my eyes as hard as I could, put my head in my hands and started rubbing and squeezing it to try and stop the pain.
Then I just started crying — I mean sobbing like a little baby.
I looked up at the trainers, like, What the f*** is wrong with me?
For the next few weeks, my head was constantly hurting. I couldn’t eat. I couldn’t sleep. I had to call the trainers in the middle of the night sometimes to bring me sleep medication. They would check up on me and track my progress. Some days they’d bring me in and give me these little tests where they’d show me a shape — like a triangle or something — then they’d have me focus on some other task. When I was done, they’d ask me to go back and remember the shape they had shown me.
I couldn’t.
They kept giving me this test over and over, and I just couldn’t remember the f***ing shape, man.
One time I got so pissed about it that I got up and left the facility. I went home and sat by myself in the dark.
About a month later, the Packers put me on IR. I felt like I had to get out of Green Bay, so I went home to Sarasota to be with my family and my three daughters.
But things just got worse.
There were so many days and nights when I’d be home by myself in the dark, crying on my bed, my head just blasting. It felt like it was never going to stop.
That was my life for about three months. I had good days and bad days, but the night in January when I had to call my mom to come over was the worst. That was rock bottom.
A couple of weeks after that, I was sitting in my house in the middle of the afternoon in the dark when I got a phone call from my agent.
The Packers had released me.
I guess I was wrong.
This was rock bottom.
I’ll be honest with you: When the Packers released me, that shit hurt. Even though in my mind I was basically done with football, and I knew that their decision was just business, I was still sad as a motherfucker.
I just felt like they hadn’t given me a chance, you know? They just put me on IR, then I didn’t hear much from until they cut me loose.
And that was that.
I’ve never had any hard feelings about it all, though. I’ll always have love for the Packers. They gave me my chance as an undrafted free agent. They paid me when it was time for me to get paid. The fans were always crazy supportive — they still show me love today — and I loved all the guys I played with and the people I met in the organization. So the fact that they just cut me loose like that … I don’t know. I mean, I get it. Business is business, right?
I just didn’t like the way they went about that business.
But in a weird way, getting cut was a turning point for me. It opened my eyes to the fact that if I was going to get better, I was gonna have to have to get off my ass and actually do something about it — and I’d have to do it myself. I didn’t have no team to help me. No trainers to call. It was gonna be on me. And whatever I had been doing — sitting in the dark and just waiting for shit to get better — damn sure wasn’t working.
I started doing some research. It was tough because I couldn’t look at my phone or computer screen for more than a couple of minutes. But over the course of a few weeks, I came across a lot of people who had been dealing with the same things as me.
I found this one woman who was out in L.A., and she had worked with doctors at UCLA, where they had some of the best programs for people dealing with post-concussive stuff like I had. I reached out to her and told her my situation, and she straight up told me that I needed to come out there ASAP.
A week later, I went and met her in L.A.
I spent the whole summer out there working with the neurologists at UCLA, and man … I wish I could explain everything they told me. I learned so much. But the main thing I learned was that what I had been doing — staying at home all day in the dark and just waiting for my head to get right on its own — was the worst thing I could have possibly done. They told me that my brain was like any other muscle. And when you pull a hamstring or something — sure, you gotta give it some time, but then you have to rehab it. You have to work it.
They had me doing all these crazy drills, like I’d be running on a treadmill while they asked me a bunch of different questions or gave me math problems to solve. They were basically retraining my brain to multitask. After a while, they even gave me that test the trainers had given me back in Green Bay — the one with the shapes — to see how I had been progressing.
This time, I actually remembered that shit!
It was a long process. I had some good days and some bad. There were nights where I couldn’t sleep because of migraines, and nights where I slept great. But as the months went on, I started having more good days than bad, until, eventually, I started to feel like my old self again.
In November — after about six months at UCLA — I went back home to Sarasota.
I remember the first time I went back into my house. It was the middle of the day, and I walked in, pulled the curtains open for the first time in I don’t know how long, and just let the sunlight in.
No headache.
No nothing.
I thought about my daughters and how they had their dad back. About my parents, who had stuck by me through everything.
Then I thought about football.
And I thought, Maybe it’s not over for me.
Sam Shields' first day back on the field
That video is from January 3, 2018. My first day back on the football field since Week 1 in 2016.
There had been moments when I thought I was 100% done with football. But I never turned in my retirement papers because I didn’t want to make that kind of a decision while I was in such a crazy state of mind. I didn’t want it to be an emotional decision.
And I know that video above might not look like much, but man … just being on the field, digging my cleats into the grass, moving my body and sweating from something other than a paralyzing migraine….
I knew right then that Sam Shields was gonna be back.
So I got back on my grind and had my agent put the word out.
“I’m baaaaack,” I told him. “Better let ’em know!”
Two teams showed interest in working me out: the Browns and the Rams. I had seen the things the Rams had done in 2017, and I thought, Man, I could really be a part of that.
Usually, when a team brings you in for a workout, it’s for one day. You come in, you work out, and their people call your people if they’re down.
The Rams kept me there for like three or four days. They ran all kinds of tests to make sure my head was right and I was healthy enough to play. I had already been cleared by doctors, but the Rams did their due diligence, for sure.
Then, on the day of my actual on-field workout, I thought there would be a couple of people — maybe the head coach, the D-coordinator and the DBs coach — but the whole damn staff was out there. I asked one dude why so many people were there, and he said, “We’ve all seen you play, and we love your game. We just wanted to be out here to watch you.”
The first drill we did was a ball-tracking drill. I lined up, the coach hiked the ball, I stayed low and backpedaled out, and when the coach brought the ball up to his shoulder to indicate pass, I flipped my hips, turned and ran.
As I was running, I heard somebody yell out, “That’s it!”
It was Coach McVay.
“That’s all we need to see,” he said. “We’re good here. Call your agent and let him know we’re ready to sign you.”
I was like, “Shiiiiiiit, I’m ready, too!”
That was that. I came back the next day and met with the staff, and everybody was extra real with me throughout the whole process. No bullshit. They told me right off the bat that they were about to trade for Aqib Talib and Marcus Peters, so they’d be pretty stacked at corner. But I hadn’t put pads on in 16 months, man. I wasn’t even thinking about defense. I just wanted to get back on the field on special teams and prove to myself and everybody else that I could still ball.
I told them straight up, “You give me an opportunity, and I’m gonna ride for you.”
And we did the deal.
I’ll never forget training camp my rookie year in Green Bay in 2010. I was an undrafted guy who had only been playing corner for one year — I switched over from receiver before my senior year at Miami — and I was having a lot of trouble learning the defensive schemes. I would get called on in meetings and not know the answers to basic questions about different coverages. The coaches wouldn’t even give me reps in practice because I didn’t know the plays.
I went back to my room one night after meetings and my roommate, Morgan Burnett, was there.
“I can’t do this shit,” I told him. “I just can’t! I’m gonna quit.”
He was like, “Nah, man. You’re not gonna quit. You’re gonna stay. You can learn this shit, and I’m gonna teach you.”
After that, every day during camp, Morgan stayed up late and studied with me. And I don’t know if he said something to the other guys or what, but one day at practice I was over with all the DBs — Charles Woodson, Tramon Williams, Jarrett Bush and the rest of the vets — and they were like, “Hey, man, we got you. You’re gonna get this.”
And they took me under their wings.
Then my secondary coach, Joe Whitt, came to me one day with some flash cards. He had taken this stack of little white cards, and on each one he had drawn up an offensive formation on one side, and on the other, the defensive audible we were supposed to call against that formation. And I’m telling you, that shit worked. Between the flash cards, working with the vets and hitting the playbook harder than I ever had in my life, everything started making sense.
Those guys — the vets in Green Bay and my man Joe Whitt — man, without them? I don’t know if I would have ever made it in this league.
They taught the kid how to play.
I remember all this so vividly now because I remember how it all felt — being the new guy, learning a new defense and how to play with new teammates, playing special teams to prove that I belonged. And I felt the exact same way when I took the field for the first time with the Rams this past offseason.
I felt like a rookie all over again.
But with the advantage of that veteran wisdom.
And you know what? It’s been fun, man. Especially after everything I’ve been through. The headaches. The stress. The frustration. All that I had to cope with. It was just a lot. What I went through, I wouldn’t wish it upon my worst enemy.
So to be here, right now, with this team? Man … I just feel blessed.
Honestly, this team reminds me a lot of that Packers team we had back in 2010. It was a fun, exciting team. We had a tight defense, just like we got here in L.A., and we had an offense that was lighting it up. It’s a little different now, though, because I think we snuck up on some people back in 2010. Now, this Rams team … we’re 7–0 and everybody’s talking about us. Teams are coming at us every week, giving us their absolute best, trying to knock us off.
And that’s a lot of fun, too.
My whole goal was to get back on the field on special teams and just be ready if the team needed me on defense. Now, with Talib out, they’ve needed me a little bit. And honestly, I’m still climbing back. It’s been a long two years, man. And I’m just now getting my groove back. I’m this close to being all the wayback.
And that’s why I came back. For the camaraderie and being around a group of guys like we got here in L.A. For a chance to be on a team that can compete every week. A chance to be back, doing the thing I love most.
A chance to ball out again, man.
Right now, I’m just riding the wave. And the way we prepare and the way we show up on Sundays … this team we got right here? I think we can ride all the way to the Super Bowl. I honestly believe that.
I just feel blessed to be a part of it. Blessed to be back. I’m happy to be riding this wave. It’s been a good one.
So I’mma just keep ridin’ it.
How Jared Goff's game shares Aaron Rodgers' traits
- By Florida_Ram
- RAMS / NFL TALK
- 30 Replies
Dougherty: How Jared Goff's game shares Aaron Rodgers' traits
Pete Dougherty, Packers News
Without prompting, an NFL scout this week was about to offer the name of an NFL quarterback that Jared Goff brought to mind.
The scout started with several caveats but couldn’t deny seeing a similarity in throwing talent and mechanics with none other than Aaron Rodgers, the Green Bay Packers quarterback Goff will be facing Sunday at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum.
“I know they’re both Cal guys, which is the part that bothers me as much as anything,” the scout said. “’C’mon man, the same school and you’re going to lump them together?’ And comparing anybody to Aaron is unfair to them, especially in their second or third year in the league.
“(But) just the way (Goff) delivers the ball sometimes. The quickness of the release without setting his feet, combined with the accuracy, I think is pretty special.”
The Los Angeles Rams drafted Goff over Carson Wentz with the first pick overall in 2016, and after the ’16 season, it looked like they’d botched the pick.
As a starter in the final seven games of his rookie season Goff was winless and looked horribly overmatched with a 63.6 rating, whereas Wentz, who went No. 2 overall, won the starting job with the Philadelphia Eagles and showed great promise while going 7-9 with a 79.3 rating.
But two seasons later Goff is the toast of the NFL, whereas Wentz is still getting back to form after the torn ACL that ended his fantastic 2017 season early.
The Rams are the NFL’s lone undefeated team and rank third in the NFL in scoring (33.6 points). Goff ranks No. 6 in the league in passer rating (112.8), ahead of Wentz (108.1) and Rodgers (100.2).
Packers' LB Clay Matthews addresses the media following practice on what it will take for the defense to break Rams' QB Jared Goff down. Packers News
The scout knows Goff’s game especially well because his team was looking hard at the quarterbacks at the top of the first round in ’16. He watched 12 college games each of Goff and Wentz.
To the scout it was clear Wentz was more ready-made for the NFL. Though he’d been the starter for only 1½ seasons in college at a lower-level school (North Dakota), he played in a pro-style offense and had an NFL physique (6-5¼, 237 pounds).
In a pre-draft interview, Wentz blew away the team’s coaches when quizzed on identifying defensive alignments, protection calls and play changes.
Goff, on the other hand, had never even huddled in college at Cal. Play calls came from the sidelines after the team had lined up, as did audibles. Goff didn’t even have to identify the Mike linebacker.
But what jumped out to the scout was Goff’s throwing talent and ability to keep his eyes downfield in the face of an unrelenting pass rush.
Cal had a bad offensive line, and Goff usually couldn’t step into his throws because of rushers in his face. Yet he got the ball out with a quick, compact delivery and still put it on the money.
After that rocky rookie year, Goff has become a most promising quarterback the last two seasons playing for the NFL’s prodigal coach, Sean McVay.
Last year Goff went 11-4 and had a 100.5 rating, and this season he’s gashing defenses with the second-best average per attempt (9.77 yards) and sixth-best completion percentage (69.7 percent).
McVay has accelerated Goff’s growth by often running a no-huddle offense and helping his quarterback with audibles before the coach-quarterback headset cuts off with 15 seconds left on the play clock.
Still, comparing any young quarterback’s throwing talent to Rodgers is saying a lot. Rodgers ranks among the great pure passers in league history with his quick delivery and accuracy regardless of whether he sets his feet.
“There are some similarities from a mechanical standpoint between the two guys,” the scout said. “Aaron does the same thing, very seldom does he step into a throw.
Everything he does is from the hips. Jared is the same way. It’s almost a flick of the wrist rather than load it up and throw it. Jared is very similar. Watch it and you tell me if I’m full of it.
There are some similarities there, and none of it has to do with the fact that they went to the same school.”
In Rodgers’ media session at his locker this week, he didn’t note any similarities with Goff, but he did mention the quality that jumps out most.
“He’s got some weapons to throw to, but he’s been extremely accurate (throwing),” Rodgers said.
The biggest difference between the two is athleticism, at least in how they tested at the NFL scouting combine.
Rodgers is a little shorter (6-feet-2 to Goff’s 6-4) but ran a faster 40 (4.71 to 4.82) and jumped higher (34 1/2 inches to 27 inches). Goff was a little quicker in the three cone (7.17 seconds to Rodgers’ 7.38).
Rodgers is a more athletic quarterback than scouts thought he was coming out of Cal. His ability to make plays outside the pocket is what separates him from the increasing number of good pocket passers in the league.
Goff can’t do that as well as Rodgers, but the pocket presence he showed with those undermanned Cal teams has carried over to the NFL.
https://www.packersnews.com/story/s...-game-shares-aaron-rodgers-traits/1753984002/
Former Cal QBs Goff, Rodgers Will Square Off for First Time
You likely know that quarterback Jared Goff grew up in the Bay Area. And largely because his parents attended the university, Goff was a big Cal fan.
The 24-year-old signal-caller noted he was “very young” when now-Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers was tearing up the Pac-10 in Berkeley, but also growing up as a 49ers fan — which, clearly, he’s lost at this point.
Goff said he remembers not being very happy on Draft Day 2005 when San Francisco took Alex Smith No. 1 overall over Rodgers.
“He was upset, but with that being said, I'm a fan of Alex as well. But yeah, 10-year-old Jared was very upset when he found out they didn't take Aaron,” Goff said with a smile on Wednesday.
Now, Goff will be on the opposite sideline of Rodgers on Sunday afternoon as the Rams take on the Packers.
“Obviously, his greatness has been documented for years now,” Goff said. “He's a great player and a guy I watched in college and then moved onto the NFL. I've followed his whole career, big fan of his.
Yeah, there are times where we're watching him play against the defense and you get stuck on watching him. He's a great player. I've got a lot of respect for him and it'll be fun to get a chance to go against him.”
While the two Cal quarterbacks were drafted over a decade apart, Goff said he’s been able to strike up a bit of a relationship with Rodgers over time.
“I've gotten to know him a little bit the past few years,” Goff said. “Just crossed paths on a few different things and he's been nothing but great to me.”
Sunday will represent the first time Rodgers has faced another starting Cal quarterback.
But ironically, when Rodgers faced the Rams in 2009, he was on the opposite sideline of another former Cal signal-caller, Kyle Boller, who came on in relief of an injured Marc Bulger.
Boller was the Ravens’ No. 19 overall pick back in 2003. Rodgers also came into a game late for Green Bay back in December 2005 when the Packers lost 48-3 to Baltimore.
But it’s been a long time since two Cal QBs have met in the NFL. And that’s no small feat for the program in Berkeley.
“Yeah, I'm sure it'll be exciting. I'm sure they'll be excited to watch it,” Goff said. “It's the first time I've played against a guy that went to my college. I don't know for him if that's the case, but it'll be cool.
It'll be fun and I'm sure they're excited about it. I'm sure Cal football will post some pictures about it or something and it'll be fun.”
https://www.therams.com/news/former-cal-qbs-goff-rodgers-will-square-off-for-first-time
Pete Dougherty, Packers News
Without prompting, an NFL scout this week was about to offer the name of an NFL quarterback that Jared Goff brought to mind.
The scout started with several caveats but couldn’t deny seeing a similarity in throwing talent and mechanics with none other than Aaron Rodgers, the Green Bay Packers quarterback Goff will be facing Sunday at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum.
“I know they’re both Cal guys, which is the part that bothers me as much as anything,” the scout said. “’C’mon man, the same school and you’re going to lump them together?’ And comparing anybody to Aaron is unfair to them, especially in their second or third year in the league.
“(But) just the way (Goff) delivers the ball sometimes. The quickness of the release without setting his feet, combined with the accuracy, I think is pretty special.”
The Los Angeles Rams drafted Goff over Carson Wentz with the first pick overall in 2016, and after the ’16 season, it looked like they’d botched the pick.
As a starter in the final seven games of his rookie season Goff was winless and looked horribly overmatched with a 63.6 rating, whereas Wentz, who went No. 2 overall, won the starting job with the Philadelphia Eagles and showed great promise while going 7-9 with a 79.3 rating.
But two seasons later Goff is the toast of the NFL, whereas Wentz is still getting back to form after the torn ACL that ended his fantastic 2017 season early.
The Rams are the NFL’s lone undefeated team and rank third in the NFL in scoring (33.6 points). Goff ranks No. 6 in the league in passer rating (112.8), ahead of Wentz (108.1) and Rodgers (100.2).
Packers' LB Clay Matthews addresses the media following practice on what it will take for the defense to break Rams' QB Jared Goff down. Packers News
The scout knows Goff’s game especially well because his team was looking hard at the quarterbacks at the top of the first round in ’16. He watched 12 college games each of Goff and Wentz.
To the scout it was clear Wentz was more ready-made for the NFL. Though he’d been the starter for only 1½ seasons in college at a lower-level school (North Dakota), he played in a pro-style offense and had an NFL physique (6-5¼, 237 pounds).
In a pre-draft interview, Wentz blew away the team’s coaches when quizzed on identifying defensive alignments, protection calls and play changes.
Goff, on the other hand, had never even huddled in college at Cal. Play calls came from the sidelines after the team had lined up, as did audibles. Goff didn’t even have to identify the Mike linebacker.
But what jumped out to the scout was Goff’s throwing talent and ability to keep his eyes downfield in the face of an unrelenting pass rush.
Cal had a bad offensive line, and Goff usually couldn’t step into his throws because of rushers in his face. Yet he got the ball out with a quick, compact delivery and still put it on the money.
After that rocky rookie year, Goff has become a most promising quarterback the last two seasons playing for the NFL’s prodigal coach, Sean McVay.
Last year Goff went 11-4 and had a 100.5 rating, and this season he’s gashing defenses with the second-best average per attempt (9.77 yards) and sixth-best completion percentage (69.7 percent).
McVay has accelerated Goff’s growth by often running a no-huddle offense and helping his quarterback with audibles before the coach-quarterback headset cuts off with 15 seconds left on the play clock.
Still, comparing any young quarterback’s throwing talent to Rodgers is saying a lot. Rodgers ranks among the great pure passers in league history with his quick delivery and accuracy regardless of whether he sets his feet.
“There are some similarities from a mechanical standpoint between the two guys,” the scout said. “Aaron does the same thing, very seldom does he step into a throw.
Everything he does is from the hips. Jared is the same way. It’s almost a flick of the wrist rather than load it up and throw it. Jared is very similar. Watch it and you tell me if I’m full of it.
There are some similarities there, and none of it has to do with the fact that they went to the same school.”
In Rodgers’ media session at his locker this week, he didn’t note any similarities with Goff, but he did mention the quality that jumps out most.
“He’s got some weapons to throw to, but he’s been extremely accurate (throwing),” Rodgers said.
The biggest difference between the two is athleticism, at least in how they tested at the NFL scouting combine.
Rodgers is a little shorter (6-feet-2 to Goff’s 6-4) but ran a faster 40 (4.71 to 4.82) and jumped higher (34 1/2 inches to 27 inches). Goff was a little quicker in the three cone (7.17 seconds to Rodgers’ 7.38).
Rodgers is a more athletic quarterback than scouts thought he was coming out of Cal. His ability to make plays outside the pocket is what separates him from the increasing number of good pocket passers in the league.
Goff can’t do that as well as Rodgers, but the pocket presence he showed with those undermanned Cal teams has carried over to the NFL.
https://www.packersnews.com/story/s...-game-shares-aaron-rodgers-traits/1753984002/
Former Cal QBs Goff, Rodgers Will Square Off for First Time
You likely know that quarterback Jared Goff grew up in the Bay Area. And largely because his parents attended the university, Goff was a big Cal fan.
The 24-year-old signal-caller noted he was “very young” when now-Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers was tearing up the Pac-10 in Berkeley, but also growing up as a 49ers fan — which, clearly, he’s lost at this point.
Goff said he remembers not being very happy on Draft Day 2005 when San Francisco took Alex Smith No. 1 overall over Rodgers.
“He was upset, but with that being said, I'm a fan of Alex as well. But yeah, 10-year-old Jared was very upset when he found out they didn't take Aaron,” Goff said with a smile on Wednesday.
Now, Goff will be on the opposite sideline of Rodgers on Sunday afternoon as the Rams take on the Packers.
“Obviously, his greatness has been documented for years now,” Goff said. “He's a great player and a guy I watched in college and then moved onto the NFL. I've followed his whole career, big fan of his.
Yeah, there are times where we're watching him play against the defense and you get stuck on watching him. He's a great player. I've got a lot of respect for him and it'll be fun to get a chance to go against him.”
While the two Cal quarterbacks were drafted over a decade apart, Goff said he’s been able to strike up a bit of a relationship with Rodgers over time.
“I've gotten to know him a little bit the past few years,” Goff said. “Just crossed paths on a few different things and he's been nothing but great to me.”
Sunday will represent the first time Rodgers has faced another starting Cal quarterback.
But ironically, when Rodgers faced the Rams in 2009, he was on the opposite sideline of another former Cal signal-caller, Kyle Boller, who came on in relief of an injured Marc Bulger.
Boller was the Ravens’ No. 19 overall pick back in 2003. Rodgers also came into a game late for Green Bay back in December 2005 when the Packers lost 48-3 to Baltimore.
But it’s been a long time since two Cal QBs have met in the NFL. And that’s no small feat for the program in Berkeley.
“Yeah, I'm sure it'll be exciting. I'm sure they'll be excited to watch it,” Goff said. “It's the first time I've played against a guy that went to my college. I don't know for him if that's the case, but it'll be cool.
It'll be fun and I'm sure they're excited about it. I'm sure Cal football will post some pictures about it or something and it'll be fun.”
https://www.therams.com/news/former-cal-qbs-goff-rodgers-will-square-off-for-first-time
Interesting fact about Rams/Packers game
- By KCLARAM FAN
- RAMS / NFL TALK
- 0 Replies
I never knew that Bart Starr was a coach of theirs once.Interesting. Great to see this long time matchup back in the LA coliseum again one more time.
ball:
Sunday will mark the first time in 40 years the Green Bay Packers have played against the Rams at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, one of the nation's more hallowed sporting venues. The Packers last met the LA Rams there in 1978, two years before the franchise relocated to Anaheim Stadium and then to St. Louis from 1995-2015.
Packers returning to historic Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum to play Rams for first time in 40 years
Sunday will mark the first time in 40 years the Green Bay Packers have played against the Rams at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, one of the nation's more hallowed sporting venues. The Packers last met the LA Rams there in 1978, two years before the franchise relocated to Anaheim Stadium and then to St. Louis from 1995-2015.
In 1978, the Packers were coached by Bart Starr
https://www.greenbaypressgazette.co...urning-l-coliseum-home-super-bowl/1748967002/
ball:Sunday will mark the first time in 40 years the Green Bay Packers have played against the Rams at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, one of the nation's more hallowed sporting venues. The Packers last met the LA Rams there in 1978, two years before the franchise relocated to Anaheim Stadium and then to St. Louis from 1995-2015.
Packers returning to historic Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum to play Rams for first time in 40 years
Sunday will mark the first time in 40 years the Green Bay Packers have played against the Rams at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, one of the nation's more hallowed sporting venues. The Packers last met the LA Rams there in 1978, two years before the franchise relocated to Anaheim Stadium and then to St. Louis from 1995-2015.
In 1978, the Packers were coached by Bart Starr
https://www.greenbaypressgazette.co...urning-l-coliseum-home-super-bowl/1748967002/
The Rams Are Facing a Four-Game Gauntlet. Can They Handle the Pressure?
- By Prime Time
- RAMS / NFL TALK
- 70 Replies
https://www.si.com/nfl/2018/10/25/los-angeles-rams-four-game-stretch-packers-saints-seahawks-chiefs
The Rams Are Facing a Four-Game Gauntlet. Can They Handle the Pressure?
By ALBERT BREER
Radio.com
Sean McVay got a call from a concerned party this week, worried that the pressure of being 7-0 and barreling toward the stretch run might wind up getting to the Rams coach a little bit, as he works through another week and toward another opponent. He is, after all just 23 games into this head-coaching thing, and expectations couldn’t be much higher than they are right now.
It was his mom, on the other end of that phone call.
“She worries about me,” McVay said over his cell as he wrapped up practice. “So she just says, ‘This is a lot of pressure.’ And I said, ‘It is, but you know, you don’t really feel it, because you got such good people around you, with your players, with your coaches.’ And then, the only thing I know how to do is to work as hard as I possibly can, do the job to the best of my ability, not be afraid to say ‘I don’t know’ or ask questions and keep making sure I’m keeping [myself] accountable.
“If you do that, then that’s all you can really do.”
It sure has been enough thus far. Will it be over the next month?
That’s an open question, and not because of how the Rams are playing—they’re seventh in total defense and fourth in points allowed, second in total offense and third in points scored, and they’ve won four games by double-digit margins—but because of what’s in front of them.
The iron of the schedule is here for McVay’s crew. They get a visit from Aaron Rodgers and the Packers this week, travel to the Superdome to face the Saints on Nov. 4, host the team that played them closest, Seattle, on Nov. 11, then play an electric Chiefs team in Mexico City on a Monday night three days ahead of Thanksgiving.
You have questions about the Rams? We’ll all have plenty of answers four weeks from today. And should they make it through 11-0, then maybe, just maybe, there’s a realistic shot at becoming the second team to make it all way through a 16-game regular season without a blemish.
Don’t bring that up to McVay, though. He won’t be hearing it, mostly because it’s against everything that got the Rams this far.
We’re starting with the unbeaten Rams and the gauntlet they’re set to enter, which is where my conversation with McVay started late Wednesday afternoon. And in answering my first question—Do you want your guys to embrace this as a defining month?—the reigning Coach of the Year slipped a little something in that brings insight into what he and his staff are putting in front of the team.
“The biggest thing that we do, we try to approach it where we try to have a great week of preparation and try to be the best version of ourselves,” McVay said. “And with the confidence that we have in our guys, I think they feel like that would be enough. And we certainly don’t shy away from the opponent and knowing what’s at stake in going against a quality player like Aaron Rodgers.”
Right there in the first line: the best version of ourselves.
McVay wanted to make sure, of course, he was saying it with all the respect he could muster for Rodgers and Drew Brees and Russell Wilson and Patrick Mahomes, as well as Mike McCarthy, Asshole Face, Pete Carroll and Andy Reid. But as he sees it, and as his team does too now, this really isn’t about those guys. It’s about seeing how far the Rams can take what they’ve already built.
That, as we said, is a team that’s top quarter of the league in yards and points on both sides of the ball. It’s a team with a quarterback completing 70 percent of his throws with a passer rating of 112.7. A team with a running back on pace for nearly 1,600 yards and 25 touchdowns, and a star defensive linemen with eight sacks and four different defensive backs with interceptions.
Can the Rams top what they’ve already done? That’s kind of the idea here.
“It’s heavily influenced by the John Wooden approach, where really all you can do is compete to the best of your ability in every single thing that you do,” McVay continued. “And we feel like if our practice, our preparation, our planning is done with intent, is done with a detail and a precision that is to the best of our ability, then that allows us to go play with a quieted mind and know we’ll have no regrets.”
The cool part for McVay now is seeing, as he has, the players take ownership of it, so he barely has to say anything anymore. It’s happened on offense, with the big bro of the locker room, left tackle Andrew Whitworth, pushing quarterback Jared Goff and running back Todd Gurley to find their voices. It’s happened on D, with injured cornerback Aqib Talib as a guiding light and defensive tackle Aaron Donald, the reigning Defensive Player of the Year, setting a high bar in every way without being overly vocal.
From there, things trickle down. One example McVay raised was how veteran wideout Robert Woods took it upon himself in Seattle in Week 5 to instill confidence in young receivers Josh Reynolds and KhaDarel Hodge after Cooper Kupp and Brandin Cooks went down. Another is where certain things, like consistent performance along the offensive line, have come along faster than expected.
And sure enough, that interplay also came up when I asked McVay what he’s most proud of when he looks at the 7-0 start.
“The one thing that you’re proud of is that … you just kind of watch and I’ve had a handful of people say it, you can just tell it’s a connected team,” he said. “The guys enjoy playing together, they play for each other. They’re mentally tough. When bad things happen throughout a game, they support one another. And I feel like our coaching staff represents that too.”
That, of course, is why you go for it on fourth down in Seattle to win the game. It’s why you’re able to avoid a potential pothole in Week 7 in San Francisco against a team without its starting quarterback. And it’s why McVay still feels like the best version of the Rams hasn’t hit the field yet.
“The goal is to continuously improve,” McVay said. “I think if there’s one thing that’s consistent that I’ve learned in the short time I’ve been coaching, it’s that the really good teams get better as the season progresses. And we’ve got, for sure, nine opportunities to get better in a game-type setting. And for us, now, it’s doing a great job with our game this week. “
Safe to say, McVay’s mom doesn’t have much to worry about. Sure, there’s pressure to maintaining a perfect record. There’s stress associated with preparing to take on Rodgers.
But all in all, her son feels pretty good about where he’s at.
The Rams Are Facing a Four-Game Gauntlet. Can They Handle the Pressure?
By ALBERT BREER
Radio.com
Sean McVay got a call from a concerned party this week, worried that the pressure of being 7-0 and barreling toward the stretch run might wind up getting to the Rams coach a little bit, as he works through another week and toward another opponent. He is, after all just 23 games into this head-coaching thing, and expectations couldn’t be much higher than they are right now.
It was his mom, on the other end of that phone call.
“She worries about me,” McVay said over his cell as he wrapped up practice. “So she just says, ‘This is a lot of pressure.’ And I said, ‘It is, but you know, you don’t really feel it, because you got such good people around you, with your players, with your coaches.’ And then, the only thing I know how to do is to work as hard as I possibly can, do the job to the best of my ability, not be afraid to say ‘I don’t know’ or ask questions and keep making sure I’m keeping [myself] accountable.
“If you do that, then that’s all you can really do.”
It sure has been enough thus far. Will it be over the next month?
That’s an open question, and not because of how the Rams are playing—they’re seventh in total defense and fourth in points allowed, second in total offense and third in points scored, and they’ve won four games by double-digit margins—but because of what’s in front of them.
The iron of the schedule is here for McVay’s crew. They get a visit from Aaron Rodgers and the Packers this week, travel to the Superdome to face the Saints on Nov. 4, host the team that played them closest, Seattle, on Nov. 11, then play an electric Chiefs team in Mexico City on a Monday night three days ahead of Thanksgiving.
You have questions about the Rams? We’ll all have plenty of answers four weeks from today. And should they make it through 11-0, then maybe, just maybe, there’s a realistic shot at becoming the second team to make it all way through a 16-game regular season without a blemish.
Don’t bring that up to McVay, though. He won’t be hearing it, mostly because it’s against everything that got the Rams this far.
We’re starting with the unbeaten Rams and the gauntlet they’re set to enter, which is where my conversation with McVay started late Wednesday afternoon. And in answering my first question—Do you want your guys to embrace this as a defining month?—the reigning Coach of the Year slipped a little something in that brings insight into what he and his staff are putting in front of the team.
“The biggest thing that we do, we try to approach it where we try to have a great week of preparation and try to be the best version of ourselves,” McVay said. “And with the confidence that we have in our guys, I think they feel like that would be enough. And we certainly don’t shy away from the opponent and knowing what’s at stake in going against a quality player like Aaron Rodgers.”
Right there in the first line: the best version of ourselves.
McVay wanted to make sure, of course, he was saying it with all the respect he could muster for Rodgers and Drew Brees and Russell Wilson and Patrick Mahomes, as well as Mike McCarthy, Asshole Face, Pete Carroll and Andy Reid. But as he sees it, and as his team does too now, this really isn’t about those guys. It’s about seeing how far the Rams can take what they’ve already built.
That, as we said, is a team that’s top quarter of the league in yards and points on both sides of the ball. It’s a team with a quarterback completing 70 percent of his throws with a passer rating of 112.7. A team with a running back on pace for nearly 1,600 yards and 25 touchdowns, and a star defensive linemen with eight sacks and four different defensive backs with interceptions.
Can the Rams top what they’ve already done? That’s kind of the idea here.
“It’s heavily influenced by the John Wooden approach, where really all you can do is compete to the best of your ability in every single thing that you do,” McVay continued. “And we feel like if our practice, our preparation, our planning is done with intent, is done with a detail and a precision that is to the best of our ability, then that allows us to go play with a quieted mind and know we’ll have no regrets.”
The cool part for McVay now is seeing, as he has, the players take ownership of it, so he barely has to say anything anymore. It’s happened on offense, with the big bro of the locker room, left tackle Andrew Whitworth, pushing quarterback Jared Goff and running back Todd Gurley to find their voices. It’s happened on D, with injured cornerback Aqib Talib as a guiding light and defensive tackle Aaron Donald, the reigning Defensive Player of the Year, setting a high bar in every way without being overly vocal.
From there, things trickle down. One example McVay raised was how veteran wideout Robert Woods took it upon himself in Seattle in Week 5 to instill confidence in young receivers Josh Reynolds and KhaDarel Hodge after Cooper Kupp and Brandin Cooks went down. Another is where certain things, like consistent performance along the offensive line, have come along faster than expected.
And sure enough, that interplay also came up when I asked McVay what he’s most proud of when he looks at the 7-0 start.
“The one thing that you’re proud of is that … you just kind of watch and I’ve had a handful of people say it, you can just tell it’s a connected team,” he said. “The guys enjoy playing together, they play for each other. They’re mentally tough. When bad things happen throughout a game, they support one another. And I feel like our coaching staff represents that too.”
That, of course, is why you go for it on fourth down in Seattle to win the game. It’s why you’re able to avoid a potential pothole in Week 7 in San Francisco against a team without its starting quarterback. And it’s why McVay still feels like the best version of the Rams hasn’t hit the field yet.
“The goal is to continuously improve,” McVay said. “I think if there’s one thing that’s consistent that I’ve learned in the short time I’ve been coaching, it’s that the really good teams get better as the season progresses. And we’ve got, for sure, nine opportunities to get better in a game-type setting. And for us, now, it’s doing a great job with our game this week. “
Safe to say, McVay’s mom doesn’t have much to worry about. Sure, there’s pressure to maintaining a perfect record. There’s stress associated with preparing to take on Rodgers.
But all in all, her son feels pretty good about where he’s at.
TNF: Dolphins at Texans
- By CGI_Ram
- RAMS / NFL TALK
- 39 Replies
https://athlonsports.com/nfl/thursd...phins-vs-houston-texans-prediction-picks-2018
Thursday Night Football: Miami Dolphins vs. Houston Texans
A pair of 4-3 NFL teams will take the field Thursday night in Houston as the Texans host the Dolphins. The Texans have dominated this series, winning seven of the eight all-time meetings, although Miami did take the last one in 2015.
The Dolphins are a hard team to figure out. They started out the season 3-0 with wins over the Titans, Jets and Raiders. After that, Miami lost three of their next four as the schedule got tougher and they started to play more road games. The team is coming off a 32-21 loss at home to Detroit as Brock Osweiler started once again. Osweiler couldn't build off his really good game against the Bears two weeks ago. The defense has been up and down this season as well. They've held four teams under 300 passing yards while the other three times teams have found success through the air.
Houston has been quite the opposite as they started out the year 0-3 before going on their current four-game win streak. Deshaun Watson has cooled off a bit after a hot stretch toward the end of September. The offense has been underwhelming the last three weeks, but it hasn't mattered with the defense doing its job. J.J. Watt's been healthy and making an impact despite the lack of a ton of statistics. Four teams have thrown for less than 200 yards against the Texans secondary, and the squad is finally playing like the team many thought they would be before the year began.
This one feels like a bit of a mismatch despite both squads having the same record. As illustrated above, they got there in two completely different ways.
Miami at Houston
Kickoff: Thursday, Oct. 25 at 8:20 p.m. ET
TV: FOX/NFL Network
Spread: Texans -7.5
Three Things to Watch
1. Intangibles
Both teams are coming into this one on short rest. Miami has lost three of its last four, but the schedule has been relatively kind as of late. The Dolphins are coming off two straight at home and have a tilt in Miami against the Jets up next. I don't see any sort of weariness or look-ahead factor involved with this one. Houston is coming off two of its last three at home as well. They are coming off a bit of an emotional division win over the Jaguars and have a road game at Denver coming up next before a bye week. It seems like both teams are coming into this one on even footing on the short week. The road team has won the last two Thursday night games after the home team took the first five.
2. Who is healthy and who is getting the ball?
Both teams have their various nicks and bruises entering this one as you'd expect on a short week although the Dolphins have it much worse. They will be without wide receivers Albert Wilson and Kenny Stills while Danny Amendola was limited in practice on Monday. DeVante Parker will probably play after being inactive. Parker has just two catches this season and has to deal with a team that may or may not like him. His agent certainly thinks the wideout is healthy and can help out at that position. Ryan Tannehill also will miss another game, but he is expected to start throwing (a Nerf ball at least) this week. This means more Brock Osweiler who has one good game and one bad one so far.
Houston is a lot healthier in some respects. Granted they are without cornerbacks Aaron Colvin and Kevin Johnson, but both have been out already. The Texans were without OL Zach Fulton, LB Brian Peters and TE Ryan Griffin in practice on Monday. They had a ton of players limited, but Watson was a full participant despite the chest injury. The signal-caller reportedly took the bus to Jacksonville because of concerns about his injury. That sounds disconcerting, but it looks like that won't be an issue anymore. Still, he's not 100 percent, although no one is by this time in the season.
3. Who is running the ball?
Both of these teams are mediocre when it comes to running the ball. Houston is averaging 3.9 yards per carry this season with three different players getting the majority of the work. Lamar Miller has just one run of 20 yards or more and that's just not going to cut it. Alfred Blue is the change-of-pace back and he's nothing special either. Blue has 216 yards on the ground on 64 carries. They could find some room against the Dolphins, who allow almost 140 rushing yards per contest.
Houston is very stingy against the run as they allow 92.1 yards per game. Frank Gore and Kenyan Drake do most of the heavy lifting, and the group is averaging nearly five yards per carry. Gore is the solid veteran who is still looking for his first rushing TD, while Drake is the flashy guy with three runs of 20-plus yards and two touchdowns. Osweiler isn't as mobile as Tannehill, so that's one aspect opponents don't have to worry about. Miami has got to run the ball to take the pressure off Osweiler who will be down a few targets.
Final Analysis
If you've followed my ATS picks articles, you'll know that I've been a big fan of the Dolphins this season. I've bet on them multiple times as a favorite or underdog, and they've come through for me. On this Thursday though, I think they could get absolutely blasted by the Texans. Houston is on fire right now and they are the home team for this one. I think it's a lower-scoring game and one that goes to the team out of Texas.
Prediction: Texans 24, Dolphins 6
Thursday Night Football: Miami Dolphins vs. Houston Texans
A pair of 4-3 NFL teams will take the field Thursday night in Houston as the Texans host the Dolphins. The Texans have dominated this series, winning seven of the eight all-time meetings, although Miami did take the last one in 2015.
The Dolphins are a hard team to figure out. They started out the season 3-0 with wins over the Titans, Jets and Raiders. After that, Miami lost three of their next four as the schedule got tougher and they started to play more road games. The team is coming off a 32-21 loss at home to Detroit as Brock Osweiler started once again. Osweiler couldn't build off his really good game against the Bears two weeks ago. The defense has been up and down this season as well. They've held four teams under 300 passing yards while the other three times teams have found success through the air.
Houston has been quite the opposite as they started out the year 0-3 before going on their current four-game win streak. Deshaun Watson has cooled off a bit after a hot stretch toward the end of September. The offense has been underwhelming the last three weeks, but it hasn't mattered with the defense doing its job. J.J. Watt's been healthy and making an impact despite the lack of a ton of statistics. Four teams have thrown for less than 200 yards against the Texans secondary, and the squad is finally playing like the team many thought they would be before the year began.
This one feels like a bit of a mismatch despite both squads having the same record. As illustrated above, they got there in two completely different ways.
Miami at Houston
Kickoff: Thursday, Oct. 25 at 8:20 p.m. ET
TV: FOX/NFL Network
Spread: Texans -7.5
Three Things to Watch
1. Intangibles
Both teams are coming into this one on short rest. Miami has lost three of its last four, but the schedule has been relatively kind as of late. The Dolphins are coming off two straight at home and have a tilt in Miami against the Jets up next. I don't see any sort of weariness or look-ahead factor involved with this one. Houston is coming off two of its last three at home as well. They are coming off a bit of an emotional division win over the Jaguars and have a road game at Denver coming up next before a bye week. It seems like both teams are coming into this one on even footing on the short week. The road team has won the last two Thursday night games after the home team took the first five.
2. Who is healthy and who is getting the ball?
Both teams have their various nicks and bruises entering this one as you'd expect on a short week although the Dolphins have it much worse. They will be without wide receivers Albert Wilson and Kenny Stills while Danny Amendola was limited in practice on Monday. DeVante Parker will probably play after being inactive. Parker has just two catches this season and has to deal with a team that may or may not like him. His agent certainly thinks the wideout is healthy and can help out at that position. Ryan Tannehill also will miss another game, but he is expected to start throwing (a Nerf ball at least) this week. This means more Brock Osweiler who has one good game and one bad one so far.
Houston is a lot healthier in some respects. Granted they are without cornerbacks Aaron Colvin and Kevin Johnson, but both have been out already. The Texans were without OL Zach Fulton, LB Brian Peters and TE Ryan Griffin in practice on Monday. They had a ton of players limited, but Watson was a full participant despite the chest injury. The signal-caller reportedly took the bus to Jacksonville because of concerns about his injury. That sounds disconcerting, but it looks like that won't be an issue anymore. Still, he's not 100 percent, although no one is by this time in the season.
3. Who is running the ball?
Both of these teams are mediocre when it comes to running the ball. Houston is averaging 3.9 yards per carry this season with three different players getting the majority of the work. Lamar Miller has just one run of 20 yards or more and that's just not going to cut it. Alfred Blue is the change-of-pace back and he's nothing special either. Blue has 216 yards on the ground on 64 carries. They could find some room against the Dolphins, who allow almost 140 rushing yards per contest.
Houston is very stingy against the run as they allow 92.1 yards per game. Frank Gore and Kenyan Drake do most of the heavy lifting, and the group is averaging nearly five yards per carry. Gore is the solid veteran who is still looking for his first rushing TD, while Drake is the flashy guy with three runs of 20-plus yards and two touchdowns. Osweiler isn't as mobile as Tannehill, so that's one aspect opponents don't have to worry about. Miami has got to run the ball to take the pressure off Osweiler who will be down a few targets.
Final Analysis
If you've followed my ATS picks articles, you'll know that I've been a big fan of the Dolphins this season. I've bet on them multiple times as a favorite or underdog, and they've come through for me. On this Thursday though, I think they could get absolutely blasted by the Texans. Houston is on fire right now and they are the home team for this one. I think it's a lower-scoring game and one that goes to the team out of Texas.
Prediction: Texans 24, Dolphins 6
Week 8 coverage maps
- By OldSchool
- RAMS / NFL TALK
- 23 Replies
Starting with the late game on Fox. Most of the country gets our game. Red being our game blue being Whiners and Redtards. We get Brennemann and Aikman.
CBS has an early game.
Fox early game.
http://506sports.com/nfl.php?yr=2018&wk=8
CBS has an early game.
Fox early game.
http://506sports.com/nfl.php?yr=2018&wk=8
