The Rams got back to football Saturday as they opened their 2011 training camp under different circumstances than usual.
After about a week of delays caused by the pending collective bargaining agreement, the Rams open this year’s camp working under a different set of rules and doing it all while free agency is still on going.
The Rams went through a run through of what a normal day would be like Saturday, doing a walk through that lasted about an hour and 15 minutes in the morning and then a practice lasting about two and a half hours in the afternoon.
For coach Steve Spagnuolo, the players and the coaches, it was a thrill just to get back to football.
“First thing, I feel whole again today,” Spagnuolo said. “Finally back out here working with the players, and really in this business there is nothing better than coaches and players being out on the field doing football, so we’re excited about that.”
Spagnuolo’s group was so fired up to get back to work that he found himself pumping the brakes on their “walk through” that took place in the morning.
Quarterback Sam Bradford
said the long layoff led to a lot of eager Rams on Saturday morning.
“I think everyone was pretty excited to go,” Bradford said. “That was definitely the fastest tempo walk through I have ever been a part of. But I think that just comes from everyone being excited to get back on the field.”
Of course, the biggest issue entering this camp is the fact that this camp will be condensed into a much shorter period of time than normal. In fact, the Rams will have precisely 12 practices and a scrimmage before they open the preseason against Indianapolis on Aug. 13.
That means the onus is on the coaches and players to get everyone up to speed as quick as possible.
“It’s just going to be how fast can you get up to speed?” linebacker James Laurinaitis said. “No matter what, even if we were all together, it’s hard to really get in total football shape anyways. Even in OTAs and stuff, you’re not putting on full pads. You can run all you want but there’s not a way to simulate hitting a three-hundred pound guard and trying to run down Steven (Jackson) on a toss. You can’t do it. So until you get out there and you try to go through those things, come back to the huddle and the next play you’re running down the middle on cover two. Then until you get those things going, it’s hard to really simulate all that.”
Before the Rams dive full on into this training camp, one of the most difficult tasks was getting their minds around the new rules on how those camps can be run. The league altered practice limits in ways that will also affect how fast teams can get up to speed.
According to the new league rules, teams can never wear pads in more than one practice per day and those full contact practices with pads are limited in number. Those padded practices can be no longer than three hours in duration and teams can spend no more than four hours of practice time on the field in a given day.
In addition, teams will be required to give players days off during camp. The Rams have a scheduled day off next Wednesday.
During Spagnuolo’s first two seasons in St. Louis, he’s been known to run a fairly physical camp. In his first season, the Rams went “live” with tackling and scrimmage drills with regularity. That was dialed down some last season and figures to be more like what they’ll go with this year.
“Most of you were here that first year, two years ago, and we did a lot of contact,” Spagnuolo said. “That was by design. Last year there wasn’t nearly as much. Probably about where it should be. I think that thing will even itself out because even last year I don’t believe we ever did two padded practices back to back. Certainly not one on the same day. So anything that we did live would have been in one practice on one day.”
According to the new rules, each team must have two unpadded practice days before they can begin. The Rams are expected to be in pads for the first time Monday.
Perhaps a less physically demanding camp will be beneficial to teams mentally as they attempt to get up to speed on their respective playbooks. Without the benefit of organized team activities and minicamps, this is the first time the team has been together all year.
The Rams had their team meeting Friday night as Spagnuolo and his staff went through all of the details both on the field and off.
“I’m a big believer in that it’s important to get everybody together here in the beginning so they hear the same thing,” Spagnuolo said. “You know, you miss the first three days, so everything will be videotaped. I’m talking about meetings. Coaches have been instructed to plan for that and they have been working on that for a week. The best way to get anybody updated as quickly as possible to what we’ve done the previous… we’ve always videotaped my meetings. I think the coordinators need to tape their install meetings. Then it will be, really the onus will go on the player that’s coming in that’s missed a lot and how quickly on his own he’ll get caught up. Cause you just can’t beat them up with nine hours of meetings.”
Those videotapes will likely get even more of a workout than usual because league rules also stipulate that any free agents signing a contract during this free agency period cannot practice with their teams until the new league year begins on Aug. 5.
Their own-re-signed free agents and new additions, including newly-signed guard Harvey Dahl, linebacker Zac Diles, receiver Mike Sims-Walker, safety Quintin Mikell and cornerback Al Harris, were unable to practice Saturday.
While most free agents have been around the league long enough to know how things work and presumably be able to catch on quickly, the biggest challenge will probably be getting the rookies up to speed.
“I think around the league that is going to be a challenge, no question,” Spagnuolo said. “A lot of it will depend on where teams are at that particular position. If I’m a young rookie at safety but there are not a lot of safeties, I’ll get some reps. If there’s numbers there and I’m behind those numbers, the reps are just naturally going to be a lot less.”
The Rams have all of their drafted players under contract except for first-round pick Robert Quinn. Spagnuolo said Saturday the Rams are working to close that deal sooner than later. That’s a good thing in terms of getting in the playbook and catching up but it’s not going to be easy, according to Laurinaitis.
“It’s going to be a challenge for them,” Laurinaitis said. “This is the NFL; people are going to have to learn fast. That’s just the way it is. I mean, it’s unfair for guys like that, that don’t have the opportunity to have the whole offseason, but then again every other rookie around the league is in the same boat as them. I feel bad for them, but they’re just going to have to learn fast. Don’t talk to anybody, shut your phones off, don’t tweet, just sit there and study.”
In most training camps, the defense usually starts out ahead of the offense because it takes time to develop a rhythm and rapport offensively. That figures to be especially true in a year where the Rams have added offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels and a mostly new system with completely different terminology.
“I think the big thing there is we want to make sure that we have a solid foundation,” McDaniels said. “Maybe the foundation is a little bit smaller when we come out of training camp, maybe it’s not. We’ll see what pace we can go at, but I also think it’s important to remember that we still do have a 16-game season. It’s a long season. There’s an opportunity to continue to improve and progress after August. We’re not done trying to get better at the things we do well when September hits. We’ve got to make sure we make strides in September, October, November, December. Hopefully we’re playing our best at the end. Like I said, the key is to be able to do some things well and try to do those things as much as we can on game day.”
The defense, meanwhile, has become a paragon of continuity with zero turnover among the defensive coaching staff in Spagnuolo’s two-plus years in St. Louis. Many of the faces remain the same for a group that took a big jump from year one to year two and is expected to continue to improve in 2011.
Defensive coordinator Ken Flajole believes that his group will have a bit of a head start but says something he’ll keep an eye on is what teams do in preseason games in terms of scheme so as to preserve their players and keep other teams guessing in a tight window.
“If you’re talking about our defense compared to our offense, that’s always true I think,” Flajole said. “And the fact that you’ve lost the OTAs and the mini camps there is probably less opportunity for the offense to get their timing, that type of thing. That may be true early. The thing that will be interesting to see is if people are more vanilla. I shouldn’t say vanilla, but if they are more basic and the volume of the scheme you don’t see it until the latter part of the season because people just haven’t had the practice time to build the foundation in a bunch of calls. Those will be the things that will be interesting to see if, I don’t want to say watered down, but if people are little more vanilla in what they are doing early so that guys can play fast and not mistakes. That will be the thing that may happen.”
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