TC report 8/19 by 49RH8R...

Here's 49RH8R...


i watched the rams practice in irvine today and here is some of what i saw. i'll admit i was mostly watching the offense because that's where the problems are.

*all 3 qb's looked great and each one of them made some beautiful throws. i may be overly optimistic but i think qb is now a position of strength.

*the wr corps still had a lot of dropped balls and i think we'll see some surprising names during the roster cut down. mannion and goff put the ball where only the wr could catch it but they couldn't seem to come down with it. cooper and thomas had more passes thrown to them but duke williams looked good.

*brian quick was targeted a lot and it was obvious to me they want to involve him heavily in the offense. i'd go so far as to say they are giving him every opportunity to make the team.

*goff has a kind of maturity and confidence beyond his years. that's the best way i can explain it. he seemed very loose and relaxed for the #1 overall pick under the spotlight.

*almost the entire practice was run out of the shotgun which i thought was odd. the only time i saw them under center was during some running plays. maybe they can get more reps in quicker that way but doesn't goff need reps under center?

*kush botched 2 snaps in a row to mannion and the coaches weren't happy about it.

*towards the end, rhaney and donnal got reps at center. the donnal news is gonna make madam goldberg hump his couch i bet.

*i saw probably 1 deep ball thrown all day. most of the passing drills were between 10-20 yards. maybe that's what they were focusing on today and they'll air it out next practice, i dunno. they ran a lot of slants and quick outs so look for that against the chiefs.

*keenum is bigger in person than you'd think. he was running the length of the field back and forth with weinke after practice. i asked him later if he was in the dog house and he just laughed and said it was conditioning.

*tavon made a nice sideline catch and everybody in the stands applauded. cody davis came over and did the "he was out of bounds" sign which made everybody laugh.

*gaines got hurt on a routine play so look for that in the paper tomorrow. a teammate motioned for the trainer to come out but gaines walked off on his own. he was on the ground pretty far away from me with the trainers so hopefully it was just a camp. the dude is injury prone.

*ogletree put his hand in the dirt and came on a blitz one time and that's not what you want to see if you're an opposing qb.

*after practice, rhaney, goff and quick got some extra work in. they were working exclusively on those quick outs and slants i mentioned earlier. it was pretty cool because most people left so you could really watch and hear what they were doing. it seemed like goff was really trying to help quick and coach him up even though he's the rookie and quick is going on year 5.

*i lined the ropes with the autograph hounds after the game and got to shake some hands and wish the players luck for the upcoming season. i had brief words with keenum, quick, mcquaide, chase reynolds, zuerlein, austin hill, marquez, tavon austin. tavon was the last guy out there and was only talking to one other dude so it was easy to talk to him. i regretted not telling him to kick the niner's (donkey) twice this year. maybe next week when i go back. all the players were very cool, especially zuerlein.