Rams stock watch: Who's up and who's down after preseason openerAug 13, 2016; Los Angeles, CA, USA; Dallas Cowboys linebacker Henoc Muamba (49) defends as Los Angeles Rams running back Aaron Green (36) dives into the end for a touch down in the fourth quarter of the game at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum. Rams won 28-14. Mandatory Credit: Jayne Kamin-Oncea-USA TODAY Sports.
By: Jeff Smith | 12 hours ago
Rams stock watch: Who's up and who's down after preseason opener
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theramswire.usatoday.com]
While it wasn’t always pretty, the Los Angeles Rams still managed to walk away with a 28-24 victory in their preseason opener against the Dallas Cowboys. It was a night filled with a mixed bag of performances, both good, bad and all the in between.
Let’s take a look at whose stock is up, and whose is down after the first of four preseason games for the team. Before we do that, just for reference, here’s a look at the snap counts from Saturday’s game, per Myles Simmons of the team’s official website.
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Stock up
Nelson Spruce
There may be no single player who improved his chances of making the 53-man roster as much as Spruce did. He totaled six catches for 51 yards and a touchdown while looking every bit like a true NFL wide receiver. While he’s, unfortunately, going to miss a week or two with a sprained knee, he honestly may have already done enough to earn a roster spot. At the very least, it’s going to be very tough for head coach Jeff Fisher to part ways with him.
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Sean Mannion
As impressive as Spruce was, Mannion was right there with him, just throwing strikes all night long. He completed 18-of-25 passes for 147 yards and three touchdowns. While he did toss an interception, he looked much improved from his rookie season and made a pretty strong statement with his play that may have a future in this league in some fashion.
Aaron Green
The undrafted free agent out of TCU did a little bit of everything, averaging 6.8 yards per carry while catching four passes for 37 yards and a touchdown. It’s hard to ignore his preseason debut, and he’s just made life a bit tougher on the Rams coaching staff.
Malcolm Brown
Everything that was said about Green and making life tough on the staff, can be said about Brown as well. There’s going to be a tough call to make at running back when roster cuts begin, and if we’re talking on pure running skill, Brown got the edge. He received eight carries and rumbled to a total of 66 yards. The battle between he and Green is going to be a great one over the coming weeks.
Ian Seau
Junior Seau’s nephew’s got game. The former Nevada standout may not have lit up the box score, but he still managed a sack, and anytime you can pressure the quarterback as a UDFA, it’s going to get some attention. He still has much more work to do, but his stock is trending upwards.
Tyler Higbee
I’m not sure the hype train could get much bigger than it already is for Higbee. Fans are expecting an instant-impact tight end in Higbee, and he proved from the word go that he’s capable of being that. He caught five passes for 49 yards in this game while catching a pass from all three of the Rams quarterbacks.
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Stock Down
Jared Goff
Sorry, but there’s no way to get around this. Yes, Goff suffered a very minor injury to his shoulder, so his night was cut short, but it doesn’t change the fact that he struggled during his limited action. He completed just 4-of-9 passes for 38 yards and an interception. That all equates to a brutal 17.1 quarterback rating. Goff made a few nice throws, but fans (and probably coaches) were hoping to see quite a bit more from the No. 1 pick on Saturday.
Mike Thomas
While Pharoh Cooper didn’t haul in either of his two targets, he did have an impressive kick return and punt return. For Thomas, he didn’t pull in either of his two targets and averaged just 22.5 yards per kick return, which obviously isn’t bad. What’s more concerning is that he played 39 percent of the snaps, which was tied for the fifth-most on the entire team, but was unable to do much.
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Brandon Chubb
The opening game jitters are now gone, which means we’re hoping to see Chubb produce a bit more in the second preseason game. For what it’s worth, Chubb played just 21 percent of the defensive snaps and 50 percent of the special team’s snaps. In the end, he totaled just one tackle. We expect to see the former Wake Forest standout and UDFA turn things around next week.
Brian Quick
People seem to pick on Quick a bit, as he’s failed to live up to expectations. Unfortunately, his 2016 preseason debut didn’t do much to help him out. While he didn’t really do anything wrong, he was out-performed by two UDFAs in Spruce and Paul McRoberts. He caught one pass for 13 yards on two targets, but the issue here is that he played the fourth-most snaps of any wide receiver at 30 percent (a pretty high number overall), behind only Thomas, McRoberts and Duke Williams. Quick has time to turn things around, but the showings of other players didn’t help out his stock much.
