Rams confident Todd Gurley can carry offense

By Ryan Kartje

[www.dailynews.com]

IRVINE — At the start of his first training camp last July, nine months removed from a torn anterior cruciate ligament in his left knee and three months after the Rams made him just the second running back in five years drafted in the top 10, Todd Gurley was only permitted to run in straight lines.

Considering the investment, the Rams opted to play it safe with his recovery. So Gurley spent most of that first camp on the sideline, shrouded in mystery. He ran through select drills at half-speed, taking special care not to test his surgically repaired knee. Mostly, though, he waited. The Rams waited, too.

At the end of August, he was cleared to practice, and by October, the Rams were already cashing in on their patience. In his first four starts, Gurley racked up more rushing yards (566) than any rookie in NFL history. By the end of the season, he was Offensive Rookie of the Year, with a 1,000-yard season, double-digit touchdowns, and an invite to the Pro Bowl on his mantle after just 13 games.

At the outset of his second season, Gurley is in a new locale, where the pressure for a young star to succeed will be unrelenting. But at Rams’ training camp, where the sun shines brightly over campus in Irvine, the praise for the Rams young workhorse after such a stellar debut has been similarly luminous. Last August’s veil of caution, it seems, has faded entirely. The only mystery surrounding Gurley now is how much the team will lean on him — and how heavily opposing teams will stack the box to slow him down. Suggest that concern here, however, and risk the likelihood of a slanted glare. Just watch, teammates say, as he practices cutting on the sideline, planting his foot in the dirt and pivoting on that same injured knee with confidence. It feels like a subtle signal of how far he’s come.

Anyone with a cavalier understanding of the NFL — and, possibly, physics — knows Gurley is already the centerpiece of a run-centric Rams offense, an elite talent and physical specimen capable of drawing an entire defense’s attention. As a starter last season, Gurley accounted for 34 percent of the team’s total offensive output — more than any other running back in the league. In 2016, with a rookie starter likely at quarterback and a receiver room still bereft of playmakers, the Rams may lean even further on their workhorse. The team’s front office has publicly suggested as much.

“Don’t worry about throwing the ball,” Rams general manager Les Snead joked in April, after drafting Jared Goff at No. 1, “(The quarterbacks) have to learn to turn around and hand it to 30.”

Perhaps then, amid these gushing plaudits, it would be fair to question whether Gurley can indeed handle such a burden. Is it reasonable to already expect transcendence? Can a second-year running back really strap the Rams offense on his back and carry it to the playoffs, a la Adrian Peterson in Minnesota? You won’t find any doubters here in Irvine.

“I feel like he’s more hungry than ever,” fellow running back Benny Cunningham says. “He understands the attention he’s going to get this season. He’s prepared for it.”

Later, against a live defense, Gurley takes his first carry off-tackle and bounces outside, head-faking ever so slightly to his right. It’s just enough to throw off linebacker Akeem Ayers, before he rockets, untouched, up the sideline. Gurley is healthy and 15 pounds lighter than last season, and it shows. As you watch him run, it’s hard not to wonder if the NFL’s leader in 15-yard-plus carries last season might actually be more explosive than before. In the stands, a handful of fans audibly gasp.

”He’s a very talented young back that has unbelievable potential,” Rams assistant coach Skip Peete said. “I know he’s had a lot of success so far, but I told him, ‘This is just the tip of what you can possibly do.’”

The Rams new running backs coach didn’t meet his star pupil until May, when Gurley reported to OTA’s in Oxnard. But Peete, who replaced Ben Sirmans in January, was already well acquainted with Gurley’s tape by then. With no wife or kids in St. Louis, Peete spent the first few weeks of the job in his office, poring over every play of every game and practice from Gurley’s rookie season. “There were a lot of ‘Whoa’ moments,” Peete says.

Peete’s biggest takeaway from that film study, though, was more constructive. Gurley, he says, is already an elite runner by NFL standards, but his understanding of the nuances of the game — pass blocking protections and route concepts, for instance — like any young player, still needs work. Both Peete and Rams coach Jeff Fisher have suggested running backs will be more involved in the Rams passing game this season — which should mean more action for Gurley as a receiver and third-down blocker. During the team’s first live, full-pads scrimmage, Gurley reeled in two passes downfield, a tantalizing preview of what may be to come.

“They might shift and run routes that receivers run, if the formation calls for it,” Peete says. “It takes a little bit more studying of the entire offensive package.”

As a ballcarrier, Gurley’s most glaring issue last season — if there was one — was his low success rate (43 percent, 36th-best in the NFL), according to Football Outsiders. While more of his runs went for long gains than any other running back, the statistic suggests he also had an inordinately high number of carries stuffed at the line. Twenty-three percent of the Rams rushes in 2015, per Football Outsiders, went for zero or negative yards.

Rookie mistakes, Peete explains. Offensive guard Rodger Saffold attributes some of that blame to the offensive line’s struggles with angle blocking, which “shut off a lot of the running lanes for Todd.”

Those lanes will only see more traffic next season, as defenses match the Rams run game with behemoth eight-man fronts, daring the Rams quarterback — whoever that may be — to throw. But Gurley isn’t thinking that far ahead yet. On Peete’s suggestion, he has tried to give his undivided attention to improving one detail in his game every day. So far, that has meant working on “anything without the ball,” Gurley says. “Play-faking, pass protection, my eyes, footwork, all that stuff.”

For now, the star sophomore back will sweat those details. Soon, though, the ball will be back in his hands, the weight of the Rams entire offense will be on his shoulders, and the NFL will wait eagerly for an encore. Perhaps it’s a lot to ask, relying this much on a second-year running back in a pass-driven league. But after 13 dynamic games of Gurley, the Rams are perfectly willing to throw caution to the SoCal breeze.