Day 6 Practice Observations Part 1

First time I went to practice this year. The covered bleachers were a big improvement over last year. I will post this in sections. The first section will be on the drills prior to the offense vs. defense. The second section will be on the 7 on 7 and 11 on 11 drills. I may make a third post about post practice. I met Bubbaram and a poster who runs a different board. As I am not sure if I am allowed to mention the names of other boards, I will leave it at that. I saw him at about three or four practices last year as well.

I want to point out that these are my takes and as I have never played I may be missing a lot of important details. Last year I focused in on QBs and WRs. Today I looked at ST and Oline a bit more so I won’t have too much to say on one on one drills for the WRs. This first post is just about what the drills were as they were not competing against anyone.

First set of drills. All three QBs throwing to Woods (one QB at a time). Later all three QBs practice taking snaps from under center and turning to hand off. Interestingly Blythe was practicing with STs punt blocking group (punts were sent via jugs so he was not needed to snap to the punter). Parker Collins was snapping to Orlofsky.

The ST punt return drill had a return man and three blockers up front. They would set up to block and clear a lane for the returner. Two players were out there to provide targets for the blockers. They carried a pad in front so that the drill was contact but minimal contact. Keep in mind that Reynolds, Thomas, and Austin were out. The three players acting as return men were Cooper, Shakier Ryan and Brandon Shippen. Ryan bobble the first or second punt he fielded but contained it on the second grasp (not terrible if it was a KO, but could end up as a fumble if the gunners are on him right away on a punt).
The blockers would rotate around and become the putting team to be blocked. Not much to report on how they did, but here is who was out there: #37 De’Mard Llorens rookie running back from Northwestern State. I never heard of him but I will be mentioning him a lot in this summary of practice. #41 Linard Tillery another rookie RB (he dropped a punt that did not have the distance to get to the return man), Justin Davis rookie RB (noticing a theme?), Johnson (rookie D, Price (rookie L, Blythe (2nd yr C), Smart rookie DT, Purcell 3rd yr DT (first w/team), Longacre, and Fox.

While these drills were going on, a coach was throwing about 15 yard passes to the WRs. The passes were thrown to WRs coming directly at the coach.

After these drills, the offense stayed on the field where the fans first enter the practice field area and the defense went to the far field. The Olineman practiced close to where the fans first walk in and near the hospitality area (basically in the end zone of that side of the field). Around the thirty or so yardline the QB lined up with 3 WRs, a TE, and a back. A coach hiked the ball to the QB and they would play against air. First team was Goff with Woods, Kupp, Cooper, Gurley and Higbee. The second team was Mannion, with Spuce, McRoberts, Shippen, Everett and Brown. Each team got about 5 plays in a set. There was no third team for this drill.

As I was watching this drill, I only watched a bit of the oline practice. The oline was playing three olinemen vs two oline lining up as defenders. Sometimes it was GCG, other times it was CGT or TGC. One of the times I was looking, Kromer came in after a drill and gave Pace Murphy advice. It looked from a distance like he was talking about his footwork. After the coach walked away, Hav came in and started talking to Murphy (and hit his chest). From his body movements, it looked like he was giving advice on hand placement but it may also have been footwork as well. My notes have question marks next to both of those concepts so I am not sure. Nonetheless, I am please to see him helping Murphy out. The oline then started working on a drill I just did not understand. It was a one on one blacking drill. The olineman would spin and then try to still block the defensive player from behind (by keeping their body in the defensive player's way and blocking the path to the QB, runner, etc.). I get the idea of learning how to be useful as a blocker when one is out of position, but I did not get the spin move aspect. Maybe so that the player knew where the defender was in advance? It was a drill I do not remember seeing the rams practice last year (or back in the early 1990s). That said, I did not spend a lot of time focusing on the Oline during practices last year.

I will talk about the 7 on 7 and 11 on 11 in the next post.

In between the 7-7 and 11-11 drills, the rams practiced field goals. Initially Zuerlein was just kicking FGs with a holder (not sure if he had a snapper or just a coach snapping to him). One of the first two or three kicks was wide left. I don’t believe there were any other misses. About 10 years behind the goal posts was the raised platform so that the team can film from above. I am not sure if the platform was dead center between the goal posts or not (it looked pretty much like it) but Zuerlein hit it about three or four times and the kicks were pretty high up. He definitely still has a strong leg.

I am skipping over the 7-7 and 11-11 play to just mention a few things. First, we actually had refs on the field (at least one on the goal line). I do not remember seeing any refs at practice last year. If anyone has attended any of the practices this year, did you noticed any refs? I want to know if this was a one day thing or if we are having refs at practice often this year.

At the end of practice, the rams went into a 2 minute drill. After the ones had their drill, the 2s came on the field to do theirs. Standing about 20 yards behind the offense was Kromer talking to Sullivan and Whitworth. I liked that our two new vet oline players were talking with the oline coach after their practice was done. That said, I don’t know what they were talking about, it could have been that candlesticks are a good wedding present. I would have liked it more if Saffold was out there too. Someone pointed out to me that he was hanging with Gurley.

When practice was over, a lot of players stayed on the field to practice. Right in front of me Gurley was working alone on popping a single person blocking sled. He was working on getting momentum going up and back. All three QBs stayed and practiced with WRs. Orlofsky was throwing to Shippen, Ryan and #13 who was not even listed on the roster handout. When I looked at the roster tonight I saw that he is Germany. Canon is 3 and Thomas is 9. I am not sure I saw either of those players today. Mannion and Goff were throwing to the TEs (I noticed Harkey and Wilson). I also noticed Havenstein and Brown working together. Quite a few other players were out there as well. The DBs left the field to sign autographs for some of the kids. I will mention one other interaction between players and the fans. Just before a red zone drill, a fan called Tru over. He seemed to know Tru as they talked for a bit and then Tru took a few pictures with the fan's 3 year old son. When I was leaving practice, the son went over to where the DBs were signing. In order for a kid to get autographs in these sessions, they need to have won a token from a drawing. Although the boy did not have one, the dad called Tru again and that was enough to get the staff to let his son in.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/04/2017 10:19PM by The Professor.