Rams' Fisher Not Pleased With Missing Rookies

[r8rh8rmike]

Rams’ Fisher not pleased with missing rookies

By Eric Edholm
Pro Football Weekly – 1 hour 38 minutes ago

Rams head coach Jeff Fisher is staring up at a mountain. He has inherited a team with a litany of problems, and Fisher has countless new faces — including 10 draft picks — that he’s counting on to help improve a 2-14 football team from a year ago.

Add one problem to the list: Three of Fisher’s prized rookies will not be attending the full OTAs that started Tuesday and run intermittently over the next week.

Second-round WR Brian Quick, second-round RB Isaiah Pead and fourth-round WR Chris Givens all are missing from practice. They instead are attending the NFLPA’s Rookie Premiere weekend out in Los Angeles.

Fisher was not wild about the proposition when asked about it Wednesday.

"They're out in Southern California. It's mandated by the league that they go out there,” Fisher told reporters. "Unfortunately, they're missing some quality work."

The event, put on by the NFLPA and presented by Nike, brings together 35 of the top draft picks from the 2012 class. The players take part in a series of community events on Thursday, they compete in a flag football game this Friday, and on Saturday the players are photographed in their new teams' uniforms for the first time. The pictures are used by trading-card companies for Panini American and Topps for their 2012 collections.

The Rams happen to be one of the teams with three players attending, and Fisher appeared peeved that he is losing man-hours to the event.

"Really great timing," he said.

Fisher is not the only one whose team is affected by this scheduling conflict. Four other teams have OTAs scheduled during at least part of the event, including the Colts, Jaguars, Raiders and Buccaneers. The irony is that four of those five teams finished with among the seven-worst records in the NFL last season.

Players who could miss time because of the NFLPA event, which runs through May 20, include Colts QB Andrew Luck, Jaguars WR Justin Blackmon, Buccaneers RB Doug Martin, Colts TEs Coby Fleener and Dwayne Allen and Colts WR T.Y. Hilton, along with Quick, Pead and Givens.

The Colts, Jaguars and Raiders all conclude their minicamps on Thursday. But the Rams and Buccaneers have sessions scheduled through May 18.

The NFLPA, which runs the event, was contacted for comment but did not immediately return a call.

[Trevor]

When I first saw the topic title I was like, what did Jenkins do now...

[AvengerRam]

Yeah, pretty misleading headline.

Fisher is not displeased with the rookies (who were REQUIRED to be at this event). He is displeased with the NFLPA.

[NJ Ramsfan1]

Really bad job by the NFLPA in my opinion. You think we want to get a guy hurt playing flag football?

[TekeRam]

You know, I understand that the union wants to show these guys off and all that, but you think that there could be some better communication between the union and the teams. I blame all sides, but the PA is not on a time schedule here. The teams can only practice so many times and only certain dates, meanwhile the players can go gather in SoCal any time that they want to. How about they go do this in June when OTA's are not happening? Will that affect the publicity? I think not...

[berg8309]

Can someone explain how Dwayne Allen and Ty Hilton are considered among the top picks? or for that matter, Givens. No offense to these guys, but are they really who the NFLPA wants to showcase? And why 4 colts? Just because they were drafted the year the Colts drafted Luck?

[HUbison]

they compete in a flag football game this Friday

Awesome. Super duper idea! Let's have our rookies risk injury for some stupid meaningless pick up game!

Way to go, Union!

[UK Ramfan 83]

I can see it now....;

"..Rookie Ram wide receiver Brian Quick is to miss the entire 2012/13 season due to a complete tear of his left anterior cruciate ligament.

The number 2 draft choice for the Rams sustained the injury in a freak accident at the half time of a flag football game organised by the NFLPU. As Quick trotted from the flag football match to get a hamburger, he fell whist reaching for the ketchup. There was no-one near him at the time of the accident. Rams Head coach Jeff Fisher was unavailable for comment...."

[ramsbruce]

Poor communication on both sides. A horrible idea for a flag football game. The NFLPA should have done this a week or two ago so it wouldn't interrupt some teams OTAs, and drop the flag football.

Robert Edwards is the perfect example of why NOT to play flag football in this thing.

[berg8309]

Awesome. Super duper idea! Let's have our rookies risk injury for some stupid meaningless pick up game!

Way to go, Union!

The union cares about player safety! I'm surprised they didn't invite more Rams for injury-day er, I mean, flag football.

[rammiser]

Shame on those rookies for going to a mandated event. The writer of this article Eric Edholm should have made his article Fisher upset with NFLPA not the rookies, very misleading.