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Rams Developing Identity
Friday, August 28, 2009
By Nick Wagoner
Senior Writer
The process of building a team nearly from scratch is a long and arduous task that can manifest over the course of multiple seasons. But the idea of building an identity begins right away and it can show itself at any given moment.
Perhaps there is still plenty of growing to do for the new-look Rams but subtle signs of just what this team could look like in 2009 and beyond are starting to emerge.
Never were those signs more imminent in this first year under coach Steve Spagnuolo than during Thursday night’s preseason victory against the Bengals in Cincinnati.
The Rams emerged from that game with a 24-21 win on the strength of four turnovers, six sacks and a controlled offense that didn’t turn the ball over. Those are the qualities Spagnuolo is looking for as his first edition attempts to take Spagnuolo’s vision and make it a reality.
“In a nut shell, I’d say a focused, disciplined, tough football team,” Spagnuolo said. “And we have certain measurements that we’ve talked about after every game on how we measure focus and discipline and how we measure physical toughness. I blurt them out to them after every game, did we meet it, did we not meet it? And I think the team’s embracing that I think they want to be that.”
Signs of that team personality were evident in Thursday’s game. Whether it’s the hustle of Jason Smith to help quarterback Brock Berlin up after he took a particularly hard hit or the relentless attempts to pound the ball on the ground on offense or the trademark forced fumble by free safety Oshiomogho Atogwe, who the Rams are is beginning to come into focus.
Even Spagnuolo took notice at halftime.
“I would go back and say that I really thought the way they approached the game, the mindset,” Spagnuolo said. “I told them this morning – I was really impressed at halftime. You know the NFL gives you a 12-minute window and you go in and you make the adjustments and usually you’re kind of scrambling a little bit. Our guys were up, standing up ready to go back out there with five minutes to go. They just wanted to get back out and play. I thought that was pretty revealing about this group and this team.”
That act might seem simple for most teams but for a group that a year ago might have reacted completely different after falling behind early, it’s a step in the right direction.
“We couldn’t wait at all to get right back out there,” center Jason Brown said. “That’s how much enthusiasm we have.”
In some ways, building a team personality is like a puzzle. For it all to come together as a team, it first must come together in parts. Usually those parts come by way of respective units.
For anyone curious about the defensive part of that puzzle, the difference from last week’s game against Atlanta to Thursday night was the very definition of where the Rams are trying to go.
The Rams defense came up with four takeaways, even going so far as to scoop and score on a 73-yard fumble return from safety James Butler. And while Butler made a big play finding the end zone; it was the effort of Atogwe, who forced the fumble, that shined brightest.
After stripping the ball loose from Cincinnati running back Bernard Scott, Atogwe escorted Butler down the field, blocking no less than two Bengals on the way to clearing a path to the end zone.
In three preseason games, the Rams have nine takeaways, eight more than they had in the 2008 preseason.
In addition, the defense was in Cincinnati’s backfield all night, coming up with six sacks from six players. Defensive coordinator Ken Flajole, from his new perch in the upstairs box, unleashed some of the creative blitzes and packages that will become a part of the defensive fabric.
“Our personality is to stop the run and pressure the passer,” Butler said. “We try to implement that in practice and scoop every ball up on the ground, fumbles and stripping the ball every day. And we just want to be a turnover hungry defense. Turn the ball over, stop the run and pressure the passer, that’s what we want to be.”
Offensively, the Rams also flashed glimpses of the type of team they will be despite missing key components because of injury. After falling behind 7-0, the Rams promptly marched 71 yards to tie the game on Samkon Gado’s 16-yard touchdown run.
That drive featured six runs and four passes as the Rams controlled the line of scrimmage in the run game and in protecting quarterback Kyle Boller.
In working in tandem with the defensive mindset, it’s also imperative for the offense to turn those takeaways into points, preferably touchdowns. The Rams were able to do that on their second possession as Gado scored on a 2-yard shuffle pass from Boller to give the Rams a lead they would not relinquish.
“We are definitely getting an attitude out there,” Brown said. “We definitely want to come out and start strong. That’s what we have to do this next game and get started in the regular season and start fast.”
The Rams have converted eight of their nine takeaways into points in the three preseason games, resulting in 40 points on four touchdowns and four field goals. To put that in perspective, the Rams scored 45 points on takeaways in the entire 2008 season.
Of course, not everything was perfect against the Bengals according to Spagnuolo. The Rams struggled on special teams as punter Donnie Jones had a couple of low line drive punts that helped lead to big returns and kicker Josh Brown just missed a couple of long field goal attempts.
More disappointing to Spagnuolo was the team’s 10 penalties, something that goes against the idea of being a disciplined team. That doesn’t mean there aren’t some forms of discipline on the film of those first three contests.
“We have to get better on special teams, we know we made some mistakes there and the penalties did kill us,” Spagnuolo said. “Had we not had the four turnovers, I don’t know if we could have overcome the 10 penalties – that’s tough. In the NFL you can’t give people free yardage. We’ll try to get those things ironed out this week.”
In the next few days, the Rams will begin to nail down just who the players that will help form the team’s identity will be.
Spagnuolo will meet with General Manager Billy Devaney as well as the coaching staff and personnel department to begin the process of chopping the roster down to the final 53 from the current 80.
Teams are required to chop five players down to 75 by Tuesday and the final cuts come on Sept. 5 when the final rosters are set.
And for as much as performance on the field comes into play in those decisions, it’s fair to say one of the deciding factors on those choices will come down to where those players fit into the shared vision of Spagnuolo, Devaney and the Rams’ ultimate blueprint.
“I thought the approach to the game was really, really good,” Spagnuolo said. “I didn’t like the way the game started out, but we did recover from the adversity. I talked about that last night. That was very encouraging. I thought some of the things the offense did in running the football early was encouraging. I don’t know if the overall stats said that but there were some pieces in there, I’m talking about with the first groups now that kind of looked like we envisioned it. Running the football effectively, moving the offense down the field, finishing with a touchdown, the defense coming back out and stopping people, so all that was good…So some of those things are what we use to measure it, but we hone in on that every game.”
Friday, August 28, 2009
By Nick Wagoner
Senior Writer
The process of building a team nearly from scratch is a long and arduous task that can manifest over the course of multiple seasons. But the idea of building an identity begins right away and it can show itself at any given moment.
Perhaps there is still plenty of growing to do for the new-look Rams but subtle signs of just what this team could look like in 2009 and beyond are starting to emerge.
Never were those signs more imminent in this first year under coach Steve Spagnuolo than during Thursday night’s preseason victory against the Bengals in Cincinnati.
The Rams emerged from that game with a 24-21 win on the strength of four turnovers, six sacks and a controlled offense that didn’t turn the ball over. Those are the qualities Spagnuolo is looking for as his first edition attempts to take Spagnuolo’s vision and make it a reality.
“In a nut shell, I’d say a focused, disciplined, tough football team,” Spagnuolo said. “And we have certain measurements that we’ve talked about after every game on how we measure focus and discipline and how we measure physical toughness. I blurt them out to them after every game, did we meet it, did we not meet it? And I think the team’s embracing that I think they want to be that.”
Signs of that team personality were evident in Thursday’s game. Whether it’s the hustle of Jason Smith to help quarterback Brock Berlin up after he took a particularly hard hit or the relentless attempts to pound the ball on the ground on offense or the trademark forced fumble by free safety Oshiomogho Atogwe, who the Rams are is beginning to come into focus.
Even Spagnuolo took notice at halftime.
“I would go back and say that I really thought the way they approached the game, the mindset,” Spagnuolo said. “I told them this morning – I was really impressed at halftime. You know the NFL gives you a 12-minute window and you go in and you make the adjustments and usually you’re kind of scrambling a little bit. Our guys were up, standing up ready to go back out there with five minutes to go. They just wanted to get back out and play. I thought that was pretty revealing about this group and this team.”
That act might seem simple for most teams but for a group that a year ago might have reacted completely different after falling behind early, it’s a step in the right direction.
“We couldn’t wait at all to get right back out there,” center Jason Brown said. “That’s how much enthusiasm we have.”
In some ways, building a team personality is like a puzzle. For it all to come together as a team, it first must come together in parts. Usually those parts come by way of respective units.
For anyone curious about the defensive part of that puzzle, the difference from last week’s game against Atlanta to Thursday night was the very definition of where the Rams are trying to go.
The Rams defense came up with four takeaways, even going so far as to scoop and score on a 73-yard fumble return from safety James Butler. And while Butler made a big play finding the end zone; it was the effort of Atogwe, who forced the fumble, that shined brightest.
After stripping the ball loose from Cincinnati running back Bernard Scott, Atogwe escorted Butler down the field, blocking no less than two Bengals on the way to clearing a path to the end zone.
In three preseason games, the Rams have nine takeaways, eight more than they had in the 2008 preseason.
In addition, the defense was in Cincinnati’s backfield all night, coming up with six sacks from six players. Defensive coordinator Ken Flajole, from his new perch in the upstairs box, unleashed some of the creative blitzes and packages that will become a part of the defensive fabric.
“Our personality is to stop the run and pressure the passer,” Butler said. “We try to implement that in practice and scoop every ball up on the ground, fumbles and stripping the ball every day. And we just want to be a turnover hungry defense. Turn the ball over, stop the run and pressure the passer, that’s what we want to be.”
Offensively, the Rams also flashed glimpses of the type of team they will be despite missing key components because of injury. After falling behind 7-0, the Rams promptly marched 71 yards to tie the game on Samkon Gado’s 16-yard touchdown run.
That drive featured six runs and four passes as the Rams controlled the line of scrimmage in the run game and in protecting quarterback Kyle Boller.
In working in tandem with the defensive mindset, it’s also imperative for the offense to turn those takeaways into points, preferably touchdowns. The Rams were able to do that on their second possession as Gado scored on a 2-yard shuffle pass from Boller to give the Rams a lead they would not relinquish.
“We are definitely getting an attitude out there,” Brown said. “We definitely want to come out and start strong. That’s what we have to do this next game and get started in the regular season and start fast.”
The Rams have converted eight of their nine takeaways into points in the three preseason games, resulting in 40 points on four touchdowns and four field goals. To put that in perspective, the Rams scored 45 points on takeaways in the entire 2008 season.
Of course, not everything was perfect against the Bengals according to Spagnuolo. The Rams struggled on special teams as punter Donnie Jones had a couple of low line drive punts that helped lead to big returns and kicker Josh Brown just missed a couple of long field goal attempts.
More disappointing to Spagnuolo was the team’s 10 penalties, something that goes against the idea of being a disciplined team. That doesn’t mean there aren’t some forms of discipline on the film of those first three contests.
“We have to get better on special teams, we know we made some mistakes there and the penalties did kill us,” Spagnuolo said. “Had we not had the four turnovers, I don’t know if we could have overcome the 10 penalties – that’s tough. In the NFL you can’t give people free yardage. We’ll try to get those things ironed out this week.”
In the next few days, the Rams will begin to nail down just who the players that will help form the team’s identity will be.
Spagnuolo will meet with General Manager Billy Devaney as well as the coaching staff and personnel department to begin the process of chopping the roster down to the final 53 from the current 80.
Teams are required to chop five players down to 75 by Tuesday and the final cuts come on Sept. 5 when the final rosters are set.
And for as much as performance on the field comes into play in those decisions, it’s fair to say one of the deciding factors on those choices will come down to where those players fit into the shared vision of Spagnuolo, Devaney and the Rams’ ultimate blueprint.
“I thought the approach to the game was really, really good,” Spagnuolo said. “I didn’t like the way the game started out, but we did recover from the adversity. I talked about that last night. That was very encouraging. I thought some of the things the offense did in running the football early was encouraging. I don’t know if the overall stats said that but there were some pieces in there, I’m talking about with the first groups now that kind of looked like we envisioned it. Running the football effectively, moving the offense down the field, finishing with a touchdown, the defense coming back out and stopping people, so all that was good…So some of those things are what we use to measure it, but we hone in on that every game.”
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