Rams report, 8/3

The Rams have today off. They have a 1:50 practice open to the public tomorrow and I assume a closed morning practice. Tomorrow will also be the first practice day of the new NFL calendar, so all of the free agents the Rams have signed and re-signed should be participating for the first time.

* Transactions: The Rams front office deserves a day off as much as anybody, as they continued their free-agent shopping spree yesterday, signing LB Brady Poppinga and RB Jerious Norwood. And they may not be done, as rumors are picking up that Cadillac Williams is due for a drivethrough. Profiles of the new Rams free agents will pop up here if I ever get a chance to catch up.

Rookie free agent defensive tackle Arthur Thomas was released to make room for Poppinga on the 90-man roster. Someone else will have to be released to make room for Norwood.

* Injuries: biggest injury in camp now is Ron Bartell's ankle, which is described as mildly sprained. X-rays were negative. Justin King moves up to the first unit for now, though the fact he has actually made it this deep into training camp without getting injured himself has to be considered an upset.

Other excused absences: Mikail Baker (knee); Jabara Williams (knee). C'mon, seventh-rounders! Robert Quinn remains restricted to individual work. With no update on Darell Dorell Scott (hamstring), or Travon Bellamy (illness), I'm going to assume they've returned to the field.

* Ex-Rams watch: Marc Bulger announced his retirement from the NFL yesterday. Bulger won't make the Hall of Fame but sure leaves his mark all over the Rams' record books. He retires the team's all-time leader in completions and 2nd all-time in passing yards, completion % and passer rating (QBs with 1000 attempts). Bulger made the Pro Bowl in 2003 and 2006 and I believe holds the single-game passing record for the Rams in St. Louis (453). He was the fastest QB in league history to get to 1,000 completions. Laser-accurate QB who had the misfortune to get his deserved then-team-record contract at the same time the Rams offensive line began a rapid decline. Best of luck to Marc, and thanks for the memories.

In Mike Sando's blog entry about Bulger's retirement, I was certainly interested to see one Anthony Becht calling out the Rams organization at the time for letting the offensive line go to pot. Allow myself to quote myself:

RamView, November 23, 2008
"...Then Adewale Ogunleye steams up the middle untouched off a simple loop from LDE and kills Bulger dead for the rest of the day. This offensive line hasn’t had an answer for loops and stunts for a very long time now. The press is calling out Richie Incognito for missing the block, but I wouldn’t leave out Becht. They’ve started lining him up in the backfield right behind the guard precisely to prevent this kind of play, but he was late finding Ogunleye and was no help, as usual."

One of Bulger's concussions? Courtesy of Anthony Becht, who probably should try to find a different way to be remembered.

* Thing that definitely only matters to me: Vocabulary award to head coach Steve Spagnuolo, for remarking that Quinn is "champing at the bit to go". Very few people say that expression correctly; these days almost everyone says "chomp." The last person I heard say it correctly in public, funnily enough, was Mike Martz.

Champing at the bit to make more updates as news occurs...

-$-