Training camp stock report, 8/11

Busy weekend for the Rams training camp stock market. The bell is ringing. The bulls are running. The bears are running. The bulls are running into the bears. I swear I even saw some people jump off of window ledges! Here’s RamView’s assessment of who’s up and who’s down:

STRONG BUY (best performers): OJ Atogwe, Donnie Jones.

BLUE CHIPS (well-established high performers giving little cause for worry): Josh Brown, James Butler, Steven Jackson, Leonard Little, Randy McMichael, Will Witherspoon. Little got an upgrade because he’s really been tearing it up so far.

SMALL CAPS (younger players showing significant upside): Keenan Burton, Kenneth Darby, Daniel Fells, Bradley Fletcher, Larry Grant, John Greco, Justin King, James Laurinaitis, Chris Long, Laurent Robinson, Cliff Ryan, Darell Scott, Jason Smith, David Vobora, Jonathan Wade. Upgrade for Burton, who was looking progressively stronger in camp even before Donnie Avery’s injury opened up a starting position for him. Upgrade for Greco, who’s seeing some work at center. Downgrade for first-round pick Smith, who’s been struggling significantly after a fast start.

VALUE STOCKS (steady veterans with some upside): Victor Adeyanju, Ron Bartell, Jason Brown, Mark Bulger, Chris Draft, Adam Goldberg, James Hall, Richie Incognito, Mike Karney, Chris Massey. Draft, Hall and Incognito are all having excellent camps. Bartell’s on the fast track to blue chip after reassuring performances this past weekend.

EARNINGS SURPRISES (veterans performing much better than anticipated): Craig Dahl, Samkon Gado, Gary Gibson, Hollis Thomas. Gado jumps up here for his versatility.

CDs (steady but not exciting): C.J. Ah You, Billy Bajema, Alex Barron, Jacob Bell, Kyle Boller, Antwon Burton, Eric Butler, Tim Carter, Chris Chamberlain, Ronald Curry, Brooks Foster, Tye Hill, Todd Johnson, Eric Moore, Antonio Pittman, Mark Rubin, Roy Schuening, Mark Setterstrom, Derek Stanley, Phil Trautwein. Pittman moves off the ‘sell’ list because they’re giving him more looks. New safety Rubin started off camp on the right foot with an INT yesterday. Schuening’s downgraded because his play is leveling off a little. Setterstrom’s downgraded because of Greco getting work at center, but he could bounce right back. Ah You moves up because he’s been tearing up fellow third-stringers.

PASSBOOK ACCOUNTS (players with uphill fight to make the roster): K.C. Asiodu, Brock Berlin, Ian Campbell, Dominic Douglas, Jerome Johnson, Tim Mattran, Keith Null, David Roach, Daniel Sanders. Bad combo for Berlin, falling to this level the same time Null rises to this level. But Berlin’s play has been shaky, while Null has shown early signs of improvement.

STOCKS WITH HIGH BETAS: Donnie Avery. Avery was having one of the best camps of anybody on the team before breaking a bone in his foot at last Friday’s scrimmage. Now you have to wonder about his long-term durability; he fought injuries all of last year, too.

PROMISING MICROCAPS (young players performing surprisingly well): Quincy Butler, Nate Jones, Chris Ogbannaya, Cord Parks. Butler is this year's break-out hit.

PINK SHEETS (young players with long odds of making the roster): Roger Allen, Marcus Brown, Jarrett Byers, Sean Walker, Eric Young. Downgrade for Young, who hasn’t looked good.

EARNINGS DISAPPOINTMENTS: Adam Carriker, Quinton Culberson. Argh, Carriker’s injured AGAIN.

SELL: Joe Klopfenstein.

DE-LISTED: Classy Eric Bassey (waived, torn ACL).

Reminder: Past performance is no guarantee of future results.

8/9/2009 training camp report

RamView, August 9, 2007
Training Camp Report from Rams Park

RamView: Close enough today to be nearly decapitated by a Josh Brown field goal. Close enough to hear Steven Jackson belch. Let's see how close I can get to relating what transpired on the field at today's fairly steamy, two-hours-plus morning practice:

Position by position:

* QB/Receivers: Dumb place to start because this is where I paid the least attention today. Marc Bulger drilled a TD pass to Daniel Fells in the goal line drill. Kyle Boller threw a couple of nice sideline passes but also got picked off out there by – Quincy Butler. Boller threw the other INT I saw today as well. I'm not sure which QB had the nice pass on a deep corner route to Brooks Foster – I think it was Boller, but no matter; Foster, who had his man beaten by a step, couldn't come up with a catch he should have. None of the receivers really stood out to me today; Joe Klopfenstein was unlucky enough to have one of the few drops of practice that I saw. (I saw the report on Donnie Avery's injury before I posted this, but I didn't see it happen.)

* RB: I have photographic evidence that Steven Jackson's pretty easily the Rams' most powerful back, and I'm not referring to his ability to burp loudly. They ran the drill through the “arms machine” right in front of us, and Jackson gets through that thing so quickly, I could not get the timing right to get a photo of him inside of it. Every other back I got. Jackson? Just photos of an empty practice apparatus. Very light day for Jackson; very heavy day for Chris Ogbannaya, the poor sucker who received the day's biggest hits in 11-on-11. It was certainly a full-contact practice for him. Mike Karney did some work in drills but I did not see him participate in 11-on-11. Samkon Gado's one of my stars of the day simply because his versatility makes him a pretty solid bet to make the team. He delivered some quality hits playing fullback and looked fluid and sure-handed returning kickoffs. Yet he's supposed to be a tailback, isn't he? Doing everything the coaches ask you to do? Good way to stick on an NFL roster. Having said all that, though, Antonio Pittman seems to be getting an increasing number of turns at RB3. They had the draw play working today; Kenneth Darby got a big hole and broke off a long run.

* O-line/D-line: A rough morning for Jason Smith. Victor Adeyanju handled him in the pass rush / pass pro drill. Smith got outside quickly to stop the initial rush, but Adeyanju and Leonard Little were following that with rip moves back to the inside and getting by him easily. Adeyanju did it to him in drills and Little did it to him in 11-on-11 to slam the door on a run designed to go behind Jason. Smith also false-started twice during the drill to draw Steve Loney's wrath. The game appears to be moving a little fast for Jason Smith at the moment. He looked a little more comfortable in drills at LT, and he continues to get in extra solo work on his footwork. Smith wasn't the only one to struggle on the o-line. Chris Long and James Hall beat Alex Barron pretty cleanly. Little got two pretty clear wins over Adam Goldberg. Gary Gibson's better than a dark horse to make this roster; at least in drills, he ran with the ones today with Adam Carriker sidelined (though not limping noticeably, so I'm optimistic there). I'd say Gibson and Jacob Bell drew. The strength of the o-line was Jason Brown, holding his own against Cliff Ryan, and Richie Incognito, whom Hall didn't beat either time they faced off. Substitution patterns were a little, well, different, today. John Greco got work at second-string center in drills and looked pretty good doing it; I didn't see Mark Setterstrom at work. Renardo Foster appears to have moved up to second-unit LT. C.J. Ah You smoked Eric Young. Roy Schuening looked woeful against DEs Adeyanju and Hall but held his own against Hollis Thomas. And that figures to be a key to the Rams this season: getting those favorable speed matchups inside, attacking the weakness of opposing guards with lesser speed. It's sure working against our o-line, anyway.

* LB: James Laurinaitis ran the whole practice with the ones today, with Chris Draft strongside and Will Witherspoon weakside. So on August 9th, I think we're already looking at our starting day lineup at that unit. Draft delivered the day's biggest -POP- on an Ogbannaya run.

* Secondary: Secondary may have been the team's strongest suit today. There were a good number of plays where the QBs were forced to throw the ball away. Boller even had to scramble once! You'd look up and see that every DB had his receiver blanketed. Nice, nice work by practically everybody. Ron Bartell looked solid; the offense continues not to even throw at him. Quincy Butler made yet another interception, jumping a sideline route just like he did at the scrimmage. I think he did get beat downfield a couple of times, though. Justin King made an acrobatic play to take a long pass away for the defense's other interception. O.J. Atogwe's the most tenacious player out there. He's even willing to contest Steven Jackson's efforts to run a play out to the end zone. He even took Darby down once instead of letting him run out the play. There was not a lot of goal line work; James Butler shut down the #2 offense's effort by blitzing in clean for a sack. With King and Bradley Fletcher and Jonathan Wade all playing pretty well behind him, Tye Hill's grasp on a starting spot seems to be getting slipperier. He got beat a couple of times in 11-on-11 and looked visibly frustrated about it. Though either King or Fletcher got beat deep by Brooks on the long ball he should have caught. Craig Dahl did not participate.

* Special teams: So I'm standing in the bleachers behind the near field, trying to take pictures of the action on the far field. I suspect nothing because Josh Brown and Donnie Jones have been mostly goofing around on the field in front of me. I credit my finely-honed football instincts (because NOBODY there sure gave me a heads-up) that I suddenly sensed danger, lowered my camera, and... got a paw up just in time to prevent a Brown field goal from taking my head off. My contribution for the year to Rams special teams. Brown wasn't all that good during the “Banzai” part of 11-on-11, missing a couple of times from where I assume was the 45-50-yard range. Hey, you're going to go after MY head, you better kick better than that, buddy. Special teams practiced onside kicks early and kickoff returns late, where I'm hard-pressed to describe Kenneth Darby as anything short of a disaster. He muffed three kickoffs. One of the assistants had to keep handing him a football so they could continue practicing the return. Gado looked a lot better there than Darby today. Tim Carter and Derek Stanley also got some attempts back there.

* Coaching/discipline: I get more and more jazzed about the Spagnuolo defense as every day of training camp goes by. I really like how he's going to use defensive ends as interior rushers, exploiting the speed advantage they're going to have on guards. I like this defense's prospects of finding the other team's weakness and attacking it relentlessly. I like the energy the defensive players have. They're being asked to be more aggressive, to do more, and I think that always results in a higher level of play. How quickly it manifests itself is fair to ask, but I think Spagnuolo's the defensive coach we've been waiting for around here. Waitress! More Kool-Aid over here! The only offensive wrinkle of note was an attempted flanker option off an end-around; I think Tim Carter was the passer. The play failed pretty miserably, but at least they're trying.

* Cheers: 300-400 fans attending this morning, including a big crowd in the VIP area. The weather was humid, and the temperature was 90 by the end of practice; in other words, St. Louis in August. If I had not had an appliance-related disaster that delayed this report by several hours, I could have let everybody know the afternoon practice was moving inside. Heard the facility manager talking about that very possibility on my way out. I know, lot of help that is now.

* Who’s next?: That may have been my last practice of training camp, depending on whether they keep the other Sunday sessions open. The next focus for Rams Nation is rightly on the preseason opener Friday night against the Jets in New York. Top questions: Is the defense for real? The Jets have a pretty talented offensive line. One thing I do not want to see is Kellen Clemens going off. I believe he is a terrible quarterback and it would be a very bad thing for the Rams to make him look good. Let's start the cries for Mark Sanchez early. Can they stop the run? We can be pretty sure the Jets are going to run a run-oriented attack. The other big developing defensive stories are Laurinaitis as starting MLB and Hill (or otherwise) at CB2. The Rams should not be giving up scary results to the likes of Jerricho Cotchery and Chansi Stuckey. Offensively, I'm not expecting Jason Smith to start Friday night, but he'll definitely be a person of interest. The offense may be bound to be double vanilla and of dubious educational value, but the work of the offensive line won't be. And on special teams, I'd sure like to see who's going to return kicks, and whether or not they'll be players who actually hold on to those kicks.

The song doesn't necessarily apply to the NFL: if the Rams can make it in New York, it doesn't mean they can make it anywhere. A good, crisp outing would be a promising start, though.

-- Mike

8/7/2009 scrimmage report

RamView, August 7, 2007
Team Scrimmage Report from Lindenwood College


Hey, St. Louis may have figured out it's time for some football. A capacity crowd of 7,000 watched tonight as the Rams locked horns with one another in the closest atmosphere to a live game they've seen so far this preseason. The problem is, I'm not really sure exactly what we all learned tonight. The Rams might have answers right now to a couple of their myriad issues, but there are still an awful lot of questions left blank thus far on their 2009 NFL entrance exam.

Position by position:

* QB: Marc Bulger looked solid enough, though I'm not ready to proclaim he's “back” like they just did on the 10 o'clock news. The short passing game clicked and Bulger especially made some nice throws into tight spaces. He found Keenan Burton and Donnie Avery downfield a couple of times and is still working really well with Randy McMichael. He was picked off from the goal line by Quincy Butler on an attempted out route to Laurent Robinson. Butler really jumped that route, so I'm not sure if Bulger's throw was the problem there. At least I hope not. That wasn't Bulger's only INT, though; Craig Dahl picked off a deep throw to end the offense's first two-minute drill. Nobody inspired much confidence behind Bulger. Kyle Boller was under pretty good pressure much of the scrimmage and chucked a couple of INTs – one a dumb throw into double coverage, another 10 yards past the nearest receiver and right to the deep safety, I think Dahl again. The TE cut off his route early on that second INT, though, and I'll bet he wasn't supposed to. At least in Boller's mind. I actually started worrying about Boller before the scrimmage started; I don't think he made a single good throw to the sideline in warmups. Brock Berlin lost the snap from center on his first play, really bad timing since the Rams were starting that drive at their goal line. Keith Null didn't show a lot of zing on his deep throws, and he badly missed on a timing route into the end zone during goal line drills, but he drilled a pass into the end zone the next play for a TD on what had to be his best throw of camp so far. Null also showed off a pretty nice play-fake. They're doing well enough by-and-large with the short passing game, but there were a lot of misses deep.

* RB: Very limited action for Steven Jackson – 3-4 snaps – and Kenneth Darby, and on just about any sweep, the refs were blowing the whistle before the back could get out and turn the corner, making it hard again to figure how well many running plays actually would have fared. Samkon Gado started at fullback; I do not believe Mike Karney played. Gado's RB3 ahead of Antonio Pittman, but Pittman showed some of the nice footwork and elusiveness that makes him worth keeping around. Chris Ogbannaya and Null collided on one attempted handoff and had a lengthy discussion on the field over who was at fault. It's going to be hard for me to get a good feel for the progress of the running game until real, live competition starts next week.

* Receivers: Keenan Burton's in the mix for star of the night. He made a couple of nice downfield catches and also caught the one short TD pass I can remember Bulger throwing. Donnie Avery and Laurent Robinson also had nice outings, and my confidence increased tonight about the Rams entering the regular season with those as the top three receivers. Derek Stanley is 4th at WR, based on tonight's substitution pattern. Tim Carter made a nice play to haul in an underthrown deep ball from Null. Eric Butler had two TD catches at TE but also had the worst drop of the night and may have been the TE who helped cause one of Boller's INTs. Especially with Burton turning in some consistently good performances, WR is starting to look like an area the Rams are getting shored up.

* Offensive line: Definitely a step backwards tonight for first-round pick Jason Smith, eaten up by Victor Adeyanju and taken to school by Leonard Little. There was a three-play sequence late in scrimmage where Smith probably would have given up three straight sacks. Looked to me like he was dropping too deep too fast, and with bad balance, and his man would just drive him straight back to the QB. Smith saw some snaps on the first unit, but I'm gonna have to slow down my expectations on him, though his potential is undeniable. What's also undeniable? Alex Barron's ability to false start, which he did on a simulated third-and-short to a chorus of thousands of boos. The line had a second false start, but with an unidentified perpetrator. I'm thinking 70 again. And, grrrr. The more some things change, the more they stay the same.

* Defensive line/LB: The first-string defense started a little slowly but can pretty much be said to have won the night. Leonard Little pwned Jason Smith the series they got to face off, beating him three straight times. The first time he appeared to stun Smith with his punch and rushed right through him. Victor Adeyanju also made some inroads against Smith during the night. Boller can thank God for red jerseys when he gets home, because Cliff Ryan would have obliterated him on a rollout pass that blew up. Nice range from Ryan. Chris Long got a couple of pressures from his end and also spent a curious amount of time working with the twos. C.J. Ah You put on quite a bit of effective pressure in scrub action. And in the oh-crap-here-we-go-again category, Adam Carriker left early with a leg injury I could not determine and did not return. The line got the QBs to rush a lot of throws and had a lot of shots at sacks without doing a lot of blitzing, so it was a successful night for them. Some good linebacking going on as well. Chris Draft flashed in a bunch of times to stuff runs. He also ranks as one of the stars of the night. James Laurinaitis spent the whole night with the second unit and Draft is not giving his position up without a fight. I'm catching up with the Larry Grant bandwagon. He's around the ball a lot. K.C. Asiodu got a moment of glory by picking off a Berlin pass, though the referee's whistle brought a premature end to his return to the house. Dominic Douglas made a couple of nice plays, though he got one pass defense mainly because Null (or Berlin) didn't get enough on a deep throw and hit him in the back with it.

* Secondary: Jonathan Wade had the hit of the night, sticking Robinson to prevent conversion of a short-yardage down, but he got beat downfield a couple of other times. Ram QBs didn't even try to go after Ron Bartell. I hoped to get a better look at Bartell tonight but he was in zone a few yards off the line anytime I remembered to look. Quincy Butler “flashed” with a very nice INT of Bulger near the offense's goal line, jumping the route perfectly and beating Robinson to the spot. I'm catching up with that bandwagon now, too. Bradley Fletcher looked good the few times the passing game went his way, though watching him try to play gunner on one punt still makes me wonder how much he'll contribute to special teams. The secondary as a whole is noticeably stronger against the run. O.J. Atogwe slashed in a couple of times to stuff runs, though on the starting defense's first play in goal line drills, he bit HARD on a play fake and left TE Butler all alone in the end zone for an easy TD. Cord Parks had a nice pass breakup, catching up to an underthrown bomb from Null after getting beaten deep by his man (Brooks, I think; possibly Curry). Beyond getting beat constantly by the underneath drag route, the secondary played well. They're well-organized and didn't blow any assignments. They supported well against the run. Ram QBs had a fair share of trouble finding receivers, and the defense picked off a bunch of passes, at least 5 or 6. Hmm, any possibility the Rams have a defensive-minded coach now? It's still up in the air to me how the CBs shake out behind Bartell, though, because I don't think Tye Hill has done much to separate himself from the rest of the pack.

* Special teams: Return specialist auditions continue to be a veritable cattle call. Returning punts at one time or another tonight: Stanley, Curry, Avery, Parks. Kickoffs: Darby, Gado, Carter, and Jarrett Byers. Burton may have returned punts as well. And little's settled here in my mind. Stanley didn't look right out there. He dropped a couple and had to sprint backward 15-20 yards a couple of times to track punts down. I hope he was setting up way too short on purpose. Otherwise, it's Donnie Freaking Jones, for crying out loud, drop back deep. Jones boomed consistent 55-60 yarders before the scrimmage,but his protection allowed too much pressure right up the middle during the scrimmage and he had to rush some punts that came up shorter than his usual standard, and nothing the various Ram returners could really bring back. Josh Brown hit a 50-yard FG to close out a successful 2:00 drill and was hitting from 60 prior to the scrimmage.

* Coaching/discipline: Steve Spagnuolo observed much of the scrimmage from deep in the Ram backfield. I thought I saw him chew Barron out a little after his false start but that may have been wishful thinking on my part. Not many offensive wrinkles again tonight. There were a few fake end-arounds, and on the opening play, Jackson motioned out of his backfield position to the left slot before an inside handoff to Gado at FB. The secondary appeared to pick Jackson up well. Pat Shurmur appears determined to roll out the QB more than we're accustomed to here, though Boller's the main one I've seen rolling out to date. I'm late bringing this up, but Shurmur is an inverse Al Saunders in that this offense is really working the middle of the field, thank God. And the underneath drag route was there any time the offense wanted it. The Ram D will have to get that tightened up.

* Cheers: Great crowd tonight! Lindenwood's stadium was filled to capacity on a beautiful summer night with a warm southerly breeze blowing. Announced attendance was 7,000, and I won't argue with the estimate for a change. Stadium capacity is 6,000 and there were plenty of people in the standing areas. The shady west side of the stadium was almost completely filled more than a half hour before the scrimmage was scheduled to start. Lindenwood has a very nice facility (with FieldTurf), and would be a perfect place for the Rams to work out should they decide to have future preseasons outside of Rams Park.

* Who’s next?: Just Sunday practices from here on out for yours truly. This Sunday'll be my last opportunity to see the team in person before it starts playing live opponents Friday night in New York. The Rams continue to show some pep defensively and look more and more like they'll survive at WR. But there is still a lot of challenge ahead for the team to address by the start of the 2009 season.

-- Mike

Training camp stock report, 8/6

Update heading into tomorrow night's scrimmage (which I'm still on course to attend):

* Reports are that Adam Carriker's picking up his play, so he's been restored to a value stock.

* I'm less positive about Quincy Butler's work in pass coverage, but there are mostly good reports about him out there, especially as a run supporter. I moved him up to passbook class.

* Chris Ogbannaya's impressing many, especially as a receiver. Stands to reason given his college career. He's bumped up to microcap.

* The Rams have had very few injuries this camp, yet unlucky John Greco has been injured multiple times. Let's hope his luck turns and he can get back into the green. Mike Karney's ankle injury is developing into a bit of a concern.

* I should think about siccing the SEC on Chris Chamberlain for accidentally hitting Steven Jackson in the knees yesterday. I also hope to get some due diligence done on Ron Bartell tomorrow night.

STRONG BUY: OJ Atogwe, Donnie Avery, Donnie Jones, Jason Smith. Having the visibly-best camps so far.

BLUE CHIPS: Josh Brown, James Butler, Steven Jackson, Randy McMichael, Will Witherspoon. Well-established high performers who give little cause for worry.

SMALL CAPS: Kenneth Darby, Daniel Fells, Bradley Fletcher, Larry Grant, James Laurinaitis, Chris Long, Laurent Robinson, Cliff Ryan, Darell Scott, David Vobora, Jonathan Wade. Younger players with significant upside.

VALUE STOCKS: Victor Adeyanju, Jason Brown, Mark Bulger, Adam Carriker, Chris Draft, Adam Goldberg, James Hall, Richie Incognito, Mike Karney, Leonard Little, Chris Massey, Mark Setterstrom. Steady veterans with some upside.

EARNINGS SURPRISES: Craig Dahl, Gary Gibson, Roy Schuening, Hollis Thomas. Veterans performing much better than anticipated.

CDs: Billy Bajema, Alex Barron, Jacob Bell, Brock Berlin, Kyle Boller, Antwon Burton, Keenan Burton, Eric Butler, Tim Carter, Chris Chamberlain, Ronald Curry, Brooks Foster, Samkon Gado, Tye Hill, Todd Johnson, Eric Moore, Derek Stanley, Phil Trautwein. CDs may be steady investments, but they're never going to be a cause for excitement.

PASSBOOK ACCOUNTS: C.J. Ah You, K.C. Asiodu, Eric Bassey, Quincy Butler, Ian Campbell, Dominic Douglas, Jerome Johnson, Tim Mattran, David Roach, Daniel Sanders, Eric Young. Passbook investments are an uphill fight because they don't even beat inflation.

STOCKS WITH HIGH BETAS: Ron Bartell. I don't understand high-beta stocks any more than I understand Ron Bartell's performance in camp so far. I would hope he will quickly be upgraded to at least value stock status.

PROMISING MICROCAPS: Nate Jones, Justin King, Chris Ogbannaya, Cord Parks. Young players performing surprisingly well.

PINK SHEETS: Roger Allen, Marcus Brown, Jarrett Byers, Keith Null, Sean Walker. Young players with ability but with pretty long odds of being fruitful investments.

EARNINGS DISAPPOINTMENTS: Quinton Culberson, John Greco.

SELL: Joe Klopfenstein, Antonio Pittman.

Reminder: Past performance is no guarantee of future results.

Training camp stock report, 8/3

Based on what I've seen and read on training camp so far, I thought I'd create a recurring feature offering my estimations of each player's stock. And since we're talking about stock, I thought I'd do it using stock market terms.

Let's also remember I'm as accountable for my ratings as most Wall Street firms have been for theirs over the years.

STRONG BUY: OJ Atogwe, Donnie Avery, Donnie Jones, Jason Smith. Having the visibly-best camps so far.

BLUE CHIPS: Josh Brown, James Butler, Steven Jackson, Randy McMichael, Will Witherspoon. Well-established high performers who give little cause for worry.

SMALL CAPS: Kenneth Darby, Daniel Fells, Bradley Fletcher, Larry Grant, James Laurinaitis, Chris Long, Laurent Robinson, Cliff Ryan, Darell Scott, David Vobora, Jonathan Wade. Younger players with significant upside.

VALUE STOCKS: Victor Adeyanju, Jason Brown, Mark Bulger, Chris Draft, Adam Goldberg, James Hall, Richie Incognito, Mike Karney, Leonard Little, Chris Massey, Mark Setterstrom. Steady veterans with some upside.

EARNINGS SURPRISES: Craig Dahl, Gary Gibson, Roy Schuening, Hollis Thomas. Veterans performing much better than anticipated.

CDs: Billy Bajema, Alex Barron, Jacob Bell, Brock Berlin, Kyle Boller, Antwon Burton, Keenan Burton, Eric Butler, Tim Carter, Chris Chamberlain, Ronald Curry, Brooks Foster, Samkon Gado, Tye Hill, Todd Johnson, Eric Moore, Chris Ogbannaya, Derek Stanley, Phil Trautwein. CDs may be steady investments, but they're never going to be a cause for excitement.

PASSBOOK ACCOUNTS: C.J. Ah You, K.C. Asiodu, Eric Bassey, Ian Campbell, Dominic Douglas, Jerome Johnson, Tim Mattran, David Roach, Daniel Sanders, Eric Young. Passbook investments are an uphill fight because they don't even beat inflation.

STOCKS WITH HIGH BETAS: Ron Bartell. I don't understand high-beta stocks any more than I understand Ron Bartell's performance in camp so far. I would hope he will quickly be upgraded to at least value stock status.

PROMISING MICROCAPS: Nate Jones, Justin King, Cord Parks. Young players performing surprisingly well.

PINK SHEETS: Roger Allen, Marcus Brown, Jarrett Byers, Keith Null, Sean Walker. Young players with ability but with pretty long odds of being fruitful investments.

EARNINGS DISAPPOINTMENTS: Adam Carriker, Quinton Culberson, John Greco. Bill Coats blogged yesterday that Carriker has yet to assert himself in camp, which I find inexcusable. Pick it up! I like Culberson myself but the coaches must not; he has dropped to third string. Greco's off to a slow start with injuries and I expect him to get off this list in short order.

SELL: Quincy Butler, Joe Klopfenstein, Antonio Pittman. The last two in particular might as well be AIG.

Reminder: Past performance is no guarantee of future results.

8/1/2009 training camp report - afternoon practice

RamView Training Camp Report
August 1, 2009 (p.m.)



The rain gave way just in time to let me make good on my goal, to complete a two-a-day. The offense appeared to bounce back a little bit in this afternoon's session, plus, I think the defense took some of the heat off they were laying on this morning. I watched it all from a particularly weird angle, and this is me talking about training camp anyway, so don't take this with just a grain of salt, take it with a salt lick, but here's what I think I saw:



* QB/RB: I was happier with the afternoon QBing than I was with this morning's. They were under less pressure and were getting the ball out quickly better. Marc Bulger looked fine. He dropped a deep pass over a leaping Ron Bartell to Daniel Fells rumbling down the sideline for one of the afternoon's big plays. I can only remember one INT, and that came off a receiver muff. Definitely still learning, Keith Null tried to force one to Joe Klopfenstein between three defenders that was probably lucky not to be an INT. The practice seemed more pass-oriented to me and I didn't get a feel for any impactful RB play. The running game continued not to do a whole heck of a lot but wasn't called on as much, either.



* WR: The star of the afternoon practice was probably Laurent Robinson. He made a couple of nice athletic catches over the middle, but those came after he turned a 2-yard smoke pass into a long TD with a simple juke that still faked OJ Atogwe completely out of his jock. Nate Jones was having a great day until he muffed a pass to Justin King for an INT. Definitely not the QB's fault (I think it was Boller). Jones has still looked pretty darn good, though, and he's definitely in the mix for one of the roster spots at WR. Everybody has shown good hands so far, including Keenan Burton, who has survived two practices without an injury. They ran what I'm calling the "wrong shoulder" drill, which I think they run on the field before games as well. You go downfield looking over your left shoulder, but the coach throws the pass over your right shoulder and you have to adjust to it. Tim Carter did not look good at this. TE Eric Butler did a nice job catching passes in both practices.



* OL/DL: Thanks to the Rams giving us decent proximity to the far field, we were able to see one-on-one lineman drills this afternoon. And I come away from it thinking a lot of the matchups were pretty much 50/50. Leonard Little had a little edge on Adam Goldberg, but it looked about even for Chris Long vs. Alex Barron, Adam Carriker vs. Richie Incognito and Cliff Ryan vs. Jason Brown. Roy Schuening looked good on the second string, proof of my contention that you can never go wrong with a farm boy on your o-line. He looked strong against 2nd stringers and even against Carriker, who I'm thinking was getting Hollis Thomas' reps. John Greco's the other 2nd string guard but Gary Gibson, a 4th-year vet who has to share #71 with the third-string center, put him on his butt in one-on-one and also would have had a sack in 11-on-11. Keep an eye on Gibson, just in case. Looked like Victor Adeyanju would have gotten good pressure against Jason Smith in a live environment. He was getting leverage on him and would have had him in trouble. The other 2nd-string tackle is Phil Trautwein; to his credit, he looks a lot lighter afoot than he did in the Florida-Miami replay I saw a few weeks ago. I don't think he'd be making a pro roster based on that tape. And Mark Setterstrom's not looking bad in the middle. Rookie free agent guard Roger Allen didn't look very good. I think it was Antwon Burton who didn't have a lot of trouble beating him. From 11-on-11s, I can only relay my general impression that the QBs were getting the time this afternoon that they weren't this morning. Pass protection looked all right. LB-wise, I like David Vobora out there. He's playing with a lot of confidence and even some attitude.



* DB: A second not-particularly-good practice for Ron Bartell as I saw it. He jumped one route for Donnie Avery nicely but let the ball go through his hands. That was probably him pressing to make up for a bad big play earlier: he went for an INT on the sideline but Bulger's throw was well over his leaping effort and into Daniel Fells' hands. Fells was behind the coverage and gone for a big play. Justin King did come up with an INT off a deflection/muff. With live hitting dialed way down, the receivers looked a lot more slippery than they did this morning. Not as slippery as Atogwe made Robinson look when he bit on a fairly simple fake harder than anything you'll see on Shark Week, but still. I don't doubt the subtraction of hitting helped the receivers.



* Strategery/special teams/etc.: This was not a full-pads practice; everybody was in shorts. A lot of practice was 11-on-11; much more than this morning. Unfortunately, my vantage point also made it a lot harder to analyze. Defensive strategy appeared to be a lot less aggressive than it was this morning. I didn't pick up a lot of blitzing, anyway. The offensive plays I saw were heavily tilted toward the pass, and yes, the shovel pass is in the playbook. Hoo boy. The special teams lineup and performance didn't change much from the morning. It looked like there was some punt coverage work, including a drill along the sideline for prospective gunners. Could easily be just me, but Bradley Fletcher didn't look real interested in that drill.



* Cheers: Thanks to rain in between practices, all of the afternoon practice was held on the far field (the new AstroTurf field). But so few of us showed up - maybe 100 by my estimate - the Rams opened up the area I think of as the VIP patio out back of the building to give us all a better view of the action than from the far-off hillside. Thanks to dummy here getting there late, though, good portions of practice were obscured by the backs of other fans' heads or by Rams players on the practice field. Perseverance, though, eventually got me a railside spot to watch about the last 1/3 of practice unobstructed. Importantly, I also found the restrooms - they're behind one of the tents right where you enter the grounds coming off of the Rams' parking lot. So that's OK then. I saw all three local TV stations had reporters present for the afternoon practice after spying none this morning. Didn't stay to see who autographed. And to correct from this morning, it looks like fans have access to about 2/3 of the sideline of the back grass field. There's no access to the AstroTurf field though the Rams used to let us back there. Observation only, not a complaint.



Though I guess I should also apologize for not typifying this morning's practice like some kind of brutal slugfest like a Ravens-Steelers game, which is the vibe I got listening to the radio report en route to the second practice. Yes, they were in full pads. Yes, there was some tackling. I pretty much missed all the far field action due to remoteness and the first part of 11-on-11 trying to figure out how to see over the autograph tent, so I could have missed a hit or two. But I saw nothing out of the ordinary myself. No slobber was knocked. The morning practice was quite a ways from the Bataan Death March, ok? Let's not get out of hand here.



* What's next?: That's about enough football practice for me this weekend. Sadly, though, my absence might cut tomorrow's fan attendance by half. Prove me wrong, St. Louis, huh? My next quest will be the team scrimmage, scheduled for Lindenwood University Friday night.

8/1/2009 training camp report - morning practice

RamView Training Camp Report
First practice, August 1, 2009

The first practice Saturday was a little disappointing, to be honest. Today's session wasn't as fan-friendly to view as past sessions, not that
there was much of a crowd at Rams Park to disappoint. And so far it looks like the defense is pretty far ahead of the offense. Although a lot of
this morning's activities were hard to see, there was still some good stuff to see, so let's get into it. How much can really be bad when FOOTBALL IS BACK?



* QB: I didn't get the best of looks at the QBs, and frankly, what I saw wasn't much to be impressed about. Lots of dumpoffs in 11-on-11. Kyle Boller and Brock Berlin did most of the throwing in passing drills and put some nice throws in tight spots. Berlin threw one into the ground later in 11-on-11, though. The goal line offense was a real mess from what I could see. They tried a lot of plays meant to get the ball out quickly but it ended up in a lot of rushed throws, deflections and knockdowns. I'm not sure there was even a TD completion during the drill (be mindful that they were on the FAR end of the practice field, though). Marc Bulger made the day's dumbest throw, rushing and trying to force a swing pass that OJ Atogwe jumped for a simulated TD. Bulger made a nice deep throw to Tim Carter later in 7-on-7 for a long simulated TD. Keith Null hasn't impressed me yet. He had the other pickoff I saw - he tried to lead a TE on a deep sideline route but the pass was too short, hit the trailing defender in the head, with Cord Parks claiming the rebound for the INT. I didn't see any great advertisement for Null's arm strength, or for the Rams' quarterbacking right now today, either.



* RB: Got even less of a look at the RBs than the QBs. Samkon Gado got more reps than I noticed any other RB got. Steven Jackson and Kenneth Darby seemed to be used very lightly. Gado caught a lot of passes and looked adept at it. Didn't see anybody tear off any runs for significant gains, though. The drills I got to see focused on receiving, blocking and holding on to the ball. Everyone ran a few times through a machine I haven't seen out there before that I'll call an "arms machine" for lack of a better name and/or knowledge. The running game didn't do much in 11-on-11, but nobody put the ball on the ground, so that's at least a good thing.



* WR: One of two standouts to me from this morning's practice is Donnie Avery. He definitely won against Ron Bartell in passing drills, once turning Bartell completely inside out on a corner-type move. Bartell grabbed Avery by the shoulder pad the last time they faced off and Avery still made the catch despite the obvious interference. Like what I'm seeing so far from Avery in route-running and in physical play. Randy McMichael got a lot of looks in 7-on-7. Daniel Fells is already rumbling out there and nobody on D wants a part of him. Ronald Curry looked effective in passing drills though against very inexperienced opposition in Quincy Butler. The guy who "popped" a little bit out there was Nate Jones, who made some nice plays and fought off press coverage pretty nicely. Tim Carter beat Bartell and James Butler deep for the only long completion I saw. He also flashed at times. On the other hand, I'm going to have to significantly temper the high expectations I had for Sean Walker. He looked really slow and couldn't get open this morning.



* OL: This morning's other standout as I saw it was Jason Smith, who got some snaps with the first unit. Whether that's a promotion or just a break for Adam Goldberg I cannot be sure, but J-Smooth had a promising morning. One play he locked on Victor Adeyanju and just drove him 15 yards downfield, with Victor unable to do anything but flail. Getting some reps with the starters later, Smith pancaked Adam Carriker. The kid played tenaciously, I didn't see him get beat and I have high enthusiasm for his work this morning. The official starting o-line was Alex Barron, Jacob Bell (I think), Jason Brown, Richie Incognito, and Goldberg at RT. I thought I only saw one time where a lineman got to Bulger in drills, though plenty of blitzers would have.



* DL/LB: Darell Scott made a nice play during goal line drills to shut down a screen pass. That's pretty fine mobility on his part. Besides being the oldest player on the roster, Hollis Thomas appears to be the guy most likely to blow chunks on the field at some point. He looked like he was really struggling with his conditioning at times, and today was FAR from the worst of the summer weather we can get in St. Louis. Obviously he's playing his way into shape, or trying to. Chris Draft started at MLB but James Laurinaitis also got some snaps with the first unit. David Vobora made a nice play to stuff a screen pass and delivered the best hit I saw, though that was just a nice pop at best. And Quinton Culberson's back at it, flashing into the backfield to stuff one second-unit run. The defense overall has to be declared the winner of the practice. The running game never really got anywhere, they shut down all kinds of swing and screen passes, and they really appeared to shut the offense down at the goal line. From what I could see. The defense just seemed to play with a lot better tempo and energy than the offense did this morning. For instance, any time a ball got loose, even if it was just an incomplete pass bouncing downfield, they were hustling and competing over who could get to the loose ball.



* DB: Ron Bartell was the head-scratcher of the day for me. Avery beat him consistently during passing drills, and when Carter beat him and James Butler deep for the morning's one long catch, Bartell wasn't going anywhere near top speed. Perhaps there was some miscommunication there, but Bartell's play I saw certainly was nothing to be turned on about. Tye Hill's, either. He appeared to have a lot of footing problems during passing drills. Since football games don't typically start at 8:15 a.m., I'm inclined to blow that off for now. Hill blitzed in free on Bulger several times in 11-on-11, though. Craig Dahl made one of the morning's better plays to shut down an outside play (I think it was a run). Justin King fared well defending the slot. Good morning for O.J. Atogwe, who stuffed a run and came in untouched a couple of times on blitzes. Bradley Fletcher looks all right so far. He's not getting pushed around, he's keeping the play in front of him and looks like he'll be a good fundamental tackler. He got praise for good recognition when the defense worked on their blitz package. Jonathan Wade looked better than I expected jamming receivers (though they were still making the catch in front of him). Cord Parks pretty much pwned Sean Walker. Walker'll be calling his hotel room drapes and blanket "Cord" when he gets back tonight.



* Special teams: A bunch of guys participated in punt return drills. Derek Stanley and Ronald Curry appeared to be the primary competitors, but Keenan Burton, Avery and Parks also got some reps back there. Stanley and Curry had a muff apiece. The first ball Stanley played this morning went right through his breadbasket, and he made some other awkward-looking catches. My thought is that that drill gets boring pretty quickly and the guys try to make catches harder than they are to spice things up. Josh Brown appeared to miss a couple of 50-yarders before hitting the last one in the FG unit drill. I had a terrible angle, but he missed one for sure. Donnie Jones' punts all looked good.



* Strategery: Steve Spagnuolo was primarily with the defense when I saw him. We are going to do some blitzing this year if practice is an indication. They worked a lot on the blitz package and brought Atogwe right up the middle a lot. And when they ran that blitz early in 11-on-11, Atogwe shot right through. There was a little bit going on with end-arounds and fake end-arounds to Carter on offense but what I saw this morning was highly, highly vanilla. Players were in full pads; I didn't find it to be a terribly physical practice but I'm not sure what amount of contact to expect. We'll see if this afternoon's any different. The most vocal coach appears to be Leonard the TEs coach, though one of the OL coaches wasn't too hard to hear even from the far field.



* Cheers: Nothing personal, everybody, but this morning's crowd was VERY disappointing. 300 at best. Great weather for it - mid 70s temperature, overcast, maybe a little humid - it's Saturday, nobody has to work - and still almost nobody shows up. Sigh. There are some problems getting to see everything, though. A lot takes place on the far field from the hill, the new AstroTurf field. If there were one-on-one lineman drills this morning, for instance, I missed them because they were out there. There is very little fan access - maybe a couple of bleachers - on the sidelines of the two grass practice fields running perpendicular to the hill. Fans used to have free rein moving up and down those sidelines but are mostly cut off now. And disturbingly, I couldn't figure out what the rest room arrangement is. Will try to nail that down this afternoon, though hopefully I won't HAVE to. 11-on-11 was extremely difficult to watch from the hill. The autograph tent is behind the near field end zone, so you've got that blocking your view as well as the players who aren't in the play. I had to grab a spot on the steepest part of the hill right by the building to see much of anything. And there are hornets up there. I've already mentioned the goal line drills went to the end zone on the far end of the same field, and this whole morning for me was a tough, fan-unfriendly viewing experience. We'll see if this afternoon's any better for viewing. The Rams are doing a good job P.R.-wise passing out posters and rosters, there are cheerleaders there selling calendars, the souvenir section is no longer a tent you have to walk through to get in and out, and the parking setup is run quite well, so the venue earns a good grade, depending what I figure out about restroom availability. But getting a good view of the action was pretty tough this morning, for me at least. Jackson and the running backs signed autographs afterwards. The Rams still do that part of training camp well.



* What's next?: Hey, two-a-days aren't just for players. I'll take a stab at this afternoon's 2:45 practice and try to do a better job of seeing what's going on. That report'll be out later tonight.

--Mike
www.ramview.com
ramview.blogspot.com

photos later - I forgot my USB cable