Overdue updates

St. Louis Rams

* Transactions: In the first of likely several salary cap moves, the Rams released veteran defensive tackle Kendall Langford Thursday. Langford played here three seasons and had a career-high 5 sacks in 2013. He was credited with 51 tackles and a sack last season. He got off to a little bit of a slow start and lost his starting job pretty quickly to Defensive Rookie of the Year Aaron Donald. He gained effectiveness later in the season in a rotational role off the bench, and at age 29, I'd guess that will be the best way to use him going forward. The Rams apparently have no interest in bringing Langford back, but he's experienced as a 4-3 DT and a 3-4 DE and shouldn't have a lot of trouble finding NFL work. His release gains the Rams $6 million in cap space. With Alex Carrington also a free agent, the Rams will need to fill that 3rd DT role.

* Polishing the staff: Jeff Fisher settled the Rams' situation at offensive coordinator by promoting QB coach Frank Cignetti to offensive coordinator and "passing game coordinator". The other main candidate, TEs coach Rob Boras, was promoted to "assistant head coach / offense" and "running game coordinator". He will also continue to coach TEs. Cignetti will not continue to coach QBs; that job went to former Florida State QB and Heisman Trophy winner Chris Weinke.

Cignetti has not called plays in the NFL but has done it for six different college programs. In announcing his hiring, Fisher cited his play-calling experience and ability to adjust, which I assume refers to adjusting to backup QBs who have had to step in for Sam Bradford. Bradford, btw, was given significant input in the OC search.

Cignetti's term at Fresno State from 2002-2006 is the standout portion of his resume. The Bulldogs were a top-ten offense in 2004 and 2005, and had a string of 4 games in 2004 of scoring over 50 points. And lest we accuse Fisher of reining Cignetti in, all of his FSU offenses ran more than they passed. Usually close to 50-50, but in '04, they ran about 65% of the time and averaged 6.5 yards a carry. Cal scored over 32 points a game in Cignetti's one season there, with Jahvid Best rushing for over 1,500 yards and Shane Vereen adding another 700. Cignetti went to Pitt the next two seasons, where the Panthers averaged 32 and 26 points a game. Dion Lewis ran for 1,799 yards there in 2009 and another 1,000 in 2010, with Ray Graham tacking on 900. In three years here as QB coach, he's gotten better-than-expected results out of Kellen Clemens and Austin Davis.

There's a lot going on in Cignetti's background to say he knows what he's doing, he's a perfect fit for the Rams' offensive system and I ultimately like that Fisher didn't go the retread route most of the rest of the league took this offseason, so I like this move. I still can't believe the offense the Rams have been running, which does little but run straight up the middle, needs dramatic simplification, or separate coaches for the running and passing games, but we're going to get that. The Rams won't change their terminology, but Cignetti's going to simplify things while Boras "will help oversee all aspects of the offense." My contention a lot of Brian Schottenheimer's time here was that the system was fine, but the Rams needed better play-calling within it, so Cignetti's about to put that idea to a big test. Let's work a lot on having the offense ready to play after halftime, eh?

Weinke has not coached for an NFL team but worked with quarterbacks as a director at IMG Academy. He beat out former 49er QB Jeff Garcia, and in an unfortunate callback to the bad old Rams days, STEVE WALSH for the job here. (What, was Steve Bono unavailable?) Weinke's most notable clients - Cam Newton, Teddy Bridgewater, Russell Wilson - all, interestingly, are very mobile QBs. The Rams' most mobile passer right now is Johnny Hekker. But, for those of us who have fun thinking about this kind of thing, Austin Davis is pretty mobile, and the first mock draft by Daniel Jeremiah for NFL Network had the Rams landing Marcus Mariota. Brett Hundley is no slouch in the mobility department himself. Bradford again had major input into hiring Weinke, but Fisher's main focus for Weinke seems to be to groom whatever young QB the Rams end up with behind Bradford.

ESPN

Weinke was known as a coach on the field and excellent team leader as a college player, so he seems a natural for this role. Good-but-not-great arm, excellent pocket presence, but not the greatest thrower on the move, which is interesting given the mobile QBs he's known best for working with. The old scouting reports also say he had a long windup when he threw. Those negatives don't seem to have crept into the games of the QBs he's coached so far, so Weinke sounds like a solid component of the Rams' future at the position.

* Stadium nonsense: Honestly, I don't have the time, energy or motivation to stay up with these developments. If Kroenke's dead-set on becoming the biggest bastard in the history of St. Louis for whatever reason, nothing's going to stop him.

Anyway, in Inglewood, the city council voted to approve Kroenke's stadium project there,  as they should have, since he invested six digits in buying them off. L.A. Times writer Michael Hiltzik is pouring a lot of cold water on the idea, though. He's fairly convinced it's strictly a Kroenke ploy to get a St. Louis stadium and will never be anything more. He or I are going to be very, very wrong about this, then. I'm rooting for me.

The Chargers and Raiders then took the whole current L.A. situation into Looney Tunes land by threatening to combine forces for a new stadium in Carson, CA that both teams would play in. This, I am fairly certain is strictly a ploy. All the Raider Chargers have right now is an option to buy land on what appears to be a toxic waste dump.

Congrats to Kroenke in any event for making me seriously not want to renew my season tickets for the first time in 20 years. Sometime in the next six weeks, I need some clarity on the future of the Rams or I'm sitting 2015 out.

ESPN

* Former Rams tracker:
* The big ex-Rams news in February came from Atlanta, who cut Steven Jackson after two pretty unsuccessful years there. The 30-year-old RB jinx bit another great one and made the Rams look pretty smart not to sink a lot of cash into Jackson, even as an all-time great of the franchise. His average per carry dropped from 4.2 in St. Louis to 3.6 in Atlanta. Now, though, I feel like I again have to worry the same thing I did when the Rams originally let Jackson go: him showing up here in a Cardinals uniform.

Also:
- Miami cut Brandon Gibson. In two seasons there, he had only 59 catches, 4 TDs and one blown patellar tendon.
- The Chiefs, who legendarily got NO touchdowns in 2014 from their wide receivers, cut Donnie Avery. Avery had 55 catches and 2 TDs in two seasons in K.C.
- The Patriots signed Garrett Gilbert to a reserve/future contract.
- The Redskins signed Perry Fewell as their secondary coach and Dave Ragone as an offensive quality control coach. They also signed Ty Nsekhe.
- Mike Martz has a coaching tree! Richard Angulo has been named the Ravens' tight ends coach.
- And, of course, the Bills signed Richie Incognito, who sat out the 2014 season after being suspended by the league in 2013 for bullying.

* The Internet's worst Rams blog: I'll be getting position grades for 2014 up here in the next few days. I don't have a lot of hope of getting much done for free agency, which opens March 10th. My hope for the Rams in free agency is to get something done on the interior offensive line and add a veteran corner or safety to mentor the current scatterbrains. As for the blog from here, I'll probably concentrate on draft profiles.

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