Rams offseason recap: March

March
3/20: Spags, band back together, etc: Giants sign George Selvie.
3/19: Ray Agnew has two sons in the NFL: son Ray Jr. signed with Dallas.
3/19: Spags influencing the Giant offense, too? They re-signed Daniel Fells. Actually, he's considered one of the league's better blocking TEs now and will be their #2.
3/18: New England signed Bradley Fletcher, who's coming off a terrible 2014 in Philadelphia.
3/16: Carolina waived Mike McNeill.
3/13: Denver signed Darian Stewart to a 2-year deal and Shelley Smith to a 2-year, $5.65 million deal. Smith only started 3 games in Miami last season and was considered a major liability.
3/13: The Rams signed LB Akeem Ayers. They also signed DT Nick Fairley to a 1-year, $5 million deal. The Rams also signed Kenny Britt to a 2-year, $14 million deal, $4.3 million guaranteed.

Wikipedia

Nick Fairley scouting report: drafted by the Lions right in front of Robert Quinn in 2011. Was said to be having his most consistent and productive season so far in 2014, even though he had only one sack, before being lost for the season in week 8 due to a knee injury. He had gotten much more serious about his conditioning, which was an issue for him at Auburn and throughout his Lions career. It wasn't worth the cost to Detroit to keep him when they had such a hard time keeping him motivated, even demoting him to second-string this past preseason. However, he actually reported to Rams OTAs too light, so you have to like his dedication. I think his rookie year was a wash due to injury. He had 6 sacks in 2012, 5.5 in 2013. He has nice pass-rush moves, very good feet for his size and is the kind of player who has a lot of motivation to come here and do very well on a 1-year prove-it deal. Early returns are that he is showing that motivation, and Nick Fairley could be one of the major sleeper acquisitions of this whole offseason. He'll probably rotate in for Michael Brockers in passing situations and could come up big if he stays fit and healthy.

Getty Images

Akeem Ayers scouting report: drafted by Tennessee in 2011 (Jeff Fisher already gone). 6'3" 255. 50 tackles in 2011, 66 in 2012. He became the Titans' starting SLB as a rookie. He had 6 sacks in 2012 and seemed poised for a breakout year as an edge pass rusher in 2013. The Titans had big plans to make him their version of Von Miller. Ayers has the athleticism and versatility; he played both Sam and Mike and was an edge pass rusher when the Titans mixed in 3-4 looks. He was quietly one of the league's best pass rushers the back half of 2012. But he suffered a high ankle sprain in preseason '13 and had only one sack all year. While the Titans switched to a 3-4 before last season, Ayers had surgery on both patellar tendons, and he couldn't get back on the field there. They traded him to New England for just a 6th-round pick. With the Patriots, he became an effective edge rusher again, with 4 sacks in 11 games. Scouts loved his athleticism and versatility coming out of UCLA, where he had 10 sacks, 24.5 tackles for loss and 2 pick-sixes his last two seasons, but his stock fell for bad 40 times at the Combine.

Ayers has been sadly lacking a role as an NFL player. He's flipping around too much and IMO needs one role he can concentrate on. I'd say that's 4-3 pass-rushing specialist. The speculation is that the Rams are going to try to make him their Von Miller. Do we trust Gregg Williams to deploy a gadget player on defense well after putting his stamp on a perfectly good pass rush last season by screwing it up for more than half the season? We'll see. I'm keeping my expectations for Ayers low, because of Williams, because of his injury history, and because of the amount of nickel defense and Mark Barron the Rams use.


3/12: "Thad" Lewis re-signed with Cleveland three days after they released him.
3/12: New England re-signed Danny Amendola to a 3-year, $12.75 million deal.
3/11: The Rams traded their 2016 7th-round pick to Houston for Case Keenum. Houston also traded Ryan Fitzpatrick to the Jets. With Ryan Pickett and Steven Jackson currently unsigned, Fitzpatrick is now the longest-tenured former Ram in the NFL.
3/11: The Rams re-signed Lance Kendricks, cut Scott Wells and cut Jake Long.
3/11: Minnesota signed Shaun Hill, thank God.
3/11: Cortland Finnegan retired after 9 seasons. It was all downhill for him after his first season here. As others have said, though, still a quite nice career for a 7th-round pick.
3/10: Atlanta signed Mike Person.
3/10: The Colts, who have aged more rapidly than Dorian Gray this offseason, signed 29-year-old Kendall Langford to a 4-year, $17.2 million deal. He's supposed to have a good chance of starting there even though he appeared to be wearing down here last season.
3/10: New England signed Brandon Gibson to a 1-year deal. Gibson, Danny Amendola, Illini Mike... Belichick basically has Spags' WR corps. Well, plus Gronk.

Will RamView have a Nick Foles scouting report? Sorry, not at this time. (Not the worst Rams blog on the Internet for nothin'.) I'd like to watch some of his "tape" from last season, if I have any, and work up my own report. So, yeah, 10% chance I get there.

-$-