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Rams QB Goff Thinks the Team Will Have an Edge on Offense in 2020

June 16th, 2020

CJ

Posted in News

The Rams offense in 2019 was stuck in the mud it seemed most weeks, but this season the team is determined to get off to a better and faster start on that side of the ball.

It goes without saying that the offense starts with quarterback Jared Goff, who this last week in a conference call with reporters said that he thinks the offense for the Rams has a distinct advantage.

The QB says that the team will have an edge due to the fact it’s overall the same system, and that the team has mostly returning players.

“It’s so fluid, it changes every week at this point,” Goff said via the Los Angeles Daily News.

“It’ll be good that the whole league will have to stick to a similar program, so there won’t be any disadvantage in that way.

“I do think we (the Rams) have an advantage offensively with the same system, the same players and everything. Our defense is obviously going to have to get on the grass and learn their new system.

“But it’s an advantage for us running into the season where you’ve got teams that are trying to install new systems on both offense and defense, which is damn near impossible.”

One player who won’t be back is Todd Gurley, who is now in Atlanta with the Falcons.

How that changes the team offense remains to be seen, but Goff seems hungry, confident, and ready for a big 2020 and for the Rams to return to dominance in the NFC.

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Rams Coach Sean McVay Sends Players Into Summer Break Two Weeks Early

June 12th, 2020

Jim Adkins

Posted in News

Sean McVay sent the Rams into their summer break Thursday without seeing most of his players in person this spring, the Associated Press reports.

The head coach also doesn’t know when he’ll see them next, since the Rams’ plan to open training camp with rookies on July 23rd could change amid the coronavirus pandemic.

McVay has spent his life in the highly regimented world of football coaching, but he has learned to roll with unprecedented developments during this offseason. He’s confident the Rams will be ready whenever they get back to work.

“It’s uncharted territory that we’re navigating through,” said McVay, who told his players and coaches to “give yourself a chance to kind of decompress, but make sure that you establish your process, your rhythm. I feel like we’ve been able to gain an edge in the midst of all the things going on, and we’ve got to maintain that edge so that we can hit the ground running when we come back.”

The Rams wrapped up their virtual offseason program two weeks earlier than required by the NFL. McVay held a final team meeting over Zoom in which he commended the players for their work in the virtual classroom and in small-group workouts in the real world.

Jared Goff has been leading workouts for his passing targets, including rookies Cam Akers and Brycen Hopkins.

“The most important thing that’s as beneficial as anything is the guys are getting together and connecting as teammates,” McVay said. “They’re getting to know one another, establishing a rapport, making sure they’re being smart with how they compete.”

The Rams weren’t among the teams whose coaches rushed back into their training complex when the NFL approved it earlier this month. McVay still hasn’t been in his Thousand Oaks office regularly, instead working from home in the San Fernando Valley.

“I don’t know how often you guys are going to see me at the facility, period,” McVay said with a grin. “I’m saving a lot of time eliminating that commute, and unless the players are there, there’s not much of a reason for me to be there. I won’t be in the facilities until I absolutely have to, because I’ve got everything I need at my home office now. Until I get the green light that the players can be up there, there’s not much urgency to get back there.”

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Owners Vote to Approve an Additional $500 Million for Rams to Finish SoFi Stadium

May 20th, 2020

Jeff

Posted in News

The NFL is extending another lifeline to the Rams as the team continues construction on the nearly $5 billion SoFi Stadium in the city of Inglewood, Blake Schuster of Bleacherreport reports.

According to The Athletic’s sports business reporter, Daniel Kaplan, league owners voted Tuesday to approve lending an additional $500 million to the team to complete the facility.

Two years ago, owners had agreed to a record debt waiver of $2.25 billion for the stadium that will soon become the permanent home of the Rams and Chargers.

A lack of demand for personal seat licenses, which grant holders the ability to then purchase season tickets, has forced the Rams into asking for the increase in credit.

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Count Eric Dickerson As Not a Fan of the New Rams Uniforms

May 15th, 2020

Ross Miles

Posted in News, Opinions

Rams great Eric Dickerson ripped the team’s new uniforms on Wednesday during a radio interview with AM 570 LA Sports, ESPN reports.

Dickerson, who set the NFL single-season rushing record with 2,105 yards in 1984 for the Rams, had previously criticized the logo. Now he took aim at the uniforms.

Among his comments, he said the horns on the helmet look like “two bananas” and that the changes make the team look “soft.”

“This is football. This ain’t nothing to do with surfing. This ain’t nothing to do with waves. This is football. This is a man’s sport,” Dickerson said in the interview. “And to me, it just looks soft. It don’t look like football. It don’t look hard.”

Dickerson, who is currently the Rams’ vice president of business development, also said the team should have gotten input from the players before making the changes. Dickerson said he talked to Los Angeles Chargers coach Anthony Lynn, who said his team used the players’ input on their changes.

He did concede, however, that the changes are better than the logo alteration — except for the helmet.

“The helmet and the logo, they both suck,” he said.

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Rams Looking for Up to $500 Million in Additional Stadium Financing

May 15th, 2020

Nick

Posted in News

The Rams have requested up to $500 million in additional NFL stadium financing, and a doubling of the amount of time typically required to pay the money back, Daniel Kaplan of the Athletic reports.

That would bring to as much as $900 million the club arranged to borrow from the league for SoFi Stadium.

The Rams’ planned shared venue with the L.A. Chargers is scheduled to open this summer, though whether it can do so in the midst of the pandemic is unclear. And if it does, the teams almost certainly will not play in front of fans, depriving the Rams of much-needed cash to pay down debt.

“There’s a massive request for debt waivers and additional G-4 from those in LA,” said one team source, referring to the NFL stadium lending program, known as G-4. “And they’re asking to pay that over 30 years as opposed to 15 years.”

The Rams deferred to the NFL, which declined to comment. The request is on the agenda for next week’s virtual owners meeting, a source said.

There are three issues driving the Rams’ request: cost overruns, less than expected personal seat license sales, and the prospect of a gut punch to gate revenue this fall.

When in January 2016 owners voted to approve the St. Louis Rams’ Inglewood, Calif. proposal, the price tag was then $2.2 billion (the Chargers a year later would trigger an option to share the venue). But the cost of the stadium, which includes a retail and entertainment district, rapidly escalated in part because of pricey earthquake mitigation measures. Reports have now pegged the cost at anywhere from $5 billion to $6 billion.

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Rams Announce 2020 Schedule, Open at Home Vs Dallas

May 7th, 2020

Jim Adkins

Posted in News

The Rams 2020 slate is finally out, and fans can get ready for a huge first game of the season, as they will open their new stadium at home against the rival Dallas Cowboys.

The team will also have a big prime time game against Bucs QB Tom Brady and Tampa Bay in week 11 on the road on Monday, November 23rd.

Here’s the complete schedule:

Week 1: vs. Dallas Cowboys, Sunday, Sept. 13 @ 8:30 p.m. ET

Week 2: at Philadelphia Eagles, Sunday, Sept. 20

Week 3: at Buffalo Bills, Sunday, Sept. 27

Week 4: vs. New York Giants, Sunday, Oct. 4

Week 5: at Washington, Sunday, Oct. 11

Week 6: at San Francisco 49ers, Sunday, Oct. 18

Week 7: vs. Chicago Bears, Monday, Oct. 26

Week 8: at Miami Dolphins, Sunday, Nov. 1

Week 9: BYE

Week 10: vs. Seattle Seahawks, Sunday, Nov. 15

Week 11: at Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Monday, Nov. 23

Week 12: vs. San Francisco 49ers, Sunday, Nov. 29

Week 13: at Arizona Cardinals, Sunday, Dec. 6

Week 14: vs. New England Patriots, Thursday, Dec. 10

Week 15: vs. New York Jets, Saturday, Dec. 19 OR Sunday, Dec. 20

Week 16: at Seattle Seahawks, Sunday, Dec. 27

Week 17: vs. Arizona Cardinals, Sunday, Jan. 3

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An Educated Guess at What the 2020 Rams Schedule Could Look Like

May 6th, 2020

Jim Adkins

Posted in Features, News

The 2020 Los Angeles Rams schedule will be released in a televised event on Thursday night, and while we already know who the Rams will go up against and where, we don’t know in what order, or what may or may not be on prime time.

Here are the teams the Rams will play:

Home: Seahawks, 49ers, Cardinals, Giants, Cowboys, Patriots, Jets, Bears
Away: Seahawks, 49ers, Cardinals, Redskins, Eagles, Bills, Dolphins, Buccaneers

Today we give a reminder of the teams that we will see the Rams in the 2020 season, and we give our guess in what order we will see them in.

(A quick sidebar – we are moving forward with this schedule as if the season will start and play out on time, with no issues due to the covid-19 pandemic).

Sunday 9/13 Week One at Washington
Sunday 9/20 Week Two vs Arizona
Monday 9/28 Week Three vs Chicago (Monday Night Football)
Sunday 10/4 Week Four at Philadelphia
Sunday 10/11 Week Five vs Seattle
Sunday 10/18 Week Six at San Francisco
Sunday 10/25 Week Seven at Tampa Bay
Sunday 11/01 Week Eight BYE WEEK
Sunday 11/08 Week Nine vs NY Jets
Sunday 11/15 Week Ten vs San Francisco
Sunday 11/22 Week Eleven at Miami
Monday 11/31 Week Twelve vs New England
Sunday 12/06 Week Thirteen at Seattle
Sunday 12/13 Week Fourteen vs Dallas (NBC Sunday Night Football)
Sunday 12/20 Week Fifteen vs NY Giants
Sunday 12/27 Week Sixteen at Buffalo
Sunday 01/03 Week Seventeen at Arizona

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Two Kickers Signed by the Rams to Try and Replace the Departed Greg Zuerlein

April 14th, 2020

Jeff

Posted in Roster Moves

The Rams announced Monday they have agreed to contract terms with Lirim Hajrullahu, a Grey Cup hero in the Canadian Football League, and Austin MacGinnis, the leading field-goal kicker in the short-lived XFL, Kevin Modesti of the Los Angeles Daily News reports.

The pair of kickers — both without NFL experience — will compete to fill the right shoe of Greg Zuerlein, who signed with the Dallas Cowboys as a free agent March 27 after eight years with the Rams.

Hajrullahu, 29, kicked and punted for the Hamilton Tiger-Cats last season and tied for the CFL lead in field goals with 47 (85.5% of his attempts), including a 56-yarder. He’s best known in Canada for kicking the championship-winning, 32-yard field goal for the Toronto Argonauts in the final minute of the 2017 Grey Cup game.

MacGinnis, 24, all-Southeast Conference at Kentucky, went 10 for 10 with a longest field goal of 46 yards in five games with the XFL’s Dallas Renegades before the league stopped its season because of the coronavirus pandemic and ceased operations April 10.

MacGinnis had kicked for the Memphis Express of the Alliance of American Football before that attempt at a spring football league folded in April 2019.

Both men’s field-goal accuracy in their most recent seasons compare favorably with Zuerlein’s 72.7% in 2019, his lowest in the the Rams’ four seasons in Los Angeles.

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