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[Battlelyon]

Most Improved Safety
1. Maurice Alexander, Los Angeles Rams

2015 season grade: 44.6
2016 season grade: 83.4



Alexander played nothing but special teams as a rookie in 2014. The next season, he got his shot on defense in Week 7 and ended up playing in every game to finish out the year. The Rams moved him all over the place; he spent 43 percent of his snaps as a free safety, and he struggled. Jump to 2016 and Alexander found his rhythm as the team’s starting FS, playing over 75 percent of his snaps there. He displayed great coverage skills, as he was targeted once of every 32.4 coverage snaps (the fourth-best rate of 92 qualified safeties).

 

[Battlelyon]

 

[Battlelyon]

Jared Goff, Paxton Lynch, Carson Wentz eye pivotal year | The MMQB with Peter King

Sophomore Spurt or Slump?
The first offseason is crucial for quarterbacks coming off their rookie years. Here’s a look at where Jared Goff, Carson Wentz and Paxton Lynch stand. Plus notes on a draft QB’s freefall, Saints-Pats trade talk and more

by Albert Breer

The rules are the rules, so first-year Rams coach Sean McVay has spent a lot more time since January looking at his new quarterback on a television monitor than he has looking him in the eye. With the team’s offseason program starting this week, McVay readily concedes he and Jared Goff have a long way to go in making the team’s massive investment in the QB look smart.

But go ahead and ask McVay what’s made him most excited. He won’t skip a beat.

“New Orleans. New Orleans. Watch the New Orleans game,” he says, laughing. “He made a lot good throws, where he moved, he slid, he had a good feel for the pocket. When things condensed around him, he threw for a couple touchdowns. He ends up making a zero audible vs. a zero pressure, where he gets to max protection and hits Tavon Austin on a corner route in a 3-by-1 formation.

“If you buzz through that game, there’s a handful of plays that get you encouraged, where he’s moving, he’s making athletic throws, and he’s showing he can take a hit and get the ball out. He made a lot of throws in that game you get excited about. And he’s doing things mentally, where you can see he’s making protection audibles and getting the ball where it should be vs. those pressure looks.”

Over the next two weeks, we will obsess over where Mitchell Trubisky and Deshaun Watson and the rest of the draft quarterbacks will land. Most people won’t spend a second thinking about the guys we were obsessing over a year ago. But for those quarterbacks—Goff and fellow 2016 first-rounders Carson Wentz and Paxton Lynch—these weeks are critical, maybe moreso than they are for even Trubisky and Watson.

<img src="https://cdn-s3.si.com/s3fs-public/2017/04/13/mmqb-jared-goff-saints.jpg">

Photo: Sean Gardner/Getty Images
The Saints beat the Rams by four touchdowns in November, but Jared Goff’s play in that game caught the attention of his new head coach.
In this week’s Game Plan, we’re going heavy on the draft, with a look at the big-name quarterback who’s falling, the few knocks on Myles Garrett, how football teams look at college basketball players, why the Giants and Steelers and Chargers should be looking closely at young quarterbacks, and much more.

But we’ll start with the 2016 first-round quarterbacks, and what many coaches believe is the most critical offseason of any player’s career—the one between rookie year and Year 2, when growth should be at its most rapid. It started for Lynch in Denver on Monday, and Wentz and the Eagles get going next Monday.

Likewise, Goff and McVay are now three days in. And McVay does have those impressions from the tape. As he explained, “The two characteristics that we really value a lot from that position—are you a natural thrower of the football, and are you tough enough not to flinch in the face of the rush? He has both those things.”

Conversely, McVay won’t hesitate to admit he doesn’t know yet what ultimately he’ll need to know most about Goff. And to get there, he links the process ahead to a belief that’s deeply embedded in McVay’s football heritage.

“This goes back to what my grandpa (ex-Niners architect John McVay) instilled in me, from Bill (Walsh),” McVay said. “The quarterback position is the most difficult position. So everything that we do is geared towards making the most difficult position as easy as possible. And everything that you do is with the quarterback in mind first.

“And the thing that was great about having two guys like Kirk (Cousins) and Colt (McCoy in Washington), who took such great ownership of what we were trying to get done, they could explain why they liked a play. And if they didn’t like a certain play, whether it was Kirk or if Colt was playing, then we weren’t gonna call it. I thought it showed the value of having that relationship and rapport.”

And there you have the biggest goal set for Goff this spring.

To earn veto power that Cousins and McCoy attained over the next 11 weeks, as the coach sees it, two things have to be achieved. Goff needs to understand the offense well enough to articulate the “why.” And Goff, McVay, coordinator Matt LaFleur and QBs coach Greg Olson need to build the trust to have that kind of open discourse.

Is it different to try and give a 22-year-old that kind of latitude? A little. But Cousins’ results, and how a colorful offensive group in Washington responded to McVay’s style is proof positive that it’s been effective.

As for where they are now, the limited face time coach and quarterback have had has been largely uneventful. Goff was in two-hour meetings with the staff Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. They covered style of play, formations, motions and personnel groupings on Day 1, baseline drop-back concepts on Day 2, and protections Wednesday. It wasn’t intimate—all the skill players were there.

But McVay was able to get a little more in January when he spoke with Goff during his interview process.

“The thing I really liked in how he came off, even before he had any idea we’d be working together, clearly things didn’t go as well as we would’ve liked last year, but he made no excuses,” McVay said. “He took full accountability and I sensed a guy who was challenged to respond in the right kind of ways, as opposed to making excuses for not playing as well as we would’ve liked last year.”

Of course, Goff hasn’t been sitting on his hands the past three months. One big focus in his work away from the facility has been on finding consistency in the kind of stroke he had in that New Orleans game. And he’ll continue to work on his drops from center and becoming a better distributor and more aggressive downfield.

McVay and Goff will get to that when they hit the field in a few weeks. For now, the good news is McVay sees evidence that, while there’s a long way to go, the vault of draft capital the Rams yielded for the guy on that Saints tape eventually will prove to be well worth it.

“You see the natural thrower, you see the toughness, those are the things you get excited about,” McVay said. “And then, what you also appreciate is, if this guy stayed in college, he’d be a senior right now without even having redshirted. … So he has a lot of maturing and developing to come. When you see those kinds of skills, it gets you excited about the opportunity to work with him and try to help him develop and reach that highest potential. And I know Greg and Matt feel the same way.”

So that’s Goff. His draft classmates? Glad you asked …

 

[shopson67]

All for it if it gets Demoff out of here.

 

[Vitamike]

I'm like you Ballelyon, curiously interested.... But what makes the Elway connection a better fit, was his greatness as a Bronco.

Wouldn't it make more sense to get a former Rams Great who knows the game inside and out?

Who better, if that's the case, than Marshall Faulk to fill that role?

In light of the Rooney passing, the Rooney Rule is suppose to extend to senior football operation jobs, I'm guessing GM is one of those roles, isn't it???

 

[LongtimeRamsFan42]

I'm like you Ballelyon, curiously interested.... But what makes the Elway connection a better fit, was his greatness as a Bronco.

Wouldn't it make more sense to get a former Rams Great who knows the game inside and out?

Who better, if that's the case, than Marshall Faulk to fill that role?

In light of the Rooney passing, the Rooney Rule is suppose to extend to senior football operation jobs, I'm guessing GM is one of those roles, isn't it???

Have to disagree with you here... I don't think it matters what team you played for in order to be a top tier leader for that franchise... What did Belichick have to do with the Pats? Hell, he was supposed to coach the Jets until all changed about 24 hours later... Marshall Faulk is an interesting pick, but Manning seems to be a guy whose football intelligence is a step above most, if not all the rest...
As for the Rooney rule, while they most likely would have to interview a minority candidate or two, it should go to the most qualified person/person deemed the best fit for the franchise regardless of race...

 

[Vitamike]

Have to disagree with you here... I don't think it matters what team you played for in order to be a top tier leader for that franchise... What did Belichick have to do with the Pats? Hell, he was supposed to coach the Jets until all changed about 24 hours later... Marshall Faulk is an interesting pick, but Manning seems to be a guy whose football intelligence is a step above most, if not all the rest...
As for the Rooney rule, while they most likely would have to interview a minority candidate or two, it should go to the most qualified person/person deemed the best fit for the franchise regardless of race...

The point I was making regarding the Elway connection, as it was likened too, was the fact that it was special because of his HOF tenure with Denver. And we will have to disagree with our takes on who is more qualified between the two. Faulk has a high Football IQ, always has, he knew everyone's assignments on offense, and he even knew, what was expected of the defenders in a variety of defenses schemes....it's part of the reason he was great.

As for the Rooney rule, I just don't know if it extends to the GM role or not. If so, I hope they look at MF.

 

[shopson67]

The point I was making regarding the Elway connection, as it was likened too, was the fact that it was special because of his HOF tenure with Denver. And we will have to disagree with our takes on who is more qualified between the two. Faulk has a high Football IQ, always has, he knew everyone's assignments on offense, and he even knew, what was expected of the defenders in a variety of defenses schemes....it's part of the reason he was great.

As for the Rooney rule, I just don't know if it extends to the GM role or not. If so, I hope they look at MF.

I don't think they're looking at Manning for the GM role; he would be team president, Demoff's role.

 

[Retroram52]

Good. I'll take Manning as a team pres over that buffoon Demoff any day!

 

[Vitamike]

I don't think they're looking at Manning for the GM role; he would be team president, Demoff's role.

Duh! Of course, that is Elway's position anyway, right?

Don't know what I was thinking shops...

 

[Vitamike]

Good. I'll take Manning as a team pres over that buffoon Demoff any day!

100%

Still, I would rather have Faulk, than Manning.

 

[Retroram52]

Manning as team pres and Faulk as GM. Now that would be a winning combo. Snead is basically a gopher boy.

 

[Retroram52]

Rumors continue to swirl that the limp biscuit is pursuing Manning for a FO position. We shall see if the limp biscuit suddenly gets a backbone.

 

[LongtimeRamsFan42]

Rumors continue to swirl that the limp biscuit is pursuing Manning for a FO position. We shall see if the limp biscuit suddenly gets a backbone.

It's crunch time for Stan and he knows it... He HAS to be able to fill that beautiful new stadium in a couple years or he's going to be the laughingstock(or at least more so than he already is)...

 

[RamsFan88]

We claimed Tre Jackson off waivers from the Pats. Could be a good pick up, low-risk, high-reward type.

 

[Vitamike]

We claimed Tre Jackson off waivers from the Pats. Could be a good pick up, low-risk, high-reward type.

Rams Claim Former Patriots OG Tre’ Jackson

Another piece added to improve the state of the offensive line

According to Ian Rapoport of NFL Network, the Los Angeles Rams have claimed recently released Patriots OG Tre’ Jackson:
Tre’ Jackson played his college ball at FSU and was a 4th-round pick in the 2015 draft by the Patriots. As a rookie, Jackson started in 9 games and ultimately played in 13 games for the Patriots while dealing with a knee injury. Things didn’t go so well in the 2016 season as Jackson started the season on the PUP list and never fully recovered in time to play, and ultimately missed the entire 2016 season.

Jackson measures in as a very large human and guard for that matter - 6’4 and 330 lbs. Here are his NFL.com listed draft strengths:

Leverage and strength to stand and steer defenders in confined spaces. Stays flat-footed and balanced at point of impact in pass pro. Deliberate, controlled climb to second level. Power to jolt in his hands. Shows recovery ability when beaten in run game. In short pull, can find target, engage and seal. Aggressive play demeanor. Can take a stand when being bull-rushed.

Also, an NFL coordinator told this to NFL.com:

“He's got everything you want in a guard, he just needs to work on technique. I did my homework on the person and I think he'll be coach-able. He would start right away for us.”

They also had compared him to former long-time Atlanta Falcons guard Justin Blalock who played in 125 games over 8 years.

Not much is known about Jackson right now, but the signing is likely a good one. Rodger Saffold has had some injury concerns in the past, and the Rams really don’t seem to know what’s going to happen at RG with Havenstein being kicked in, so the addition of Tre’ Jackson helps as he could potentially win the job or just serve as depth.

Rams Claim Former Patriots OG Tre’ Jackson

 

[RamsFan88]

Maybe Jackson will move to RG, Havenstein back to RT and GROB gets cut?

 

[Vitamike]

Maybe Jackson will move to RG, Havenstein back to RT and GROB gets cut?

Too soon to cut GROB IMO, just not comfortable with Tre's injury history at this point in time.

 

[Battlelyon]

 

[LongtimeRamsFan42]

Makes sense.... Fisher filled their heads with nothing but bullshit... They must LOVE having coaches who actually know what they're doing...