A Typical Day at Rams Training Camp

ST. LOUIS – On Wednesday, August 10, I drove to Earth City to attend a Rams training camp practice. Parking is free (as well as watching the practice and autographs) and you park your vehicle in an unused, grassy area, walk across the street and make your way to the outskirts of the field behind the Russell Training Center. I received an alphabetical/numerical roster and a Rams soda cooler wrap, and upon leaving, I received an upcoming training camp schedule and a regular season pocket schedule.

A couple of football games could be played for a price, food and drink could be purchased, Rams collectibles and clothing could be bought and porter potties were available to use along with hand washing stations. You could either stand up by the fence or sit down on the grass, bleachers or your lawn chair while viewing the practice.

I got there fifteen minutes early and Josh Brown was practicing field goals and a bunch of kids would try and catch the ball after it went through the uprights and landed off the practice field. A few other guys were out early practicing as well. It did rain pretty hard three times in the first hour of practice.

Everyone came out five minutes before the scheduled start time of 2:30. Two scoreboards were used to count down time increments. A horn was blown whenever they were ready to move on to a different practice type, so the blown horn did not usually occur when zero seconds were on the scoreboards. No tackling was allowed and a whistle was blown to stop play. The four quarterbacks wore red jerseys and were not allowed to be hit by the defense.

The only injured player that I saw was Ron Bartell, Rams starting cornerback, who ran line sprints and watched the practice. Other people on the field besides the players included coaches, officials, training camp staff and three video camera operators on construction scissor lifts. There were three field goal crossbars and three fields total. Throughout training camp audio was used for simulated crowd noise and was louder when the players lined up at scrimmage.

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For the first three minutes, special teams offense/defense practiced field goal tries. The remaining seven minutes were utilized with the punt/kick returners practicing catching balls shot with a football launcher, quarterbacks taking hikes and dropping back and Brown kicking ground balls and regular kickoffs. The punter, Donnie Jones, took snaps for only a couple of minutes.

For the next five minutes, all players did stretches/exercises.

For the next seventeen minutes, quarterbacks practiced throwing, linebackers practiced coverage, tried stripping the ball and later on hit the football dummies, knocked them over, then picked the pass off, wide receivers practiced route running/catching, offensive line practiced blocking, Brown practiced field goals, defensive backs practiced coverage and fumble recoveries, defensive line practiced blitzing and getting off lineman and running backs practiced running/catching.

The quarterbacks and wide receivers worked together on their red zone offense, safeties and linebackers worked together, and offensive line and running backs worked together.

For the next five minutes, everybody kept doing the same except for the QB/WR.

For the next eight minutes, the whole team practiced scrimmage plays – all run plays and the offense huddled before each play. Sam Bradford was the 1 st team QB and he played a few plays. A.J. Feeley was the 2 nd team QB and he interchanged snaps with Bradford. Finally, Thaddeus Lewis, 3 rd team QB, came out and the first pass play was called. He was picked off by a defensive back because the ball was thrown long. Bradford’s first pass was great and could have been a touchdown pass if the receiver would have caught it.

For the next eleven minutes, the offense/defense split up. Offense practiced scrimmage plays with no defense and the defense practiced scrimmage with defenders acting as the offense, however no ball was used. The offensive defenders were given blue or green helmet covers. Jones practiced fake punts, meaning tossing the ball and not actually kicking it. The last two minutes, Chris Massey, long snapper, snapped to holder Jones and Brown kicked field goals.

For the next ten minutes, they went back to the offense/defense scrimmage. For five minutes Bradford played about ten straight plays and he threw a medium route wide-open completion and later a long bomb completion. Feeley was next and eventually the clock was set to fifty-one seconds, but didn’t run until the 1 st snap. The play clock ran if the clock would normally run in a game; very similar to a one minute drill, and timeouts were even called, though only one of these drills was done. The coach on the sideline kept yelling “one field goal block alert” in case it was 4 th down, the field goal block team would be ready. The field goal team did go out with four seconds left and Brown made the field goal.

For the next fifteen minutes, Bradford went back out for a fifteen minute drill, so basically one quarter. Like last time, the clock was running, but this time it was always 2 nd or 3 rd down and all pass plays or QB scrambles. Feeley went out and Danario Alexander, WR, dropped a long bomb. Lewis came out and so did Taylor Potts, 4 th team QB. With 6:30 left, the team split up again and everyone kept doing the same thing, except for the lineman, who practiced hitting dummies. The scrimmage was different with no lineman. Bradford threw a pass, Danny Amendola, WR, had the pass tip off his hands and picked off, and Amendola banged his helmet on the ground and yelled “F@#$!”. Pettis dropped a wide-open pass from Bradford also. Feeley also came out.

For the next ten minutes, the players had break time. Almost all the players went under a large, white tent to rest. Most players headed back out with four minutes left. When two minutes were left, the offense/defense got in groups. With 1:30 left, they started football again.

For the next eight minutes, they did scrimmage again with runs and pass plays. Bradford was out first, along with Steven Jackson, RB. No crowd noise was used this time and they played until 4 th down. The ball was then re-spotted on their own 30. Feeley came out and the ball was re-spotted at the 50, and later re-spotted at the 30 again. Bradford came out again. A hurry-up offense was used the whole time.

For the next five minutes, special teams practiced kickoffs. The kickoff team wore yellow or red helmet covers and a football launcher was in place of kicking the ball. One of the field goal crossbars was moved out of the way before the next task.

For the next eight minutes, offensive and defensive lineman practiced against each other, wide receivers just talked with the WR coach and everyone else practiced scrimmage against each other. All plays were passes on the opposing 10 yard line and tight ends/running backs caught all the balls trying to score.

For the next four minutes, the ball was always spotted on the opponents’ 35 after every play. Bradford, Feeley and Lewis played. With 3:45 left, the ball was now spotted on the opponents’ 25. When Bradford threw the ball to Amendola and he dropped it, Amendola fake kicked the football on the ground because he was angry. The clock was stopped at three seconds to try to score a touchdown on the final play, but Feeley couldn’t get it done.

For the next twelve minutes, the ball was spotted on their own 45 and Feeley even threw a pick because the ball tipped off two defenders and caught by the third. Jason Smith and Harvey Dahl, OL, got into it with Eugene Sims, DE by pushing each other because they were mad. All the plays were 3rd down and short.

For the next fifteen minutes, the kickoff coverage was out again. The return side wore red helmet covers and once again, the football launcher was used. Quarterbacks talked with the QB coach and the offense and defensive lineman talked with their respective coaches.

For the next three minutes, helmets and pads came off so the players could do line sprints in their group based on position. Then the team huddled near the center of the field and the clock stopped at fifteen minutes, yet the play clock ran down. Everybody eventually left, though some players stayed and practiced, including Potts.

Training camp started at 2:30 and ended at 5:00. The clock started counting down at fifteen minutes for the autograph session. The autograph gates were closed with three minutes left. There were two lines of players at two tables, where you could get their autographs. James Laurinaitis, LB, was the only notable player. I got each player’s autograph (about twelve players), even though I later found out as I was leaving that autographs are for 4-17 year olds.

Anybody can go attend one of the remaining training camp practices before the month of August ends and training camp is over. The practices typically start at either 2:30 or 5:00 P.M. Go to www.stlouisrams.com or call the Rams Training Camp hotline at 314-516-8852 for more information on upcoming practices available to the public.

By Trevor Roe
ProFootball-fans.com St. Louis Rams Correspondent