ANALYSIS : Coming to a Mini-Camp Near You: Team’s Future
The big guy is coming, and this mini-camp will turn into his mini-camp the moment he’s here.
Waiting for Gilbert.
The Rams have basically been doing it for a decade, only now the wait is one day long.
When Sean Gilbert makes his first appearance in a Ram uniform Friday with the rest of the team’s draft choices, it will be hard to deny that much of these first few days of drills and meetings haven’t really been just a sweaty preparation for his arrival.
Sure, you want to get plenty of other stuff accomplished. But when Sean Gilbert arrives, so arrives the Rams’ future. If he works, so does everything else.
Three million dollars in his pocket for a signing bonus says so. Seventeen sacks as a team last season says so. The flutter in the voices of Rams’ coaches when they speak his name says so.
Now, before he arrives, the trick is to get everybody on the same page, get the new defensive system plugged in before he’s here, so his first step on the field is a comfortable one, so he spends his first days as a Ram looking strong and confident, not confused and lost.
Coach Chuck Knox has a starting position gift-wrapped for his No. 1 pick--right defensive tackle--and makes no secret that this is a defensive system that will build itself around a man who has not yet played a single NFL down, played just 17 college games, and who just turned 22 last month.
The system is meaningless without the big guy.
“The system is basically one defensively where we’ve got a big guy coming in here,” Knox said simply. “We can put him down, a four-down linemen scheme of defense . . . that utilizes the talents of the people we have there.”
Already, the project is moving forward around the new centerpiece, even though he isn’t yet here.
With Gilbert at right defensive tackle, Knox is projecting third-round, 300-pounder Marc Boutte of Louisiana State at left defensive tackle, giving the Rams a 600-pound tag team of rookies, if all goes well.
With those two in place, promising second-year man Robert Young, who was forced to play tackle last year because there was no one else, swings over to left defensive end, where his long arms can stretch into the face of quarterbacks trying to get away from Gilbert.
Young at left end goes well with Kevin Greene, who was forced to play defensive end last year, at left outside linebacker. And all of a sudden, maybe there’s a big push around that left side every time an opponent tries to pass.
See how it works?
Maybe on pass downs, you move Young to right end, put Greene at left end, sandwich the big guy and Boutte inside.
If there’s a pass rush, then you figure last year’s No. 1 pick, cornerback Todd Lyght, will have the chance to play with more freedom and not be frantically covering receivers up and down the field for 10 seconds at a time. If Lyght is a star, the entire secondary raises a level or two, and maybe second-round pick Steve Israel, a cornerback, jumps into play not fearing for his NFL life.
If the defense is solid, the offense can afford to grind it out, avoid risks, and keep games safe and sane. That’s how it works.
All this hinges on the big guy, and now you know why the wait is so tantalizing.
“Nothing’s etched in stone about where people are going to play,” defensive coordinator George Dyer said, “but we wanted to explore some ideas, and mini-camp’s a good time.”
What gives Ram coaches the greatest relief is the one giant hurdle already cleared: Gilbert will not go through the long holdout so many No. 1 picks do, because he is already signed.
Gilbert has had a massive impact by that instant signing alone.
“That’s something I don’t think us players or our fans have ever seen, that type of commitment early,” quarterback Jim Everett said. “Signing the first-round draft pick the day of the draft? Unheard of. Something’s different.”
Gilbert is different.
Cortez Kennedy, before he revitalized the Seahawks’ defense the same way the coaches here expect Gilbert to do, missed all his rookie training camp and, poof , there went any impact he would have made his rookie season.
“At least he has a chance to develop,” Dyer said of Gilbert. “Playing in this league is a lot, lot different. Any young kid you bring in is going against the best there is.
“I think there’s definitely a period where they’re going to struggle. They have an adjustment. (But) you come in early in camp and that gives you a chance.”
And how long has it been since the Rams had a defensive player that gave them a chance?
The long, weird, controversial tenure of John Math, the Rams’ director of player personnel, officially ended Wednesday, but in essence, Math’s influence over Ram draft matters vanished the day Knox was hired as head coach.
Math, most famous for drafting Mike Schad in the first round in 1986 and bypassing Michael Dean Perry five times in 1988, cleaned out his office Wednesday after lunch and left Rams Park with only a two-paragraph press release announcing his forced resignation from the job he has held since 1980.
“I’ve had a long and enjoyable association with the Rams,” Math said in the release.
Knox was promised he could clean out the team’s scouting personnel when he took the job in January, and weeks ago all but officially moved in John Becker, on staff currently as his special assistant, as the team’s draft overseer.
Sources close to the situation say Math might have scouting opportunities with either the Green Bay Packers or Houston Oilers.
Math, who will be accompanied out the door by scouts Randy Tyson and Harley Sewell, had absolutely no say in the Rams’ draft last week.
Frank Trump, Math’s main assistant, apparently will stay on in a limited role, at least temporarily. Scout Lawrence McCutcheon, a star runner in Knox’s first coaching tenure, also apparently has been retained.
Ironically, Math’s resignation comes just months after the resignation of former coach John Robinson, the one man in the organization who distrusted Math most.
Together, the publicity-shy Math--who staged an odd, mumbling press conference a week before the draft--and Robinson were at the helm when the Rams wasted all the high draft picks they acquired in the Eric Dickerson trade.
Four weeks after opening the exhibition season against the Seattle Seahawks, Knox’s previous football team, the Rams will open their regular season in Buffalo, marking Knox’s first trip there as an opposing coach since he quit coaching the Bills in 1983.
In the schedule, released Wednesday, the Rams will spend the entire month of September playing AFC East teams before turning their attention to teams from their own conference.
Knox, who coached in the AFC from 1978 through last season, said he had no particular feelings about returning to Buffalo for the first time to open the season. The Bills have played in--and lost--the past two Super Bowls.
“It’s a big challenge,” Knox said. “But we can’t just focus on one game. We’ve got to focus for the season, take every game each week as it comes up.”
Awaiting the Rams in 1992
Whether the Rams escape 1992 with a semblance of dignity could depend on what they do in the four-game stretch from Oct. 4 to Nov. 1. With a bye week sandwiched in, the Rams face all three of their division opponents (who had a combined 31-17 record last year) on the road and play host to the New York Giants in that span. All regular-season games on Sunday.
Source: National Football League