Fast Eddie's Mini Camp Notes- Sat
Jun 12, 1999 Add yourself to The HERD's Official Roster (guestbook), if you think you are man enough!
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Robert Holcombe does look
big. He practiced exclusively at the fullback position today. He was the lead blocker in
two man rushing drills. You can't tell much from that about blocking though. I'll have to
see him with some contact in camp. But he also was perhaps the most explosive receiver out
of the backfield in 5 on 5 drills that pitted the RBs and TEs against the LBs and
safeties. He caught one downfield over the linebacker that wowed the crowd and would have
went the distance. Hope he can block, cuz' he could be a fabulous asset in the two back
sets with a smaller, quicker tailback like Faulk or Hill.
June Henley worked exclusively as a tailback. It appears he will not be tried at FB, at
least not yet. I'm a bit perplexed by the Henley situation. He gave a great effort last
year, but I'm still convinced that he does not have the tools to be successful in this
league. The problem is that he is not a bruising power back, though he does go about 226,
that is just not his style. Yet he's too lead footed and slow to be much of anything else.
He doesn't have the speed to take the corner and he does not have the quickness of foot to
find the seams. He's 100 percent effort and you have to love that, but I also have to
wonder how far his talent can help this team. If he leads the Rams in rushing again, we're
in for another LONG season. The reason this bothers me is that he got ALOT of work today,
more reps than just about any other back in the passing game and in the running game. I
think Vermeil is in love with this guy and I'm not sure if it's all that healthy.
Meanwhile, Amp Lee saw very little work. My fear is that the Rams are using Amp as
insurance against a holdout by Faulk and may be grooming Henley to take Lee's place in the
offense when Marshall signs. I hope I'm wrong about that, because June Henley is NO Amp
Lee.
NEWSFLASH ... In addition to the glowing things I had to say about Greg Hill in the
previous post... he can catch the ball! Who'd have thunk it? He had 3 or 4 nice catch and
runs today in 7 on 7 and 11 on 11 drills.
Here's the answer to Zack's dilemma about Vermeil's question marks at ROLB... Todd Collins
is lining up in that position behind Grant Wistrom, NOT Mike Jones, who lines up on the
left side behind Carter. Jones showed why he is such an excellent cover linebacker today.
Hopefully Collins will look more comfortable in contact situations when camp rolls around.
I say the same thing about Lorenzo Styles at MLB. I think the two most exciting battles to
watch in camp will be Styles/Fletcher at MLB and Holcombe/Harris at FB. Styles is
obviously not the field general that Fletcher is at this point. The MLB for the Rams is in
charge of huddling the defense and making adjustments at the LOS after reading the offense
alignments. Styles appears to be behind Fletcher in this mental side and he is also not
nearly the cover man that London is. Fletcher makes good reads and he's very quick to the
ball, especially on passing plays, but he is SO small that is almost comical. I have a
hard time not laughing every time I see the defense line up because the first thought that
occurs to me is, "Hey, who let that little kid on the field?!". The Rams list
him at 6'0 241, but I'd be shocked if he's a cm over 5'9. He does have great speed,
however, and he's probably the Rams second best linebacker in coverage behind Jones.
Fletch is a heat seeking missile when the ball is in the air.
At safety, Billy Jenkins showed a side of his game that was seldom seen last season. He
held up well in coverage and I believe he had the lone INT of the day. I hope he gets a
chance to defend his starting job against Bush. I think he'll win, although I didn't watch
Bush very closely today.
Dre Bly is MY GUY:) I hated this pick when the Rams made it, but I've come full circle.
Bly is a glove. Granted, most of his work came against receivers that are borderline to
make the team (those guys get alot more reps than the stars in minicamp), probably for
assessment purposes. But Dre really did have an excellent day. He played the tightest
coverage I saw all afternoon. In particular, he made it very difficult for Mac cody to
make a good impression today because he was all over him like a blanket.
Here's a sleeper at WR... #5 Daniel Jones 5'10 185# rookie from Utah. He got open
consistently and caught alot of balls in all sorts of coverage. He shined in just about
every drill I saw. He also took some punts behind Az, Horne, and Cody.
And a prediction: Az Hakim will take more than one punt the distance this year. He is
electric in the open field.
Someone get Rich Coady a helmet. No wonder he couldn't participate in drills... he looked
like Thermal Thomas out there.
There was much less contact today than in the earlier minicamp, making these observations
perhaps even less useful... I chalk it up to the hard dome turf vs. the soft grass field
at Rams Park. These guys were in shirts and shorts and taking anybody down would have
really hurt. The head of facilities at Rams Park says that the dome turf is 4 times harder
even than the indoor astroturf practice facility that the Rams have at Earth City. He says
it would take them too long to take up the turf at the TWA Dome for other events if it had
the same sort of padding.
Torry Holt is a gamer. He really explodes out of his cuts. he dropped a couple early on
and the crowd seemed a bit concerned, but he came back and got open consistently. Green to
Holt rates second on my list behind Green to Bruce:)
I didn't watch the line play over on the other side of the field as closely because it was
further away and as I've said, you just can't tell as much about these guys without pads
as you can about the receivers and defensive backs in coverage drills. I did manage to see
parts of the one on one blocking drills for the left side of the line, however. And from
that bit of observation, I'm here to tell you that Cameron Spikes will be starting at LG
for the Rams sooner rather than later. He consistently locked up his man and stoned him in
pass blocking. He is big and has very quick feet and good arms. He looks almost more like
a tackle. Can't wait to see him drive block.
The other man on the line that impressed me (and as I said, I missed the right side
entirely) was Mike Gruttadauria. Mike G. stopped Corey Sears cold repeatedly in drills.
The guy looks small and overmatched compared to alot of the guys out there, but he makes
up for it with quickness. He started at center and Ryan Tucker is going to have to play
awfully well to overtake him. Grutt was involved in my favorite play of the day as well.
Roland Williams goes in motion from left to right and lead blocks off RT under Fred Miller
who pushes Carter outside, Gruttadauria pulls after the snap and gets himself way upfield
ahead of the tailback Greg Hill. These guys opened a freeway on that play and once Greg
got into the secondary, he let it all hang out. A couple of guys seemed to have the angle
and Hill just shifted gears, again and again and took it the distance... he ACCELERATED
for about 50 yards! That was real cool:)
On the defensive side, Wistrom and Barnes each showed some good quickness and pass rush
moves to get around (until Barnes met up with Orlando). The interior guys didn't impress
me much with the exception of Farr. Alton Weaver may stick.
Chris Wilkins hit consistently on 50 yard field goals during Frank Gansz' special teams
drills, with the exception of one 53 yarder that was dead on, but hit the crossbar. I am
very comfortable with Wilkins, but I have very little confidence in Rick Tuten. He is
absolutely inconsistent... booming a 50 yarder and then shanking a 30 yarder time after
time.
And finally, the most comic moment of the day also came from Gansz and the special teams.
On the final play of the special teams session, the punting team was on and Gansz had
Tuten fake the punt. No-one on the receiving team even looked back or realized that the
ball wasn't even kicked until Tuten was about 40 yards downfield! Gansz wraps up the
session with his boom box nonchalantly with, "Listen fellas, make sure the ball is
kicked every single time." If you've ever seen Frank Gansz in practice you'd know why
that was so funny. I think the guy is a complete jackass.
That's all I recall for now. Perhaps more will come to me, but I forgot my notebook and
had to settle for scribbling a few things to jog my memory on the back of my pack of
cigarretes:)
Peace,
FastEddie
Holt discusses his pattern with Rams Ast. Coach
Charlie Brown at Friday's mini-camp. I. Bruce is in the background.