Q&A WITH LOS ANGELES RAMS GENERAL MANAGER LES SNEAD
What are the impacts of Pro Day constraints? It’s interesting with pro days, just because a lot of times, different than this year, there's been a combine. So, do you need to attend a pro day or do you not? I think for every Pro Day attended, there should be a specific reason. Maybe the case or the file on that player is not necessarily complete yet. Is there anything that we can get from a pro day to complete that file, to help us be more certain that we could onboard that player and he becomes a contributor for us. So the interesting thing this year, with no combine, all pro days we will share data but that occurs every year in a system that's referred to as the APT system where every club doesn't have to attend a pro day, but let's call it a player, subset school, didn't go to the combine, we can get the standard 40-yard dash standard short shuttles, and that data is shared. So, I think this year, unlike combine, some of those numbers, some of those measurables would just get to us later in the process. And then as a club, there are times where maybe you don't want to attend the pro day just because you don't want to show your cards or what have you, and things like that. So, there's always some of that game theory going on. Nothing different than in years past, because in most situations, we probably haven't sent three to a pro day anyway. But I do think because there are no private workouts this year, there's definitely a cap, but maybe allow three, because a lot of times with position coaches, coordinators, even head coaches, if they wanted to get out to a pro day, they could but a lot of times nowadays that is done somewhat privately to try to keep - what we try to do is keep people from going, ‘oh the Rams had defense coordinator, offensive coordinator at this position’ and now teams will try to take note of that and try to use it against you maybe.
What sort of traits are needed to best maximize a quarterback? I think the first part of that question is, Sean and his coaching staff right now and this is probably one of the benefits of not doing a combine and there's a lot of benefits that you try to find the roses of maybe the thorns that we're going through, but by let's call an entire organization, moving to Indianapolis for over a week and then taking about a week to recover from Indy, it has allowed the coaching staff to get to watching the upcoming players in the draft play football, get to that, get to the film quicker and probably a more quality and focused environment but it's also allowed them to again, looking at the just the overall scheme and what maybe Sean and his staff want to do differently. That's even probably taking the QB out. I do think depending on what you think that your QBs and every player is different, right? We say it a lot, right? What's the player's superpower? Or one to two to three or however many there are, and all of us have an element of kryptonite to us and you try to definitely put those players in positions and use those superpowers. And then again, how can the five eligibles that are going to be on the field at the time enhance that process? If our offense is a sword, you want those five eligibles and they don't have to be the same five eligibles at the same time, but you want those players to make that sword sharper.
Which non-starters do you believe took a step forward this past season? I think I mentioned John Wolford, that's an obvious one, right? I can mention Van Jefferson, but that doesn't seem like an unknown one. Again, I think a good one would be Xavier Jones. Heck, we were ready to run him down the stretch there in important games, but Cam Akers was able to get through the injury and be the warrior. But, as players like him, where I call those the sophomores, they may have played on special teams. I can mention a lot of them because even the runner we signed or claimed, I forget what it was, Raymond Calais from Tampa and Southwest Louisiana, and it's really not that they would get mad at me at Louisiana. How this world works, right, to Joe DeCamillis who comes here - he was a big fan of Calais as a returner in Jacksonville. But, now he's a Los Angeles Ram. I think we like big Tremayne Anchrum. Again, didn't necessarily play in games. He did dress for a couple of games, but going back to some of those camp practices and you definitely saw some things there. A very interesting one is getting a Chandler Brewer back from an opt-out who actually played well in our San Francisco game way back in ’19 when we went up there and geez-Louise, the game still bothers me the way we lost that game, even though it might not have mattered at all. But, it was a heavyweight fight, he played well. So, it's those moments. Hey, all of those defensive linemen, we kept on the practice squad. I probably couldn't even name them all, but there were four of them and we kept them for a reason and liked them and those guys. The linebackers speak for themselves and I think the safeties because a lot of those guys got to play. Even someone like J.R. Reed that we signed from Jacksonville someone we really liked in the draft didn't get him, he went to Jacksonville and then we ended up signing him. So, it's players like that again, not household names, not sexy, but sometimes you have to take the knowledge and doubt, you have to make a bet on them to help play a role. And again the poster child of that working out, Sebastian Joseph-Day, Troy Hill, Darious Williams, even to an extent, the Kenny Youngs and Troy Reeders and people like that. So, those are kind of the posterchild. It doesn't always work out, but that's the vision and I tried to mention a lot of names because if I just mentioned one or two, if somebody is really listening to this press conference, will their feelings hurt?
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