St. Louis Rams coach Steve Spagnuolo gets first look at rookies
The Rams’ second minicamp under new coach Steve Spagnuolo kicked off Friday morning under gray skies and with a few sprinkles falling on the outdoor fields at Rams Park. Some 90 players participated, including four who are here on a tryout basis.
Rookies and veterans are in attendance, and Spagnuolo is hoping that the youngsters “absorb the material real well. . . . With the volume we’re going to throw at them as we go here, if they can absorb that and spit it back out, that’s pretty impressive.”
Spagnuolo moved about the three fields, dividing his time between the offense and defense pretty equally. “I like to see them all,” he said. “That’s really one of the special things you get to do when you’re the head coach. You can go wherever you want. I’ll keep bouncing.”
Some observations:
*First-round draft choice Jason Smith worked at RT with the second team. Adam Goldberg was at that position with the first unit.
*Second-round pick James Laurinaitis worked mostly with the No. 3 unit at middle linebacker during team drills. Chris Draft was at MLB with the starters. “As this weekend goes, we’ll try to get (the rookies) in there a little bit more, just so we can get a little better feel for what they can do,” Spagnuolo explained.
*TE Daniel Fells caught just about everything thrown his way — much as he did last year in practice, but not so much in games.
*Ron Bartell struggled a bit in coverage, as did fellow CB Tye Hill.
*WR/KR Derek Stanley, who is coming off postseason knee surgery, is itching to go, but the Rams are being cautious with him. “We want to be a little bit careful,” Spagnuolo said. “I don’t know that he’ll do any of the team work throughout this spring.”
*Newly acquired WR Laurent Robinson dropped a couple of balls. “I was a little rusty,” he said.
*Mark Setterstrom worked at center with the second team.
All for now . . .
Wow…not really what I was hoping to hear from the first mini-camp. Not very encouraging!