Some guys wouldn’t be excited about coming two a team that lost 27 of 32 games the previous two seasons.

But Jason Smith loved what he saw during his Rams Park visit.”I feel blessed,” he said. “This is where I wanted to be.”

New coach Steve Spagnuolo has instilled a whole new atmosphere among the players.

“Obviously, they are at the bottom, they want to be at the top,” Smith said. “I could feel that when I was there. I could feel that talking to the guys and then I had the opportunity to go watch the team workout and I’m feeling like I’m part of them.  I’m saying ‘why not us? Why not us? Why are we not the ones?

“And I was like ‘whoa, whoa, whoa,’ I’m not even there yet. But why not us you know?  So obviously I have a job to do and I’m going to have that same mentality, ‘why not us?’ Why not me?  Why not today? Why not this game? Why not this year? Why not this playoff? Why not this Super Bowl? Let’s make dreams and visions become reality’.”

He is not shying away from the obvious Orlando Pace comparisons, since the Rams drafted him to fill his lineup spot.

“Well, obviously that is big shoes to follow,” Smith said. “I have to give credit where credit is due. I know Pace was a great offensive tackle, he was drafted high, he was a seven-time Pro Bowler, he’s still a great offensive tackle. But I have to go in there and make my own shoes. I can’t fill his, I have to make mine. Obviously, you know I wear a smaller size than he does at the moment, but at the end of the day, at the end of my career here, I want them to be saying the same thing about me. ‘Hey young buddy, you have to go in there and replace Jason Smith, 20-time Pro Bowler, 15-time, you know. The standard was set high by him and I want to go reach it and sail past it.”