Live scrimmages replace preseason games for Rams to evaluate young players

Los Angeles Rams GM Les Snead says live tackling drills will help in evaluation of back end of roster

Strap ‘em up!

Over the years, those three words echoed by football coaches on the field have generally signaled things are about to get real -- meaning defenses will be allowed to take the ball carrier down to the ground and runners given a chance to evade would-be tacklers and score.

With no preseason games this season, NFL talent evaluators and coaches have lost a valuable tool in assessing players on the back end of their roster. Preseason games and joint practices are traditionally an opportunity for young and inexperienced players to prove they belong on the opening-day roster, or worth keeping around on the practice squad.

Los Angeles Rams head coach Sean McVay pointed to young receiver Nsimba Webster earning a roster spot as a rookie last season partly due to how he played in exhibition games.

However, with the elimination of preseason game due to issues surrounding the Covid-19 pandemic, McVay said his team will use a couple scrimmage opportunities held at the team’s sparkling new SoFi Stadium later this month to help evaluate young talent.

During his tenure with the Rams, McVay stayed away from playing starters in exhibition games, giving him a chance to get a closer look at players on the fringe of the roster. But now he will have to adapt, creating scrimmages as an opportunity for young players to shine.

“We'll have a couple of scrimmages over at SoFi,” McVay said. “With some of those guys that would typically be playing a lot of the reps in preseason games, we'll look in to maybe tackling and playing some full-speed football.

“We still want to be mindful of the guys we’re really counting on to be core starters on September 13 against the (Dallas) Cowboys. But, I think that the way the schedule sets itself up – it’s not going to be an excuse. We want to make sure we create as many of competitive opportunities as possible once we’re able to get going and evaluate the entirety of the roster.”

Like McVay, coaches and GMs around the NFL are having to create new ways to evaluate younger players this season.

Albert Breer of the MMQB voices some of the concerns of NFL talent evaluators making roster decision during the Covid pandemic here.

“From an evaluation standpoint, I think it’s the most difficult year ever to evaluate young players,” Las Vegas Raiders GM Mike Mayock told Breer. “They’re not getting game reps, they didn’t get any offseason reps, so you’re getting this small framework where the first eight days are effectively walkthrough pace, and we don’t even get into pads until Aug. 17. There’s a very narrow window. And I’m very thankful that all seven of our draft picks were in the first four rounds—we feel like we have a pretty good feel on those guys.”

ESPN’s Mike Reiss reports teams like the New England Patriots, with preseason games factoring in his decision to elevate rookie quarterback Jarrett Stidham to No. 2 on the depth chart last season, will have to use other means to evaluate back-end-of-the-roster players.

“Preseason games were huge,” former longtime NFL special teams coach Brad Seely told Reiss. “Especially as the years went on, the contact phase of it became so limited in practice. You just don’t want to get anybody hurt. There were times where other than practicing against another team, those opportunities and then the game were the only time you got to see guys do things.”

Rams general manager Les Snead said he discussed the evaluating process with this staff over the summer, referring to it as going back to ‘Good ol’ high school scrimmages.’

“There’d be a certain group of players that you wouldn’t put in that environment based on trying to get them to game one as healthy as possible,” Snead said. “But, there will definitely be that segment of players that -- let’s call it this, we used to say ‘make a tackle,’ right? You get to set a block and actually make a tackle, or catch a football and make someone miss.

“You don’t get that in the non-tackling settings. So, I do think for that back-end of the roaster, it’ll be very important to see them play football. Where you do have to hit a block, shed a block, go make a play, stay in your gap -- all those guys need to go make a tackle or make someone miss. Because as you all may know, when you watch practice, when you’re not tackling there’s a chance that every play looks good or every play looks bad. All of sudden the running back goes for 60 yards, but maybe he did get tackled a yard behind the line of scrimmage. But in those settings, you can't really tell.”