Sean McVay: Practicing vs. Raiders WR Davante Adams Gives Rams 'Chance To Get Better!'
The Los Angeles Rams' joint practices with the Las Vegas Raiders got off to quite the start on Wednesday, with both teams jawing at each other throughout the day.
Even with the potential conflicts between clubs, joint practices provide a good opportunity for teams to push each other outside of an actual game. For a team as young and inexperienced as the Rams, that added intensity in practice is invaluable.
In particular, L.A.'s secondary has very little in the way of starting experience, so matching up against Las Vegas receiver Davante Adams, a three-time All-Pro and one of the best pass-catchers in the league, is a trial by fire of sorts. For coach Sean McVay, though, going up against a receiver of Adams' caliber will only help the secondary grow.
“What a great opportunity to go against one of the best," McVay told reporters. "If you have a growth mindset and you're in the mentality that the work pays off and you continue to get opportunities to challenge yourself, that's what you love. And I think that's what a lot of guys have on our team. He certainly is one of those guys that fits that criteria and I think it's a great opportunity...
"That's how you really give yourself a chance to get better, is you test your tools within the fundamentals and the techniques and it's what you love about this stuff and it's the same thing for us as coaches being able to learn, like I mentioned.”
Perhaps no player got a better look at Adams than rookie cornerback Tre Tomlinson. The sixth-round pick out of TCU matched up with Adams one-on-one throughout practice and even made some impressive plays in coverage. For McVay, Tomlinson's experience defending an All-Pro receiver on an island is a great sign of things to come.
"And one of my favorite things was, they're going to make a couple plays, but I liked the way that he finished, made a couple plays in the two-minute situation, and it's why he was such a competitive, great player at TCU because of the competitiveness and his ability to be able to reset even if a play doesn't always go our way and that's any great DB that I've ever been around,” McVay said.
After joint practices, the Rams and Raiders will meet for their preseason game at SoFi Stadium on Saturday night.
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