Strauss: Rams' O-line coach faces huge task – STLtoday.com
Paul Boudreau’s task is as straightforward as it is ambitious: He has to sculpt several 300-pound blocks of clay into an offensive line that likely will determine if the fourth version of head coach Jeff Fisher’s offense is more acceptable than the tedious first three.
Boudreau, 64, is a football lifer on his second go-round as Rams offensive line coach.
If a coach can ask it of his linemen, Boudreau has at some point made the request and helped show the way. His lines have helped escort five 10,000-yard rushers while one of his units in New Orleans surrendered a mere 15 sacks in 1992, two fewer than his Atlanta Falcons O-line surrendered in 2008. The stand in Atlanta occurred the season after Boudreau was dismissed over guilt by association with the Scott Linehan regime.
Now in the fourth year of a second term with the Rams, Boudreau is attempting to construct a line from candidates owning just 103 NFL starts. Sixty belong to left guard Rodger Saffold. Only four linemen in camp have ever started a game in the league. One incumbent, left tackle Greg Robinson, is barely 13 months removed from being selected No. 2 overall in the draft. A three-man competition exists at center. Rookies are a virtual lock to start at right guard and right tackle.
The Rams call the last couple weeks at Earth City “organized team activities,” or OTA’s. Given the experience level, Boudreau is leading Romper Room.
Even for an old coach, this is a new trick.
“If you look across my board, I’ve had Rodger one year without being injured. Greg started the last 12 games. That’s it. I haven’t gone through that before. But I have all the confidence in these guys. There might be a step backward to go forward but I think we’ll be OK in the long run,” said Boudreau, who will be replacing center Scott Wells, right guard Davin Joseph and right tackle Joe Barksdale. A de facto retiree, left tackle Jake Long was a casualty last season of a repeat ACL tear. “Look at the second half of the season after they play Seattle twice and Arizona twice. Then you’ll see how their growth is. Every day is going to be new for them.”
The Rams addressed the turnover by grabbing three offensive lineman within the draft’s first 150 picks for the first time since taking Alex Barron, Richie Incognito and Claude Terrell in 2007. This time Wisconsin tackle Rob Havenstein, Louisville guard Jamon Brown and Iowa tackle Andrew Donnal came off the board before pick No. 120. Havenstein (No. 57 overall) and Brown (No. 72) project as starters. The Rams didn’t stop drafting linemen until they chose Fresno State guard Cody Wichmann in the sixth round.
“All of them are fairly smart. All of them are pretty tough. That’s a good beginning,” Boudreau noted. “There’s a lot going on. There’s a new offense, new terminology, the speed of the game, not just understanding what your job is but also what the guy next to you is doing.”
Havenstein, for example, played in a pro-style offense at Madison. But he didn’t line up opposite talent like Chris Long or Robert Quinn, athletic pass-rushers able to exploit any hesitation, any defect in technique. While learning a new language, the rookie linemen are also overhauling footwork and confronting a massive upgrade in athleticism. As a reward, they face the Seattle Seahawks’ run-stuffing defense in the Sept. 13 season opener.
“It’s an accelerated program and an advanced course,” Havenstein described when asked to compare the process to academic study. “The basics are still football but the guys here are bigger, stronger, faster, more talented. The schemes in some cases are a lot more complicated. But you’ve still got to be able to play.”
As if to put things more in flux, three-way competition among Tim Barnes, Barrett Jones and Demetrius Rhaney exists at center.
Pads remain off limits. Robinson (toe) and Saffold (shoulder) have also missed the sessions while recuperating from surgery, though both players are assisting the newcomers with terminology and scheme. Working as a unit will have to wait.
“It’s going to take time,” said Barnes, nearing his fourth season since arriving as an undrafted free agent from Mizzou. “We’re working in a lot of young guys. Once camp hits we’re going to have to re-gel with Roger and Greg and get used to playing with each other. It’s one of those things you have to get back into a rhythm and a routine. With the young guys, it’s about the learning curve and getting used to the speed.”
Complicating the process is the NFL’s prohibition against contact through organized training activities. The hard stuff has to wait until July training camp. Prohibition against one-on-one drills in OTA’s and the limited exposure teams are granted with new players according to the collective bargaining agreement is a more significant impediment to Boudreau than the proliferation of collegiate “spread” offenses.
“I recently saw where an NFL coach said spread offenses are killing the NFL. What’s killing the NFL is you were once able to count on a guy making huge improvement between his rookie and his second year. Now, with all these rules and collective bargaining governing when you can’t practice, you don’t see the (second-year) guy until April. It’s hard for him to beat out a veteran because you can’t teach the guy,” Boudreau lamented. “Just give me a chance to coach my guys. That’s what I’m concerned about.”
The NFL’s celebrated parity is supposed to allow for possible instant gratification. However, the off-season structure hardly encourages rapid development from a position that depends as much on reads as it does body mass.
“The way it’s set up now if you draft a guy early he has to play by the middle of his first year. When I first came in the league, you drafted a guy in the third or fourth round for a year from now. The curve’s much faster for these guys,” compared Boudreau, whose first NFL opportunity arrived with the 1987 Saints after coaching eight seasons collegiately and four more in the Canadian Football League.
How difficult is the adjustment? Robinson, who rarely played with a hand down at Auburn, appeared little in last season’s first four weeks and was seen more often at guard than at tackle.
The Rams had to do something in this draft. The last several years introduced more tourniquets than solutions. The Rams employed seven different line combinations in 2013. Long’s injury detonated any continuity on the left side last season. Saffold, who has dealt with his own set of medical issues, has acted as something of a utility man, appearing at four spots. Wells was constantly injured in three seasons after signing as a free agent. This is a franchise once forced to sign a lineman on Wednesday to start on Sunday.
“That’s why we drafted these guys. We had a plan,” said the Boston College graduate, who has done tours with the Saints, Detroit Lions, New England Patriots, Miami Dolphins, Carolina Panthers, Jacksonville Jaguars. Atlanta Falcons and Rams. “We had guys with experience but every time we turned around there was a new combination. We had to put it together with tape and Band-Aids. Now we have a group learning together. … The faster they can learn, the faster they can think, the more quickly the game slows down.”
The Rams can sell a new quarterback, Nick Foles. They can sell arguably the league’s deepest defensive line, a unit one team official boasted recently could best many rivals’ starting unit with its two-deep. Aaron Donald proved himself a monster his rookie year. We’re to believe Todd Gurley is Adrian Peterson 2.0.
Little of this will matter if this offensive line fails to take shape, extends its reputation for injury or evokes memories of the Jason Smith fiasco (circa: 2009).
“It’s a difficult process. You’re going from whatever you ran in college to a different scheme against much better players,” said Barnes, who played at Columbia during the pass-happy, offense-first Big 12 days. “There are more looks. There is so much mentally to prepare for now. It’s a longer season. There’s more attention. There’s more stress and pressure. You have to make sure they’re confident in themselves to do the job.”
Expect a lot of ground and pound. Expect some pratfalls. But we’re about to find out what Boudreau can do with three months and a half-ton of clay on his hands.
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