Training Camp is underway for the Los Angeles Rams as they begin to get ready to hopefully return to and win the Super Bowl after falling just shot a season ago.
The Rams have their first preseason game in less than a week on Aug. 10 against the Oakland Raiders, but they have already begun competing against other teams.
This weekend, the Rams participated in a couple of joint practices with the Los Angeles Chargers in Irvine. Sometimes joint practices can be even more useful than preseason games as it gives players a chance to compete and get better against another team in a more controlled environment.
As was the case a year ago, the Rams are expected to have one of the best offenses in the league in 2019, and that was evident in the first joint practice against the Chargers on Friday when they tore their first team defense up.
The same wasn’t the case on Saturday though as they started off slow. While the offense eventually found their way towards the end of the practice, head coach Sean McVay was not happy with what he saw at the beginning, via Myles Simmons of TheRams.com:
“We were sluggish. I thought it seemed like the defense had good energy, offensively not even close to good enough. I thought they finished the day strong which is what’s important and our guys kept it together.”
McVay added that he and his team will use the poor practice as a learning experience to get better moving forward:
“Just the overall energy that I expect, specifically from our offense, we got to start better than that and I trust that we will. We’ll use it as a good learning opportunity,” McVay added.
Rams quarterback Jared Goff echoed his head coach’s statements, although he also credited the Chargers for what they did defensively:
“Today was OK. It was a rocky start. I think the Chargers did a good job bringing some different stuff to us and showing some different looks. I was happy the way we finished[.]”
Bad practices are expected during Training Camp, especially in the first couple weeks so this is nothing to be worried about moving forward.
It is good to see that McVay and the Rams players have high expectations for themselves as they will need to demand excellence if they are going to achieve their goals this season.
