Training Camp: Weekend Round-Up

Training camp brought lot of excitement over the weekend with record fan attendance and the first time being in pads, it doesnt get much better than that. Football season is quickly approaching and the fans are feeling the anxiety and excitement as almost 2300 fans were in attendence at TRAINING CAMP, hopefully that is a look ahead of what the Edward Jones Dome will be like this upcoming season. Here is the weekend round-up of what actually happened at camp over the weekend.

Saturday in St. Louis at Rams park was as perfect as it gets weather wise which was greatly appreciated by the players. The offense continued to flourish creating big plays many of which were by Jared Cook who was matched up against rookie T.J. McDonald. After showing positives in coverage, McDonald was brought back down to Earth on Saturday and showed their is still a lot of work to be done. Cook has also been a favorite target of Bradford’s in camp. Bradford also connected on a couple of deep balls to Austin Pettis and Brian Quick.

After seeing the offense have so much success the defense rose to the occasion and made some big plays of their own. Safety Rodney McLeod made a case that he should be the starting safety getting a pair of interceptions. Rookie CB Brandon McGee also impressed coaches by being physical while also managing to bring in an interception of his own. According to Rams Senior Writer Nick Wagoner, Janoris Jenkins and Chris Givens have been putting on quite a show for the fans and have been a fun duo to watch.

On Sunday the special teams were at it and it was the first practice in pads. Punter Johnny Hekker looks to be a second year player who greatly improves from year one. Hekker was inconsistent at times in his rookie season and is working on consistency this offseason. There was also a lot of competitiveness in the air on Sunday as Darren Bates and Josh Hull exchanged words on multiple occasions. Competitiveness is always a good thing to see early in camp. Tavon Austin got many reps returning kickoffs and punts as well and that shouldnt change as Austin has the ability to break loose at any time. The more Austin gets the ball in open space, the better.

Not much has changed injury wise for the Rams except that Phillip Lutzenkirchen returned to practice on Saturday. Other than that though, Barrett Jones, Matt Daniels, Jermelle Cudjo, Sammy Brown, and Braden Brown did not practice.

Training camp has been exciting to say the least and the mainstream media is truly missing out giving limited attention to the Rams. The Rams will be back at it this afternoon, and this time everybody will be in pads, and this is where it will really start to get interesting. Like Ive said, we will try to do our best to keep you guys updated every couple of days on what is going on at Rams Park. Until next time, Go Rams!