The Rams enter the Summer feeling confident

With organized team activities now complete the NFL enters it’s only true down time of the year. The time between OTA’s and the beginning of training camp. This year, camp is set to begin on July 27th for rookies and two days later on July 29th for veterans. With many new faces, most notably on the offensive side of the ball, the Rams have a lot of work to do before week one of the regular season.

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All reports seem to point toward a successful beginning to the summer for St. Louis.

"Head coach Jeff Fisher said, “I feel like from an installation standpoint, we’ve introduced a lot of situations to them,” Fisher said. “We’re happy to say we’ve got the rookies caught up. They’ve yet to lift with the vets, but they’re caught up on the field. I think the rookie class is doing an outstanding job mentally. We’re very fortunate right now that we haven’t had any setbacks on the practice field. Haven’t had a single soft tissue issue or anything. Had a couple guys that we’re resting, that we’re still kind of rehabbing and bringing along — day-on day-off type of thing, but I think we’re in pretty good shape.” according to Nick Wagoner from ESPN."

For the third consecutive year it appears the Rams will be the youngest team in the league with an average age of 25 years. As OTA’s disperse, imagine a summer vacation for college students, only now they have pockets full of money. The inherent risk is large, but manageable. In recent history St. Louis has done a excellent job avoiding catastrophe in the summer months. A large part of that is due to the crash course in NFL player etiquette given by Fisher. Preparing rookies for the pitfalls and possible snags of the NFL lifestyle is a large part of player development.

It’s inevitable that one team or player seems to run into trouble during the break. There were almost 10 arrests in the time between the end of OTA’s and the beginning of training camp last year. Among those arrests were John Abraham formerly of the Arizona Cardinals, Josh Gordon of the Cleveland Browns, Jerome Simpson formerly of the Minnesota Vikings, Justin Blackmon of the Jacksonville Jaguars and Jo-Lonn Dunbar of the St. Louis Rams. Each case resulted in unique results, but in the case of Dunbar, the charges would be dropped.

Managing players and personnel alike can be a challenge in todays NFL. The commissioners office and NFLPA are taking notice of all incidents with the recent scrutiny they have faced with domestic violence and other issues. There are no guarantees, but the Rams seem to do a good job managing those summer challenge, even with the very young age of their players.