What to expect from the LA Rams in preseason week 2

When the Rams have the ball

The Rams offense had some solid performances against the Chargers, and hope to put up another solid showing to bolster their chances of making the team. Like the first preseason games, the Rams will be sitting starters plus key backups in this game. That means no John Wolford. That suits QBs Bryce Perkins and Devlin Hodges just fine.

The Rams’ tight end battle seems to be leaning more and more towards Jacob Harris, despite the fact that he’s still wet behind the ears. That means that the pressure will be on Kendall Blanton, Kyle Markway, and Brycen Hopkins to show up and play well in this one. The Rams are carrying six tight ends on the roster. One tight end will be waived on August 24, so this competition is definitely one for NFL careers.

The Rams did have some good outings from some offensive linemen against the Chargers. Now it will be up to Coleman Shelton to dominate in this one. Can he? If he does, the Rams running game will certainly benefit. And that is good news for Jake Funk, Raymond Calais, and perhaps even Otis Anderson Jr.  That being said, I think that Xavier Jones is the running back who gets cooking in this one, After he had the longest run for the Rams by a running back against the Chargers (an eight-yard burst), he’ll want to string together a few bigger bursts to establish himself as a solid RB2.

I think that the Rams will test the Raiders DBs deep, and that could mean a few tosses zip in the direction of either Tutu Atwell and J.J. Koski. I could see Atwell having a big game in this one. Although he is not quite an ideal size, both he and the Rams need to establish him as a deep ball threat, and they won’t want to do so in the last preseason game of the season.

Even though the offense is schemed to be all about explosiveness and big plays, I would not be surprised to see the play-calling attempt to script a long drive to test how well the Rams can handle themselves over a course of multiple plays. I won’t give a score prediction, but I do believe that the offense will do a much better job of establishing the run, which will afford better looks in the passing game.