2023 will be a season long remembered by LA Rams rookies

The LA Rams face a season of uncertainty. While that may be unsettling for LA Rams fans, I believe that it is incredibly important for a young Rams roster that has to discover what it means to be a team in the NFL.

Military training is a perfect example of how uncertainty and adversity can bring out an almost instinctive and entrusting reaction from large groups of young men who are thrown together with no introductions. As young men face common challenges, they instinctively group up and help one another. It's a training program designed to create a one for all and all for one mindset. Surprisingly, in the right conditions, we all have that capability. Some of my military brothers are closer to me than family even to this day. Perhaps some of you who were blessed to share that military experience have the same good fortune.

It's that need to create cohesiveness among the LA Rams rookies that is perhaps the greatest challenge for the LA Rams coaching staff. While the name of the game ultimately is competitiveness, there is also an incredibly important task of teaching young players to promote the team, to create the "We not me," instinct among so many unfamiliar players.

Those were the days, my friend . . .

So what is their reward, even to those players who do not ultimately make the team? Life experiences, shared by a select few, will be cherished forever. Much like the song that debuted in 1968 by singing artist Mary Hopkins:

"Those were the days, my friend
We thought they'd never end
We'd sing and dance forever and a day
We'd live the life we choose
We'd fight and never lose
For we were young and sure to have our way" - English lyrics written by Gene Raskin, and was a song performed by Mary Hopkins in 1968,

Are you a bit skeptical of my glorification of those shared experiences? Do you doubt those fraternal instincts that draw men together with unbreakable bonds that survive the test of time? Well, if you need further proof, just check out the conversation with LA Rams greats DT D'Marco Farr and LB James Laurinaitis, players whose careers never overlapped, but who shared the same Rams bond.

Many attribute bonds of friendship formed in the early years of our lives to the age of innocence, to our ability to trust and appreciate before negative life experiences taint our views of the world, and we become more and more skeptical with age.

I think the process is more akin to the instinctive survival tactic of strength in numbers. That we form familial bonds not just from youthful innocence, but from an instinctive need to band together when our future is filled with uncertain forces beyond our control. That tribal instinct ensures that we surround ourselves with others who will have our backs, no matter what comes.