As pads go on, here are 3 Rams who are defying expectations at training camp

The 2024 LA Rams Training Camp just leveled up. This is the day that the pads go on, and as you may already know, that changes everything. Football without pads is no more telling than a backyard game of pickup football. But from the moment that the pads go on, the game changes. This is no longer a game of tee shirts, shorts, laughter, and casual talk.

This just got real. And now the real fun begins. Just like Glenn Frey's popular hit song from 1984, The Heat Is On, the temperature just went up. Dramatically.

"The heat is on
On the street
Inside your head
On every beat
And the beats so loud
Deep inside
The pressures high
Just to stay alive
Cause the heat is on "

Glenn Frey

The reason for this sudden spike in temperature is the fact that this is no longer about pass-and-catch track events. This is when football truly happens, the surge of truly competitive football. Pads going on activate the line of scrimmage, the place where 75 percent of the football action takes place.

So far, training camps have been sans pads. And as Rams reporter Stu Jackson point out so adeptly, everything reported so far in terms of positive and negative reports should be taken with a grain of salt.

Real football practices are only just beginning this week.

Svelte players have the advantage without pads. Up to now, it's been about straight-line speed, stop and starts, and getting the jump on opponents. But even as we have witnessed the opportunities for speedy receivers and defensive backs to dominate training camp reports so far, this is when the switch flips, and the Rams' investment in physical players takes center stage.

This is no longer the tale of cheetahs and gazelles. This is now about Rhinos, Lions, and the law of the jungle.