LOS ANGELES \u2013 Maybe this is one of the keys to a football team\u2019s success: Full disclosure.<\/p>\n
Internally, anyway.<\/p>\n
As the Rams\u2019 offensive line and its defensive front have gone against each other during training camp practices, these players are talking to each other. It likely will continue into the regular season, and it\u2019s not all bravado or trash talk but informational.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think we\u2019re really tied in with our D-line, and we talk to them so much that we see our deficiencies,\u201d veteran guard Kevin Dotson said following Sunday evening\u2019s final training camp session at Loyola Marymount.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe ask them, \u2018How would you game plan me?\u2019 Or, \u2018What do you do if we\u2019re going against each other in a real game? How do you see me?\u2019 That\u2019s the thing that we really like to do with our defensive line and our linebackers. Do they see any cues that we are giving off? Do they see a weakness of ours that they like to go at? We just kind of go off that, throwing ideas off of each other.\u201d<\/p>\n
That takes place at the line of scrimmage, in between plays in practice, as well as in the meeting and locker rooms.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe do it any time,\u201d Dotson said. \u201cAny time that we feel like, \u2018Hey, that felt kind of weird. I feel like you got me on something.\u2019 We\u2019re not going to hold that information as a secret because we want the whole team to be good. I could\u2019ve just got beaten with something and (said), \u2018Hey, did you see something right here? Did I overset you? Am I showing something that I\u2019m leaning?\u2019<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s what we do.\u201d<\/p>\n
It works both ways. Defensive end Braden Fiske has made strides, playing like \u201ca grown man for a second-year player\u201d in the words of head coach Sean McVay.<\/p>\n
And, said Dotson, \u201cHe\u2019s one of the guys that you give him that information of what he\u2019s doing. He changes it the next play. It\u2019s not going to happen again.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe likes to transform himself. Even from last year, he was more of a wild guy in his rush. Now he has more tempo [and he\u2019s] thinking about what he\u2019s going to do before he does it. He\u2019s just a smart guy. He just keeps building on top of what he did last year, and you can feel it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Earlier in camp, Fiske was asked about how the locker room area is organized, and his answer provided a hint that there was thought given to those assignments, as opposed to just putting the offense on one side of the room and the defense on the other, lockers grouped by position.<\/p>\n
\u201cI liked it because I think about that too, of just how lucky I was to be in that part of the locker room,\u201d Fiske said of that area, and the players who surrounded him last year as a rookie defensive end. \u201cWe called it \u2018The Suburbs\u2019 over there.\u201d<\/p>\n
The veterans he lockered near included veteran offensive lineman Rob Havenstein, quarterback Matthew Stafford, wide receivers Cooper Kupp (who is now with Seattle) and Puka Nacua and tight end Tyler Higbee, as well as Dotson.<\/p>\n
\u201cTo have that veteran presence and be able to talk to those guys whenever I needed to \u2026 having those guys that have been in the league for a while, to see how they go about their day-to-day,\u201d was huge, Fiske said.<\/p>\n
\u201cCooper was a big one last year that I would talk to. How did he make that jump in year two of his career? What was something that elevated his game? And a lot of that was the diet. That\u2019s a lot of what I implemented into my offseason. I was super fortunate to have those guys in my area of the locker room.\u201d<\/p>\n
It\u2019s about improvement as a group. And it\u2019s interesting that McVay has changed the team\u2019s motivational slogan from \u201cWe not me\u201d to \u201cWe then me.\u201d In other words, team first, but the individual does matter.<\/p>\n
(The copy editor buried in this columnist\u2019s psyche notes that there\u2019s a comma missing after \u201cWe,\u201d but I\u2019ll let someone else tell McVay.)<\/p>\n
\u201cI got too much time to think\u201d about such things, McVay said early in camp, before explaining that while it\u2019s still about the team first and foremost, \u201cwhat is your role and responsibility as a teammate? What do we want that to be about? What are those values and principles that we want to subscribe to that\u2019s authentic to guys\u2019 personalities? And then what is my individual responsibility within the framework of, hey, my mindset, my energy, how I move my one-eleventh on each snap if I\u2019m out there on the field competing.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd so I think it\u2019s just having the words mean something and continuously being able to say, \u2018Hey, how do you adjust, adapt? How do you make things better?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n