{"id":287541,"date":"2025-08-14T13:36:11","date_gmt":"2025-08-14T13:36:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/287541\/"},"modified":"2025-08-14T13:36:11","modified_gmt":"2025-08-14T13:36:11","slug":"what-to-watch-for-in-rams-joint-practice-with-saints-on-thursday","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/287541\/","title":{"rendered":"What to watch for in Rams’ joint practice with Saints on Thursday"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Los Angeles Rams<\/a> scrambled to find a new team to practice against this week after the Los Angeles Chargers had to cancel<\/a> due to injuries. Sean McVay and Kellen Moore connected and set up a scrimmage for the Rams and New Orleans Saints on Thursday, quickly sorting out all the logistics and planning in a matter of days.<\/p>\n

The two teams will officially practice<\/a> at the Dignity Health Sports Park in Carson, Calif., a planned two-hour session on the field where each team will get in some good work against a different offense and defense.<\/p>\n

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The practice is closed to the public so fans won\u2019t be able to attend, but there should be a bunch of updates from reporters in attendance. Here are some things to watch for when the Rams and Saints hit the field at 11 a.m. PT on Thursday.<\/p>\n

Jimmy Garoppolo\u2019s continued progression<\/p>\n

Garoppolo has had a great summer thus far filling in for Matthew Stafford and he\u2019ll look to keep that going against the Saints. He performed well in the first scrimmage against Dallas, picking apart the Cowboys\u2019 secondary by hitting Davante Adams and Puka Nacua consistently. It\u2019ll be good to see him keep that rolling as the season approaches, given the uncertainty surrounding Stafford\u2019s status for Week 1.<\/p>\n

Rams\u2019 secondary against a below-average passing attack<\/p>\n

The Saints\u2019 passing game is projected to be one of the worst in the NFL, mainly because Spencer Rattler, Tyler Shough and Jake Haener are their quarterbacks competing for the starting job. They do have some talented pass catchers in Chris Olave and Rashid Shaheed, who will both test the speed of the Rams\u2019 corners, but this is a matchup Los Angeles\u2019 pass defense should win.<\/p>\n

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Health updates for key players<\/p>\n

It\u2019ll be worth monitoring the health of some key contributors on the Rams\u2019 side, including Terrance Ferguson, Emmanuel Forbes Jr., Jared Verse and Kam Curl. Sean McVay said earlier this week that the Rams got most of their injured players back, but we\u2019ll see how much each of those players participates on Thursday. Hopefully they\u2019re full participants and go through the whole practice, though that may not be the case with Ferguson just yet.<\/p>\n

Stafford, of course, is not expected to practice at all, having missed every day of camp thus far.<\/p>\n

Los Angeles\u2019 run defense<\/p>\n

When the Rams and Cowboys scrimmaged, Los Angeles\u2019 run defense was outstanding. It bottled up the Cowboys\u2019 rushing attack, which isn\u2019t very threatening to begin with. The Saints\u2019 ground game has much more potential with Alvin Kamara, Kendre Miller and Cam Akers, all of whom are starting-caliber backs. It\u2019ll be interesting to see how the Rams do against New Orleans\u2019 running backs.<\/p>\n

This article originally appeared on Rams Wire: Rams-Saints joint practice: What to watch for on Thursday<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Los Angeles Rams scrambled to find a new team to practice against this week after the Los…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":287542,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2079],"tags":[2825,8761,6000,229,5430,7,6846,3417,7841,7166,4083,1014,262,58,2444,2611,32,896,55,6,1088,424,3698,3307,4085,584,3416,494,283],"class_list":{"0":"post-287541","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-los-angeles-rams","8":"tag-alvin-kamara","9":"tag-cam-akers","10":"tag-chris-olave","11":"tag-dallas","12":"tag-davante-adams","13":"tag-football","14":"tag-jake-haener","15":"tag-jared-verse","16":"tag-jimmy-garoppolo","17":"tag-kellen-moore","18":"tag-kendre-miller","19":"tag-los-angeles","20":"tag-los-angeles-chargers","21":"tag-los-angeles-rams","22":"tag-losangeles","23":"tag-losangelesrams","24":"tag-matthew-stafford","25":"tag-new-orleans","26":"tag-new-orleans-saints","27":"tag-nfl","28":"tag-puka-nacua","29":"tag-rams","30":"tag-rashid-shaheed","31":"tag-sean-mcvay","32":"tag-spencer-rattler","33":"tag-terrance-ferguson","34":"tag-the-rams","35":"tag-the-saints","36":"tag-tyler-shough"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/287541","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=287541"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/287541\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/287542"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=287541"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=287541"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=287541"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}