The NFL has had to tweak its offseason in more ways than one this year due to the coronavirus pandemic. The draft wasn’t held in Vegas as it was planned to be, offseason workouts have been canceled and teams’ facilities remain closed.
As a result, OTAs and minicamps have been altered. Everything is being done online over video conference, which includes the Rams’ offseason program for rookies. That began on Monday, kicking off a seven-week program to help acclimate rookies to the NFL – off the field, of course.
Most of it pertains to classroom work and getting first-year players caught up on the playbook, which is tougher to do without in-person coaching. It’s similar to what Rams veterans have been going through for the last couple of weeks in place of the traditional offseason workout program.
“When it goes to making a plan for this, whether it’s direct communication from the league on what we need to hit, how we need to hit it, I think I’m able to just plug and play, because obviously we’ve had to ramp it up with the technology piece during this time,” director of player engagement Jacques McClendon said via TheRams.com. “But I feel like since we’ve already been using it, it hasn’t really been a hard transition for us. We’ve just had to build upon the foundation, which we already started.”
The 2020 season could prove to be a difficult one for rookies, since they won’t be able to get on the field for minicamp. The adjustment from college to the NFL will be tough without this offseason work, and will be worsened if training camp is impacted this summer.
The Rams’ top four picks – Cam Akers, Van Jefferson, Terrell Lewis and Terrell Burgess all should have an impact in Year 1, but staying healthy and getting up to speed will be their top priorities before they can rise the depth chart.
