Publication: SI.com
Section/# of Pages: Sports/1 of 2
Date: 10/22/10
Bradford's focus on the negative has turned into positive for Rams BY JIM TROTTER
Sam Bradford wanted no part of the conversation. Three days after completing 23 of 41 passes for 289 yards and the only two
touchdowns in a 20-3 romp over Seattle, the Rams' standout rookie made a calculated scramble when a visitor began patting him on the back for the performance.
Bradford rose from the stool in front of his locker, flashed an incredulous smile and asked: "Did you see all the throws I missed?" "Yeah," the visitor replied. "But I also saw all the throws that you made."
Bradford then excused himself to fulfill a media obligation. When teammates and coaches learned of the exchange later in the day, they smiled and nodded. It was so Bradford. Since being selected No. 1 overall in April's draft, the former Oklahoma star has established that he's more consumed with missed opportunities than made plays.
"He's a perfectionist," says second-year linebacker James Laurinaitis. "When the two of us go to dinner on Monday or Tuesday night after games, we try not to talk about football. But when it does come up, he's like, 'I can't believe I threw that pick in the red zone.' He always talks about the plays that he missed and never pats himself on the back. His attitude is like, I should have had two touchdowns and no picks, not one and one."
That approach is a big reason the 3-3 Rams have already matched their victory total from the previous two seasons combined, and why they're in the hunt for the NFC West title, trailing first-place Arizona and Seattle by a half game. Bradford has completed 57 percent of his passes for 1,357 yards and seven touchdowns, with eight interceptions (which are eight fewer than Colts four-time league MVP Peyton Manning threw in his first six games as a rookie).
He is doing it with an inconsistent running game -- the Rams rank 17th in rushing, averaging 104.3 yards a game -- and the most nondescript wideout corps in the league. Consider: Danny Amendola was undrafted and cut by two other teams before sticking with the Rams last year; Brandon Gibson was a 2009 sixth-round pick who had only one touchdown as a rookie; Mardy Gilyard is a fourth-round rookie who has only six catches on the year; and Danario Alexander was on the practice squad before being called up and catching a 38- yard touchdown pass in last week's win over the Chargers.
Still, Bradford refuses to blink or complain. In arguably the most challenging situation a young quarterback can face -- third-and-8 or longer -- he has a league-high 119.9 rating under those conditions, completing 10 of 18 passes for 149 yards and two scores, with no picks. Manning's rating is 87.2 rating in that situation.
"He's so smooth and composed," says Lions safety Louis Delmas. "Teams have been throwing eight-man blitzes at him and showing seven-man, loaded-box fronts at him, trying to get him to lose his composure, but he doesn't get flustered. He's a great quarterback." Bradford has been everything the organization envisioned, a first-in, last-out guy who possesses natural leadership skills and is consumed by the game. He earned the respect of veterans in the offseason by shying away from promotional opportunities because he felt he hadn't done anything to earn the attention.
When the baseball Cardinals invited him to a game and planned to introduce him to the crowd, he stipulated that the team's other QBs had to be invited and introduced in the same way. The first time he went to dinner with Laurinaitis, he picked up the tab even though
Laurinaitis told him it wasn't necessary. (Bradford could afford it; he signed a potential $78 million deal that includes $50 million in guarantees.)
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ST. LOUIS RAMS NEWS CLIPS
Publication: SI.com
Section/# of Pages: Sports/2 of 2
Date: 10/22/10
There are no secrets to Bradford's success. He has size (6-foot-4, 218 pounds), intelligence, athleticism and a right arm that's as strong as Baltimore's Joe Flacco; so says teammate Mark Clayton, a former teammate of Flacco's. He is incredibly accurate when on the move to his right, and possesses enough touch to drop a seam pass between a trailing linebacker and a charging safety. Then there's his work ethic. Besides arriving early and staying late, he spends Tuesday afternoons in the coaches' offices going over the previous game and getting a jump on the next opponent. He arrives with pencils, notebooks and questions -- and a willingness to point out the things he did not do well.
"I think you have to be critical of yourself," says Bradford. "The minute you stop beating yourself up is the minute that you settle. And the minute that you settle and stop pushing yourself, that's when things start to go downhill."
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ST. LOUIS RAMS NEWS CLIPS
Publication: STLtoday.com
Section/# of Pages: Sports/1 of 2
Date: 10/24/10
Long shadow for Rams' Chris Long BY BILL COATS
The spotlight never has been a desired destination for Chris Long. Yet try as he may, he's never been able to avoid it.
That's what happens when your father is a Pro Football Hall of Famer, a well-known NFL analyst, a former movie and television actor, and a popular pitchman for cars, trucks, soups and other commodities.
It's not easy being Howie Long's oldest son.
Then add to the equation the fact that Chris excelled in football, starring in high school, becoming an All-American in college, being drafted No. 2 overall in 2008, and now appears to be an emerging force in the NFL — all the while playing the same position that his famous father did.
"It was pretty tough through high school and college; the shadow he casts is pretty great," said Long, a 6-foot-3, 276-pound defensive end for the Rams. "Nobody believes that you're doing anything on your own merits. … I've always dealt with pressure."
But, he added, "I can never be frustrated at my Pops. It's not his fault he was so good at what he did." Also, the stress is slackening, he pointed out.
"Up here (in the NFL), it's just show-and-prove time. So it's a lot easier," he said. "I've just got to be the best me that I can be."
On the football field, the best of Chris Long seems to be coming out. Playing exclusively at left defensive end this year after being moved around his first two seasons, Long not only has been strong against the run but also has been barging into opposing backfields at a consistent rate.
"He's getting a lot of pressure, and the sacks are starting to come," cornerback Ron Bartell said. "I think he's starting to prove to a lot of people why he went No. 2" in the draft.
As Long noted, proving himself — solely by himself — is important to him.
"I feel like I'm playing better," he said. "I'm just trying to be a part of this defense, and where it's going is really exciting to me. It's really fun every week to come out and try to challenge myself to improve."
sports family
Howie and Diane Long raised three sons: Chris, now 25; Kyle, 21; and Howie Jr., 20. All grew up immersed in sports, and still are. Kyle is a 6-7, 290-pound defensive end — of course — at Saddleback College, a junior college in Mission Viejo, Calif. Howie Jr., 5-11 and 175, plays lacrosse at the University of Virginia, Chris' alma mater.
"I think we went through eight or nine years of little league (baseball), and then I went through nine or 10 years of high school" sports, Howie Sr. said.
Howie Long spent 13 seasons (1981-93) in the NFL, all with the Raiders. An eight-time Pro Bowler, he was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 2000.
Howie and Diane, who worked as a corporate lawyer, lived in Los Angeles after he retired. But as their family grew, they decided to look for a better place to raise the boys.
They settled on Charlottesville, Va., a pastoral college town founded in 1762. The Long boys embraced the bucolic setting. They swam in the James River. Chris fished in Sugar Hollow, a passion he still enjoys. "I like being outside," he said.
Howie said he "honestly really didn't" attempt to steer Chris toward football. But shortly after the move, Chris decided that he wanted to give his dad's sport a try.
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ST. LOUIS RAMS NEWS CLIPS
Publication: STLtoday.com
Section/# of Pages: Sports/2 of 2
Date: 10/24/10
Howie was skeptical; Diane was worried.
"Late at night after everyone's in bed, I turned to my wife and said, 'Oh, he'll get his nose bloodied and he'll come home and won't want to play,'" Howie said.
He admits that he underestimated his son's determination. "The one thing he does have is a very strong will," Howie said.
That trait came in handy; Chris has taken his time flourishing at each level. "He started out slow in high school and became a great player, started out slow in college and became a great player, started out slow in the pros and I think he's moving in the direction of being a significant player," Howie said.
"That's kind of the pattern for him. He adapts well. He's kind of a 12-rounder kind of a guy." 'a perfect fit'
James Hall, the Rams' veteran defensive end, saw Long struggle to adjust to the Rams' 4-3 scheme as a rookie after playing in a 3-4 at Virginia, then flounder at bit last year when asked to play in several places.
Now, Long is 'starting to understand how to come up with a game plan to rush guys, and it's been paying off for him," Hall said. Long has taken over at the left end spot that Leonard Little occupied for nearly a decade, piling up 87½ sacks. "It's been nice just to be able to try to focus and really home in on what I'm doing," Long said. "I feel like there's a lot of things I can do over there that can help this team."
It's a perfect fit, according to Howie Long.
"I think the left end position is a natural position for him," he said. "His power arm is his right arm. And then what comes is getting used to playing all the blocking combinations out of a right-handed stance on the left side of the defense.
"And the quicker you become kind of fluent at playing the blocking combinations, the faster you start to play, the more the game starts to slow down."
Before you know it, you're getting in the face of quarterbacks and disrupting offenses.
"We've always had great promise for Chris," Rams defensive coordinator Ken Flajole said. "I'm glad he's starting to get some production from a stats standpoint because he deserves it. He works hard."
On the field, Long is "all out," Bartell said. "Every snap, you know he's going to bring it. He's a very intense guy."
After his first two NFL seasons, Howie Long had recorded 5½ sacks. Chris posted nine in the same span. But Howie erupted for 13 in his third season, a number Chris isn't likely to attain this year.
Still, two sacks last week against San Diego pushed his total to 2½, a pace that would give him seven for the season. He also has a team- high six quarterback pressures.
And so the pattern of incremental progress that his father outlined continues.
"I just feel like the more I do something, the better I get at it," Chris said. "You're going to have some setbacks, no doubt about it. But if you just keep the faith in what you're doing and just continue to trust that the work you're putting in is going to pay off, you've got to believe it will."
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ST. LOUIS RAMS NEWS CLIPS
Publication: STLToday.com
Section/# of Pages: Sports/1 of 2
Date: 10/4/10
Burwell: Jackson a warrior in Rams' win BY BRYAN BURWELL
In the unusual din of another noisy winning locker room, Steven Jackson stood in front of his stall Sunday afternoon and began the sort of delicate procedure that only gimpy running backs and horror movie mummies are familiar with.
"Look at all of this stuff that kept me together," he bellowed. The Rams' running back began to peel off the many protective layers that had essentially kept him all together during a 20-3 victory over the Seattle Seahawks. A victory that not only put his surprising 2-2 team in a first-place tie for the NFC West lead, but also pushed Jackson up a notch in the Rams' record book.
First he carefully took off the white game pants, then it was the gray compression shorts with the high-tech bubble-wrapped padding. That revealed an odd looking, black corset-like contraption that had a bunch of Velcro straps on it that zig-zagged across his tender right leg and strained groin like wire on a burlap sack.
"They got so many things wrapped on me, I couldn't move my leg in the wrong direction even if I tried," he said, laughing again. "Look at this. Strapped in pretty good. And I have two more pairs of compression shorts on under this too."
And somehow, it all worked out just fine.
Jackson was not even remotely close to 100 percent Sunday, but nursing a badly strained groin muscle, and swaddled in more protective layers than King Tut's corpse, this was perhaps one of the most impressive games of his seven-year NFL career.
For the record, this was the day that Jackson (6,991 yards) moved into second place on the Rams' all-time career rushing list. He passed the legendary Marshall Faulk (6,959 yards) early in the fourth quarter on a 15-yard run that allowed him to close within 354 yards of Hall of Famer Eric Dickerson's club record 7,245 yards. But that wasn't how Jackson made his biggest impression.
This wasn't about records. This was about all those things that lead to records. Heart and soul and effort and will to win. This was about all those things that lead to professional respect like hard-nosed, warrior-like running in a game no one outside the Rams locker room thought was possible after watching him get his groin pulled apart like taffy a week ago against the Washington defense.
The stat line will say he gained only 70 yards on 22 carries, for a 3.2-yard average, plus 54 yards receiving. But the stat sheet doesn't begin to tell the full story of what Jackson accomplished.
Though he lacked the ability to open it up and truly run at full speed, and all the protection wrapped him up so tight he couldn't make any abrupt change of direction, Jackson put on a gutsy show that was a highlight of competitive toughness.
Remember the fourth-and-1 play in the second quarter when Jackson slammed into the Seattle defense, ran into a wall of defenders, kept pumping his feet and somehow popped out for a 5-yard gain?
"Steven's a warrior," said head coach Steve Spagnuolo.
Remember the 49-yard screen pass in the third quarter, when he burst through so many reaching, groping, flailing Seahawks defenders, running just hard enough to shed those tacklers like so many pesky flies, but not quite hard enough to cause that tender muscle to tear? "He's a competitor," said offensive lineman Adam Goldberg.
Remember the two 15-yard runs in the fourth quarter that were simply the power of Jackson's burning will to lead his team to victory? "I was not able to run full speed," said Jackson. "But as a leader, you can't preach one thing and do something else."
So he strapped it up, put on his big boy pants and played as fine a game as he has ever played in his football life, even if the stat sheet will never properly reflect it, which seems to be typical of Jackson's life here as a Ram.
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ST. LOUIS RAMS NEWS CLIPS
Publication: STLToday.com
Section/# of Pages: Sports/2 of 2
Date: 10/4/10
It's taken Jackson seven long years to push past Faulk — perhaps the most celebrated St. Louis Ram of them all — on the franchise's all- time career rushing list. When his career is all done, Jackson will be on top of that career list by a country mile, because all he does is carry that rock like a big man should. He carries it with a violent urgency, just like all the other great NFL big backs before him did. And when he is all done, there is little doubt that people will remember Steven Jackson as one of the best to ever play the game.
But because he has played for so many awful teams in those seven years — and factor in a lot of ancillary, ignorant nonsense that was never, ever about football — Jackson's popularity in this town has always come in begrudgingly stingy doses. Jackson's part of that special, under-appreciated fraternity in St. Louis sports with the likes of Tony La Russa, who could never be Whitey Herzog, Marc Bulger, who could never be Kurt Warner and probably Edgar Renteria, who wasn't Ozzie Smith. Every last one of them was cursed with the unfortunate burden of following a legend, and never knowing how to step out of the impossible shadows cast by those fan favorites. So Jackson's cardinal sin was that he wasn't Faulk, which sadly prevented a lot of folks from developing a full appreciation for all the hard work and athletic excellence that Jackson kept producing every football Sunday.
Jackson kept running hard, kept banging away, kept sacrificing his body, gobbling up yards and earning professional respect all around the league.
And now there is a change in the mood around here. This is not such a bad looking football team any more. And if the victories do begin piling up, perhaps that will provide Jackson with the universal respect he should have earned around here a long time ago.
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ST. LOUIS RAMS NEWS CLIPS
Publication: STLToday.com
Section/# of Pages: Sports/1 of 2
Date: 10/5/10
Burwell: It's easy to forget Bradford is a rookie BY BRYAN BURWELL
So this was one of those embarrassingly wonderful moments a football coach aches for. This was one of those silly, sensational moments when you slap yourself on the head like you're in the middle of a V-8 commercial. This was moments of blessed clarity when you just sit there and look at everyone else in the room and everybody smiles like a litter full of Cheshire cats.
And so there was Steve Spagnuolo on Monday morning, sitting around in some coaches' office upstairs at Rams Park, and the wide screen