Rams use Day 7 of Training Camp to learn and listen

LOS ANGELES–– There's much to marvel at in the sky even when clouds are absent. Birds suspended in flight. Planes traversing the blue expanse. The sun walking across the face of the firmament.

Nothing is there to obstruct your vision.

Even with the Rams in shirts and t-shirts on Day 7 of Training Camp, an exhale disguised as effort—the day more relaxed, the tempo dialed down—there was much to observe when it appears otherwise. How butterflies lined up in the backfield and onside, indifferent to the millionaires in its midst. 

And yet the things that matter most in July rarely happen at full speed.

How Trent McDuffie used every rep to dial in and hone his craft. How Sean McVay and Chris Shula taught seasoned vets an install as they walked through.

Kyren Williams joked with McDuffie, Emmanuel Forbes Jr. and Jaylen Watson. 

Jordan Whittington and Xavier Smith took reps at punt return. 

The defense yelled calls while they executed their hand signals. 

McVay, always seeking to add value, coached up Quentin Lake and McDuffie.

The defense worked on different blitz packages. The defensive line worked on games, stunts and twists. The offensive line worked on identifying it all and executing pickups.

Sunday was the third day of the Rams' second training camp block—a scheduled walk-through practice without pads or contact.

 No hitting. No flying. 

Just football in its purest form. 

Teaching. Learning. Building.

"It's a mental grind," Davante Adams said. "It's a combination of mental and physical. It's not just supposed to come out here and just tear your body down to separate the boys from the men. That's the old school way of doing things."

The old school way? That's not this team. This team is different.

Sean McVay is a teacher first.

He stood on the grass at LMU, watching, correcting, coaching. Not just the offense. 

Not just his side. 

Everyone. 

He coached up Lake and McDuffie on the defense. 

He roamed. He observed. He poured.

"Most importantly, our job is to provide clarity for our players so that they can go out there, play as quick, as decisive as possible, without any sort of indecision when there's 22 moving parts every single snap," McVay said.

Clarity. That's the word. Not complexity. Not volume. Clarity.

"If we're at a certain point in our installs and we don't really show that we have the ownership of stuff, then we're not going to install the following day," McVay said. "We'll go back to it."

No rushing. No racing. No installing for the sake of installing. 

Just teaching. Just learning. Just building that foundation brick by brick.

"We take it a day at a time," McVay said. "Let's raise the floor as much as we possibly can for the consistency."

Chris Shula is the quiet architect.

Shula spends these walk-through days building the architecture for that proof. McVay lauded his defensive coordinator as a teacher who connects before he corrects. The two coaches were seen Saturday walking veterans through installs, hands moving, voices low, the kind of teaching that looks like conversation but functions as foundation.

I asked McVay about his defensive coordinator. About Shula as a teacher. As a leader. 

The answer came easy.

"He's a great communicator, incredibly clear, got a really sound teaching progression," McVay said. "The humility is what really strikes you about Chris. He's got this great capacity and confidence, but he's very disarming in the way that he ends up correcting guys because they know he loves them and cares about him."

Connect before you correct. That's the Shula way.

"He's got a great ability to be able to empower his assistants, and I think that creates the collaboration and cohesion we're looking for," McVay said. "I can't say enough good things about what a great person and great coach that he is."

McDuffie does not need much instruction. He spent Saturday sharpening what Adams later called "the right technique, the right way of reading you out, the right position on any given play." Adams, who led the NFL with 14 touchdown catches last season, compared McDuffie to a golfer who does not wait for luck but puts the ball by the pin every single time.

"He's doing something every single play," Adams said. "Some guys make plays because they fall into them. He's making the plays."

Nate Landman is stepping up.

The outside linebacker room lost a big personality in Jared Verse. The trade that brought Myles Garrett to L.A. sent Verse to Cleveland. 

The energy shifted. The voice changed.

"Jared was a Ram, pure Ram in and out, and so yeah, I love that guy and we miss his energy around here for sure," Landman said. "But other guys are stepping up in that regard and being themselves in the process, too."

Landman is one of those guys. Elected a captain in his first season in L.A.. Wore the green dot on gamedays. Now he's the second-oldest inside linebacker on the roster. 

The veteran. The voice.

"I think I've always been a vocal leader, and something that comes with my position, and something that I'm comfortable with," Landman said. "It's always great to get another year under your belt and be with the same guys. Those relationships are just growing from one year to the next."

The continuity in the linebacker room matters. Omar Speights and Shaun Dolac are back. Grant Stuard is new. 

But the foundation is there. The trust is building.

"You're always looking to improve," Landman said. "Nobody's perfect in this game. Nobody's above coaching, and so I'm looking forward to taking that new step, more confident in the calls, more confident defense, and my ability, and the guys around me, building trust and just focusing on doing my job."

Adams is the old man who feels young.

Then there was Adams, the man who calls himself a teenager in the NFL, talking about the plane ride after last season's final loss. He described Matthew Stafford turning around in his seat, eyes heavy, voice soft.

"He told me on the bus after, he's like, 'I wanted that for you so bad,'" Adams said. "Not for him. He wanted it for me."

Thirteen years in the league. Thirteen training camps. Thirteen times he's done this dance. And yet.

"I battle with that sometimes," Adams said. "It's like because I am the old man and I feel young because I can still go out there and do young man stuff, but then my body don't necessarily feel the same way after it's done as it was back in the day."

The body doesn't lie. The mind doesn't either. 

But the heart? The heart keeps going.

"If I can continue to play at a high level, I'll deal with the other stuff, the extra pain," Adams said. "It's just a little extra work you got to do to come out of it. As long as you're loving it, right?"

He's loving it. You can see it. You can hear it. You can feel it.

Adams led the Rams in receiving touchdowns last season. He caught passes from reigning MVP Stafford. He's going into Year 13 with the same hunger he had in Year 1.

"I always felt like a leader," Adams said. "It's just one of those things where I can't wait to pour into the next man. That's why it's great to have guys like Puka [Nacua], like CJ [Daniels], like Jordan. I mean, he could go out and be an All-Pro without my help. But if I can give him just a couple little pieces that'll help take his game to the next level, that's what I'm here for."

He's not just a receiver. He's a coach. A mentor. A sage.

The rookie connection is real.

Ty Simpson and Daniels. The first-round pick and the sixth-round pick. The rookie quarterback and the rookie receiver. They keep connecting. They keep cooking.

Simpson made "perhaps his best throw of camp" on Saturday, hitting Daniels down the field for a touchdown between three defenders. On the final play of practice, Simpson delivered a touchdown to Daniels between two defenders in the back of the end zone.

The footwork? Needs work. The arm? Elite. The connection? Undeniable.

Simpson is getting every opportunity. With Stafford resting on the first and third days of each four-day block, Simpson and Stetson Bennett are running the offense. The rookie is soaking it up.

McVay has been impressed.

"I've been so impressed with what Stetson Bennett has done and the growth that he's had, the ownership of the offense," McVay said. "Can feel his teammates want to root for him and he's played really well through the offseason program and up until now. And that's been a real positive for us."

Myles Garrett is resting. Not broken.

The defensive end missed his third straight practice. The fans wondered. The media asked. McVay answered.

"He has a little soreness in his lower half, but nothing to worry about," McVay said. "We're erring on the side of being smart with him. Reggie [Scott] and those guys do such a great job and he is as tough as it gets. And so we want to make sure that he feels as good as possible."

Garrett is dealing with "a little soreness in his lower half". The team is "erring on the side of being smart" with him.

No reason for concern. Just caution. Just preservation.

"There's nothing to worry about," McVay said. "It's more about how do we keep him as fresh as possible."

He won't practice on Monday either. The team will see what it looks like after the day off. McVay expects him to be ready for the next block.

The tight end room is deep.

Tyler Higbee is back for Year 11. The longest-tenured Ram. The franchise leader in receptions, yards and touchdowns for a tight end. And he's not taking it for granted.

"I understand how rare it is to be in the same position or on the same team for as long as I have been," Higbee said. "I don't take that lightly so I give everything I've got. I try to be the best I can, best teammate, best player. I come in here and I work every day and I expect to earn it. I don't feel like I'm just going to be here because I've been here that long."

McVay called him "the greatest tight end in Rams history." No argument here.

Higbee had 25 receptions for 281 yards and three touchdowns in 10 games last season. Colby Parkinson, Terrance Ferguson and  DavisAllen each had at least 200 yards and three scores. Rams tight ends combined to catch 17 of Stafford's 46 touchdowns during his MVP season.

The room is deep. The packages are multiple. The possibilities are endless.

"With getting all the guys on the field and some of the 13 personnel stuff, the more we can do, the more guys we can get out there," Higbee said. "We had a great group, a great year last year, and we're working to build on that."

The vibe is love.

Landman said it best. When asked about Shula's approach, about how camp is run, about the culture, he kept it simple.

"He's such a great mind," Landman said. "Chris has such a great job of teaching the progression from, you know, basics and that's what starts in OTAs. We kind of take things slow, building the foundation, our core four. And then, he does a great job matching that up with the rushing coverage and putting the players in their best spots to be successful in that for that individual."

One only needs to look at the length of practice. The intensity. The whole thing.

"All love," Kam Curl said. "I done been in some stuff that's totally opposite."

This isn't that. This is different. This is the Rams way.

McVay is more patient now. He said so himself.

"I'm more patient now," McVay said. "I'm getting more patient as I'm getting older."

The teaching is the priority. The clarity is the goal. The connection is the currency.

The work continues.

Day 7 is in the books. 

Shirts and t-shirts. Walk-through speed. 

Teaching tempo. No pads. No contact. No problem.

"One day at a time," McVay said. "One practice at a time. One meeting at a time."

The Rams can't win a Super Bowl today. They know that. Curl said it. Landman said it. McVay said it.

"We can't win a Super Bowl today," Curl said. "So the work got to be put in."

The work is being put in. At LMU. On the grass. In the heat. In the shirts and the t-shirts. In the walk-throughs and the installs. In the teaching and the learning.

The old teach the young; the young remind the old why they teach.

The words and whistles hung in the unobstructed sky. 

No clouds. No obstruction. 

Just the truth that football is never only about what happens at full speed.

Sometimes it reveals itself in the walk-through, in the quiet, in the spaces between contact where trust is built and debt is remembered.

Day 7 was slow. Deliberate. Purposeful.

The butterflies kept drifting. The sun kept walking. And the Rams, moving slowly, kept moving forward.

And that's exactly how it was supposed to be.