Travel restrictions cost Ravens
Rams re-sign DE Brockers after deal falls through
son all-star games, the league’s scouting combine, a few Pro Days across the country.
Where the coronavirus has made scouting difficult — interviews, Pro Day results, medical rechecks — the Ravens have innovated or found another source. Virtual meetings with prospects have replaced road interviews or visits to Baltimore. Analytics staffers have filled in the gaps on athletic testing. Scouts have worked their sources for the details that flesh out a scouting report.
“It’s been a little more challenging this year in terms of securing information,” DeCosta said. “Fortunately, we’ve been able to rely on our scouts, who I think are the best in the league, and also our coaches and their networks of contacts and people that can get us information to help us with the decision-making process. …
“We’ve met with these players, and we are always trying to assess their personalities, their drivers, their motivation, their love of the game, determination, work ethic and things like that. It all kind of plays together like a huge mosaic, and in the end, we’ll look at that, we’ll assess and we’ll find the best guys we can to make our team better.”
But, DeCosta acknowledged, there are “probably some questions that we simply can’t answer.” Some of them might be character-related. Mississippi State inside linebacker Willie Gay Jr., one of the most athletic prospects at the position and a potential Day 2 pick for the linebacker-needy Ravens, was suspended eight games last season for what he said was cheating on a test in chemistry class. Ahead of the Bulldogs’ bowl game, he reportedly got into an altercation that left a teammate with a broken orbital bone.
Injuries are another variable. Take Colorado wide receiver Laviska Shenault Jr., a first-round prospect before he ran a 4.58-second 40-yard dash at the combine and underwent surgery for a lingering core muscle problem. With a history of injuries and a drop-off in production last season, even new Buffaloes coach Karl Dorrell, a former NFL assistant coach who had scouted Shenault, acknowledged to the Denver Post that there would be “question marks because of this injury he has.”
“How do we value those unknowns, and what impact do those unknowns have on the process?” DeCosta said. “That takes time. That’s not easy for some of us who like to have as much information as possible. It brings me back to what it was like in 1996-97, really, before the internet, before we had all this information, how we went about our jobs before we had the chance to bring in 30 players to Baltimore predraft and spend time with those guys. How did we accomplish our goals?
“And I think some of our best drafts we’ve ever had were during that time frame, so we know it can be done. Like John [Harbaugh] said, every team is operating under the same parameters and the same rules. We’ve come up with a plan, we’ll adjust and we’ll figure it out.” and hotel staffs to attend to a diverse colto help them get through this prolonged
On Monday afternoon, they were less lection of players from multiple countries. lockdown period, the main driver of this certain how that plan would come This logistical nightmare would also conversation is the television money that together. Shortly before NFL commishave to include regular COVID-19 testing can be recouped once on-field operations sioner Roger Goodell sent a memo to tainly will prevent it from it becoming a for everyone inside that bubble, which resume. teams indicating that teams were exreal option, but the amount of revenue that could create a public relations backlash if That’s obviously a real issue for sports pected to “conduct their draft operations will be forfeited by the major sports that universal level of testing isn’t yet availthat annually reap billions of dollars in remotely, with club personnel separately leagues if nationwide stay-at-home orders able to the general public. revenue, but this is not a viable solution. located in their homes,” DeCosta said he persist well into the summer makes even Even if all that could be executed perMajor League Baseball and its players didn’t know where he’d run the Ravens’ extreme solutions seem plausible. fectly, this preternatural W.P. Kinsella are going to have to realize that they are far draft. MLB should disavow this one entirely novel of a baseball season would place an better equipped to ride out the worst of
More than anything, he just wanted to and end the debate. additional burden on a public health systhis pandemic than the average fan or the be prepared for the opportunity. That Such a plan would require thousands of tem in the Phoenix area that presumably small businesses that are closing up all over meant taking calls from coaches and players, staff members, baseball officials would still be dealing with the scourge of the country. scouts, reviewing film, ranking prospecand media to travel to Arizona and essencoronavirus pandemic. The experts still can’t predict with any ts, deciding how to make a 14-2 team tially be quarantined in hotels between bus There already is resistance forming to accuracy when the spread of the virus will even better. Business as usual, in other trips to play at Chase Field or the 10 spring the idea inside the sport. We can all be subside sufficiently to allow us to safely words. training stadiums within driving distance confident that when push comes to shove, stand within 3 feet of each other, so let’s
Until, well, it isn’t. “I don’t have a lot of of downtown Phoenix. the owners and the union will not be able not fool ourselves that the MLB season people knocking at this door,” DeCosta Though the games would be played to agree on a way to further prorate the could safely begin six or seven weeks from now.saidMonday,pointingbehindhim,toawithoutfansinattendance,thosesitesalreadyproratedplayersalariestocompenroom with a bookcase, some framed would require local workers to prepare the sate for the lack of gate receipts. We’d all love to be able to say that, but photos and a potted plant, “other than fields and handle other necessary ballpark Make no mistake. For all the talk about it’s still too early to project that there will my kids when it’s lunchtime.” operations, police and security guards to the integrity of the baseball schedule and be a season at all.
create a safe perimeter around each facility the desire to give fans a televised product
LOS ANGELES — Michael Brockers began his first trip into free agency with uncertainty and excitement about what might be next in an eight-year NFL career spent entirely with the Los Angeles Rams.
The stalwart defensive tackle ended up grateful for the bizarre twist that sent him back to the Rams after all.
For about 10 days last month, Brockers thought he was joining the Super Bowlcontending Baltimore Ravens on a lucrative three-year contract. But the Ravens couldn’t assuage their concerns about his left ankle because of travel restrictions caused by the coronavirus pandemic.
The worries led the Ravens to change its contract offer — and ultimately led Brockers to re-sign with the Rams, who had no such concerns about a player they know well.
“Ultimately, I guess (the Ravens) just took their contract back,” Brockers said in his first public comments on the saga. “They were worried about the past injuries and what the ankle looked like on the MRI. So from there, the (revised) contract that they did offer, it was a lot of insecurity. I wasn’t secure in the contract, so when the opportunity to go to the Rams came back, it was like heaven. I always wanted to be back with the Rams. Always wanted to stay here.”
Brockers and the Ravens’ medical personnel couldn’t travel to get a comprehensive examination of his ankle, which was badly sprained in the Rams’ regular-season finale. He underwent exams near his offseason home in Houston, but the Ravens got cold feet about what they saw.
“It was all fine and dandy until the physical,” Brockers said. “Getting an outsourced physical for a team where their doctors don’t really get to look at you, don’t get to put you through some tests that might skew different images that they might have gotten.”
Brockers and his wife had already moved out of their leased home near the Rams’ training complex as they resigned themselves to leaving Los Angeles, where they had lived for four years since the Rams’ relocation. The Rams are under severe salary cap constraints that forced them to part with several key veterans during the offseason, including starters Cory Littleton and Dante Fowler along with key role players Nickell Robey-Coleman and Marqui Christian.
But the Rams highly valued Brockers, who has started alongside Aaron Donald on the defensive line for Donald’s entire six-year career. Their partnership has been an ideal fit for both men, with Donald racking up his jaw-dropping numbers while Brockers largely does the dirty work on the line.
“That’s my brother,” Brockers said. “What we’ve built over these six years has been special. For me to sit back and tell my kids that I played with one of the greatest three-techs (pass-rushing interior defensive linemen) that ever played football is going to be awesome.”
Donald expressed his disappointment on social media when Brockers agreed to a deal with Baltimore. The two-time AP Defensive Player of the Year was all smiles and jokes online when Brockers found his way back.
“Aaron finally was talking to me again once we got Michael back,” coach Sean McVay said. “Hewas a little upset with me, I think, for a couple of days.”
The Rams already made plans to replace Brockers after they thought they had lost him. Los Angeles signed defensive tackle A’Shawn Robinson away from Detroit as a free agent, believing the four-year NFL veteran could fill much the same role on its defensive line.
But Los Angeles also paid close attention to Brockers and the Ravens, even after news of the initial deal came out through Brockers’ agent.
“We knew early in the game that there might be an issue with Baltimore and Michael and his physical,” Rams general manager Les Snead said. “At that point, I identified him as a bonus baby. Not that Michael’s a baby. But long story short, there was a bonus baby out there. Michael has meant a lot to us here with the Rams, and we felt like, OK, is there a way that we can actually bring him back? And now we’re better off on the defensive line than when we started.”
With the Ravens behind him, Brockers realizes he’s in rarefied company with the chance to play a full decade for just one NFL team. He is the longest-tenured player on Los Angeles’ defense, and only long snapper Jake McQuaide has spent more seasons with the team among the active Rams.
“We’re the 1% of the 1% of the 1%,” Brockers said. “So for me, man, this is a blessing. This is a once-in-a-lifetime chance, so I’m enjoying it as I go through it.”