Changes Around the League That Surprised the Rams' Coaching Staff

Like many teams, the Los Angeles Rams did their best to learn the league's new kickoff rules and how to gain new advantages on kickoffs and kickoff returns.

Following Organized Team Activities, Rams Special Teams Coordinator Chase Blackburn elaborated on what surprised him the most about the results of the league's new kickoff rules that were implemented last season.

"There was probably less of the on the ground ball than I expected, and when people did kick it on the ground, they were successful, when we did it on the ground, we were successful, but there's a risk reward inherently with that about being able to control that ball and being short or kicking out of bounds," Blackburn said.

"So you got to weigh those based upon game situations and different things and where is our offensive, defense, how we're playing, what's the score of the game, weather, obviously we play indoors, but those outdoor games playing in Philly in the snow, you're not really going to try to take some of those risks in those situations."

Blackburn noted that last season's kickoff results were skewed as teams spent most of the early part of last season still figuring things out. Players and coaches were not the only ones who had to adjust to the changes; the officials did too.

"Where I think there wasn't probably quite as many explosives, but if you look as the season as it progressed, I feel like just going back and going through it over and over again is early in the year, teams were trying to figure out both sides of it and it was kind of more vanilla schemes," Blackburn said.

"Then you started getting some of the power and pull schemes and some inside zones, and some more offensive style plays, and kick return group started picking up and having a little more success. I think we hit our stride as the back half of the year progressed and having (WR) Jordan ‘J Whitt’  (Whittington) back there and (WR) Xavier (Smith) and (RB) Blake Corum and the number of guys we use back there for different skill sets and different return styles, we can use that stuff to our advantage and I think more teams found that out as the season progressed."

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