EARTH CITY, Mo. -- In search of ways to loosen things up during their 2015 training camp, the St. Louis Rams added musical accompaniment to individual drills at their first practice Friday.
According to quarterback Nick Foles, he was supposed to get first crack at playing the role of DJ. But Foles apparently didn't take to the job, perhaps because he has bigger fish to fry than worrying about a 15-minute playlist.
“I was supposed to be," Foles said. "I did not do my part. So I don’t know where it came from, but I thought it was pretty good. I liked having the playlist with stretching. I can’t take the credit for it. I’m not going to take the credit for it. Someone else did it and I’ll find out who it was.”
Considering the amount of work on Foles' plate in this camp as he adjusts to a Rams offense that's vastly different from the wide-open attack he guided with the Philadelphia Eagles, he can be forgiven for failing to put together a few songs to open practice.
Heading toward the 2015 season, the Rams are betting big on Foles in the belief that having much-needed stability at quarterback will be enough to push them from mediocrity to contention. Although Foles missed the second half of last season with a broken collarbone, he's at least got a cleaner medical history than Sam Bradford, whom the Rams traded for Foles in March.
General manager Les Snead points out that the Rams managed to win about 40 percent of their games while playing with backup quarterbacks Kellen Clemens, Austin Davis and Shaun Hill over the past couple of seasons. That's a number that exceeds the league average, which is around 26 percent, but falls short of Foles' efforts as a starter.
"I would anticipate that," Snead said. "Nick has won 63 percent of his games. That's one of the big reasons going back to Sam, it would have been hard to let Sam go and not have a replacement. Because we've kind of lived through that. Once Nick became available, that made it very intriguing because he's actually taken a team to the playoffs. I'm not saying it's all him, but he was part of a good organization, good team, good coaching staff, and they did what they had to do."
Foles has also done what he's had to do since arriving in St. Louis. Teammates, coaches and personnel types rave about Foles' willingness to come in and ingratiate himself right away. He spends extra time working with his receivers and never hesitated to make himself available if any of his pass-catchers wanted to put in extra work.
The immediate presence of such leadership has apparently been enough to make the Rams want to keep Foles around for the long term even though he has yet to take a snap in a game for the team. Those contract talks are ongoing but Foles said Friday he has no intention of letting it become a distraction.
“You know honestly, I just zone it out," Foles said. "That’s why you hire agents because my thing here is to be with these guys, to be a player, to be their quarterback. We have to win games. We hire agents so that clears the clutter out of our brain, and you know I trust them to do the job. I love it here. I love the players. I love the coaches. It’s a great place to play and I haven’t even played a game here yet and I love it. So that will take care of itself."
In the meantime, Foles' primary focus is on diving deeper into the playbook and getting a firmer grasp on all that it contains. Between organized team activities and the start of camp, Foles said he stayed sharp by devoting time each day to studying while also doing some throwing.
But even though Foles is still a relative St. Louis neophyte, he's already feeling at home with the Rams.
“I feel really comfortable," Foles said. "A lot more comfortable than I did in OTAs and, well, that’s a daily thing. There’s so much to an NFL playbook that you’re always adding stuff, you’re always critiquing stuff. There’s better fundamentals that you can do. But I feel really comfortable. We have great coaches. You know [offensive coordinator Frank] Cignetti and [quarterbacks] Coach [Chris] Weinke do a great job of preparing us. So I’m feeling good, just have to keep going.”
And when he's finally settled, perhaps Foles can deliver Florida Georgia Line and various other country music artists that he prefers to blare from the speakers.