HBO's Hard Knocks featured how the Chargers and Rams handled social justice. It also showed rookie QB Justin Herbert's good/bad, and Mike Williams injury.
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00:00Hey, welcome in. Eric Williams from Sports Illustrated. I cover the Rams. I'm here, of course, with Fernando Ramirez, who covers the Chargers.
00:07We're going to discuss Hard Knocks Episode 4, which I think kind of took on a serious tone, which is understandable based on current events and what's happening in Wisconsin with the police shooting.
00:18And that was really a highlight of the Chargers' perspective in terms of Hard Knocks. I imagine that's where you want to begin there, Fernando.
00:25Yeah, Eric. So basically, Anthony Lynn said that he was driving to the stadium to SoFi to have their scrimmage, and he thought, you know what, this isn't the time.
00:34It's better if we settle down, talk this out. And he said, and you can see it in Hard Knocks, I don't care how long we're in here, as long as we're in here and we're talking.
00:44And when he talked to the players after he canceled the scrimmage and everything, special teams coach George Stewart's message was, man, I've been through this for 62 years.
00:54And it's still going on. And you could just tell from the player, we talked to Tyrod after, Isaac Rochelle, and you could tell it really resonated with them that their coach has been going through this for a long time and it's still going on.
01:06So that was one of the things that you took away from that. And obviously, Anthony Lynn taking a stand and saying we're not going to practice, we're going to bring awareness to this.
01:13He had players behind him. And so it was just one of those moments where you're like, OK, everybody just needs to sit down and listen.
01:21And after it's after they do all that, he's sitting there with Tyrod Taylor and they ask him, hey, coach, are we going to do practice?
01:28Are we going to move this scrimmage or something else? And then Anthony's just sitting there like with a smile on his face.
01:32And he's like, I think I'll think about it on my way home, because, I mean, it was just they were just going as they were and they were kind of making stuff, making it as they were going.
01:43So moving on to Justin Herbert, we got to see a little bit more from him. It's kind of been what's been going on with Justin this camp.
01:51Good plays, bad plays. You see some of the growing pains. You see some of the hope. And Justin makes good throws.
01:57He is a good quarterback and I think he could develop into a good quarterback. It's just that he still makes those little rookie mistakes that you're supposed to make as a rookie.
02:04I mean, it's crazy. People think that he's going to come out and just have a great camp.
02:10That's not it. You have to go through those growing pains. And I think we saw it in Pep Hamilton. It was interesting.
02:15When you see Justin come off, who is he always with? Pep Hamilton. And that's why Anthony Lynn brought in Pep Hamilton to kind of guide him.
02:23And you saw Chris Harris Jr. go, wow, 10's pretty good. So, I mean, he can sling it. He's made very good plays.
02:30He's going through the growing pains, but that's what the Chargers want. They want him to learn.
02:34And with the shortened offseason, I mean, obviously he was going to have some of these growing pains and he's getting them out of the way.
02:40And last but not least, Mike Williams' injury. I mean, Eric, I was there and everybody was having fun.
02:47They were talking. It went silent because they know how important Mike Williams is.
02:52He's come a long way from his rookie year where he had no production.
02:55People were starting to use the B word, bust. And he's one of the top deep threats now in the NFL.
03:02It went silent. You even saw Phil McGagan, the receivers coach, he runs up and he's like, oh, my God, he starts cursing.
03:08And it was cool that he did that. He donated to St. Jude for every curse word that he had there.
03:14I think we should allow him to curse because he got nervous.
03:17That's one of his top receivers. And he goes down and he runs over to him.
03:20So that was just my take. Mike obviously holding his arm and Lynn is like, are you OK? Are you OK?
03:26And Mike would just not respond.
03:28So Lynn told us that he hopes that they will have Mike Williams back by Cincinnati,
03:32but that he still doesn't know it's too early. What did you see from the Rams?
03:36Well, just kind of circling back with how we began, I think it's been kind of the social justice issues
03:41and how are guys going to deal with that?
03:43You saw the Rams having kind of an uncomfortable conversation between a lot of their leadership guys
03:48in terms of how they're going to address it, you know,
03:50where they're going to make a symbolic gesture and not practice,
03:54or are they going to try to take some kind of action?
03:56And I think the leadership of the Rams with Robert Woods kind of leading them landed on
04:01they wanted to do some kind of action instead of having a symbolic gesture.
04:06And they're creating a fund that they're hoping that the NFL will match in order to do social justice,
04:11community related things in the Los Angeles community.
04:14And so it'll be interesting, again, moving forward to see how this impacts locally,
04:20Los Angeles area, both with the Rams and the Chargers,
04:23and trying to better the situation in terms of systemic racism.
04:28There were a few things that happened on the field.
04:30We got to take a closer look at Van Jefferson, the rookie second round draft pick of the Rams,
04:35polished receiver, guy looks like he's going to make an impact right away.
04:39A lot of guys are kind of talking about him and his ability to create separation,
04:44both in the intermediate and down the field.
04:47And you saw that in hard knocks.
04:49And then I think lastly, roster cuts, we're starting to see that now.
04:52The Rams made a couple moves, brought in some depth at linebacker where they need experience.
04:58And I think we're going to see that obviously moving forward in the last episode.
05:02That'll do it for us here.
05:04We'll be back to wrap up the final week of hard knocks next week.
05:08Hopefully you can join us.