RAMS : It’s Early, but Young Has Leg Up on Competition

IRVINE â€”  Although fifth-round draft picks are usually not the answer to a defense’s every problem, Ram tackle Robert Young showed in Saturday’s scrimmage that he could be the solution to at least some of them.

Young, who at 6 feet 6 has legs longer than some running backs, bobbed and weaved his way through the Chargers’ offensive line quick and hard enough for two sacks. He has continued to perform at that level in the team’s first few practices this week.

The Rams, desperate for pass rushing of any kind and critically in need of some inside, have taken notice. It’s still early, and Young, who is raw and rangy, is still getting used to playing inside. . . . but the Rams have taken notice.

“He’s moving up,” defensive line coach John Teerlinck said. “He’s just got to keep working, and we’ll see if we can find a place for him.”

Young was a pass-rushing specialist at defensive end for Mississippi State, recording 10 sacks his junior season before he was asked to play the run more as a senior. But the Rams, who couldn’t land an impact defensive tackle on Day 1 of the draft, started off Day 2 by selecting a player they hoped could someday provide a big inside push from a tackle spot.

On Saturday, at least, Young did just that, garnering two sacks and playing reasonably well against the run.

With only 273 pounds on his lanky frame, Young is a candidate to get bullied inside, but so far his quickness off the ball has made up for any lack of bulk.

“That’s my thing, right there,” Young said Monday. “I’m not one blessed with that much strength, so I’ve got to use what the Lord blessed me with, and that’s quickness.”

Presently, the Rams are planning for Mike Piel and Alvin Wright to be the starting tackles, and neither one is known as a sack man. It is possible that Young--or anyone else who shows quarterback-hunting abilities--could see some time in passing situations this season.

Young has been practicing with the second unit at right tackle--the tackle most responsible for rushing the passer.

In a defense that prizes dominant linemen above anyone else, the jobs are there for whomever is most aggressive.

“I don’t want to compare him to the other bunch, but he’s doing very well,” Coach John Robinson said. “Obviously, he’s a specimen and obviously the developed part of him is his legs.

“He’s got a great pair of legs and a powerful lower body, and the area where he can improve is strengthwise. And he’s 280 (pounds) now, in that area, and has some movement ability.

“He would catch your eye no matter what. If you were a football person out here, you’d walk out and say, ‘Who’s that guy?’ ”

Young, for his part, says he knows jobs are available to be won in the defensive line, and he will play wherever the coaches decide he belongs.

“This is about what I did in college, that’s the way I got my name, doing what I’m doing,” Young said. “I wouldn’t be here if there weren’t opportunities here. And I wouldn’t want to be here if there weren’t.”

Young says it’s interesting to see every member of the defense, even veterans such as Kevin Greene and Alvin Wright, struggle to fully comprehend the new system and line play implemented by new coordinator Jeff Fisher and Teerlinck.

“It’s good in a way, but in a way, it’s kind of crazy,” Young said. “I’m coming in, just turned 22, but I’m seeing guys who just made it here themselves, and you’re all looking to know what’s going on.

“They’re just as fresh to the whole deal as I am. It’s kind of weird.”

Jimmy Raye runs a route, the pass goes incomplete, and he hears it from Dad. Not later that night. Not from a weekly phone call. Not in a letter.

He hears it from his father that moment, in front of everybody, on the field, like it or not. Jimmy Raye, the free-agent receiver from San Diego State and Irvine High School, is the son of Jimmy Raye, the Rams’ new receivers coach and passing game coordinator.

“I think he’s more critical with me,” Raye the receiver says with a smile about Raye the coach. “He critiques everything I do. Even if I know in my mind I did it exactly right, he’s going to find something wrong with it, and he’s only on me about staying with the fundamentals and doing what they’ve coached us to do.”

The junior Raye, who acknowledges he is a long shot to make the Rams roster, says he could have tried out with another NFL team, but instead chose to experience this particular type of father-son relationship.

“I put it on him,” the son says of his father. “I said if you were me, what would you do? And he thought it’d be better for me to come here.

“Why? I don’t know. This is probably a better situation, anyway, but I just think. . . . It was good for the family, especially because my mom, she was telling me, ‘Well, I’m selfish, too, I want you here so we can all be in the same area if you’re lucky enough to make the team.’ ”