By Nick Wagoner
Senior Writer

MEQUON, Wis. – There were no full scale skirmishes, nary a serious injury and no real breakout stars. In short, Saturday’s scrimmage was a quick, clean practice that hardly resembled the one that took place in the 2007 preseason.

And for coach Scott Linehan and Co. that was just fine.

“(We’ve) got a long ways to go yet, but I’m very encouraged by the approach to this morning,” Linehan said. “And now we’re kind of into the preseason mode.”

Indeed, the Rams hit and passed the first benchmark of the preseason in front of an impressive crowd of about 2,000 at Century Stadium on the campus of Concordia University.

Although this scrimmage lacked the excitement of the full scale brawl that broke out last year between the offense and defense or a breakout star such as linebacker Quinton Culberson, the Rams accomplished plenty during the hour-and-a-half session.

While the format didn’t allow for much in the way of scoring because the Rams wanted to work on situations more than scoring, it did allow everyone a chance to prove himself.

The first string offense was limited to about 18 snaps with starter Marc Bulger taking a dozen of those reps and backup Trent Green handling the other half dozen.

In perhaps the most encouraging sign of the scrimmage, Bulger and the top offensive unit put a cap on a three or four day string of sharp performances by the offense with another solid outing. 

Bulger and the offense were clearly behind the defense for most of the opening week of camp but that unit rebounded in recent days. Bulger said the reason for the improvement comes from finally having the chance to take all of the time he spent studying and turning that mental work into physical execution.

“(It was) probably quarterback play, I know, we were a little rusty at first. At least I was,” Bulger said.

In fact, Bulger had been struggling in the opening days with his reads and missing throws that are generally automatic for him. With each passing day, though, fewer balls have hit the ground and it’s been no coincidence that as Bulger goes so goes the offense.

“(It’s) just getting familiar with the terminology again and remembering your reads,” Bulger said. “Quarterbacks Coach (Terry) Shea gave us tests over the summer to do, but until you get out and run them at least once or twice, you start out a little bit slow, but I think we’re back to picking our game speed up. Our reads are quicker; we’re starting to get the ball out quicker and that helps the whole offense get going.”

Bulger completed five of his seven pass attempts for an estimated 43 yards (there was no way to keep official statistics because there was no “live” tackling or spots). On one play, Bulger hooked up with receiver Drew Bennett on a 20-yard out that was about as surgical as any play the Rams have hit in this camp.

Bulger also connected with Dane Looker and Torry Holt, among others.

“I think I needed a couple days to get it back in groove and you walk out of a huddle and you know your read and you don’t have to think about it that’s when you can go back and put the ball where you want it,” Bulger said. “If you’re thinking about where the ball goes on certain coverages, that’s when you’re late and in this offense that’s when you look out of place.”

The offense’s success doesn’t diminish what the defense has done, though. For the most part, the defense has been in control and that group gave up only a couple of touchdowns in Saturday’s scrimmage. One was a 10-yard pass from third-string competitor Bruce Gradkowski to rookie receiver Keenan Burton and the other a 10-yard burst off right tackle by undrafted rookie back Lance Ball.

The defense had its moments, too, though the only turnover came on a special teams miscue by Dante Hall of a Donnie Jones punt that was recovered by Eric Bassey.

Rookie end Chris Long was mostly held in check by Orlando Pace but did get past the big fella on one play. Linebacker Marc Magro had success in coverage and rushing the passer and fellow linebacker Chris Chamberlain made plays from sideline to sideline.

More often than not, the defense is expected to be ahead of offenses in the early stages of the offseason. Most teams hope the offense catches up sooner than later and it appears the Rams are on their way.

“The more and more the ones go in, including myself and everybody can continue to go at the same time and on the same clip, play, after play, after play, I think we will continue to get better and better but overall the last three or four days, we have been very efficient,” Holt said. “Marc and Trent are doing a great job of placing the ball, guys have been catching it, running it and the blocking schemes and everything up front, and there have been some lanes, some running lanes for the backs so thus far things are going well. So we just have to continue to build on what’s established right now and go from there.”

For the most part, Linehan was pleased with the performance of all three areas of his team on Saturday but he didn’t leave with a completely satisfied feeling.

The officials threw flags for a number of pre-snap penalties, an area the Rams were one of the five worst teams in the league at a year ago.

The team also had some issues with alignments, including one miscue that had Linehan and defensive coordinator Jim Haslett barking at each other though it was mainly playful, according to both parties.

“We still had a couple pre-snap issues,” Linehan said. “If you want to be a good team or a great team, you can’t line up wrong; you can’t jump off-sides.  But it wasn’t many, it was a couple though. We’ll have to rattle our cages a little bit on that because those are self-inflicted wounds that you can’t have.”

Now that the scrimmage benchmark has been reached, the players will have tonight off and don’t have to re-convene until a 6:15 meeting on Sunday night. After that, they hit the practice field again on Monday and again Tuesday morning before departing for a few days of scrimmages against the Titans in Tennessee on Tuesday afternoon.

“We’ve got our first game coming up,” Linehan said. “We’ve got a really challenging week this week.”