Highlights from Billy Devaney's chat

St. Louis Rams GM Billy Devaney sat down at keyboard somewhere inside Rams Park - hopefully he wiped it down with disinfectant first - to chat with fans via the interwebs today. What insights did the GM have to offer?

There's not a lot to say. Draftniks will be disappointed because he was unable to get into any detail on the team's draft plans. Free agent talk is verboten this time of year too, but he did remind us that there are two very different free agent markets shaping up right now, a bountiful one with a cap and a handful of old guys without a cap. Let's start with players already on the roster.

On Carriker:

Adam is currently in intense rehab. A healthy Adam Carriker would play a big part in our plans next season (we sure could use him now).

It's all about staying healthy for Carriker. Spagnuolo was expected to mold the Rams first round pick from 2007, but never got that chance since the DT went to IR so early. Of course, Carriker started out training camp in the doghouse, forced to compete for his starting spot in the early weeks.

Will they resign Oshiomogho Atogwe?

He is a hell of a person and football player that means a lot to this organization. We certainly hope OJ is here for a long time.

This is going to be an interesting situation to watch, and we might have an answer of what direction the team will go early on since they'll immediately start evaluating the roster after the season. To wit:

We need to identify our needs. We'll do this right after the season with the coaches and scouts. I can tell you now while we have obcvious needs, the list is not nearly as long as this time last year. We need to do a good job adressing these needs in the offseason.

He couldn't say much about the draft or the team's draft board, for obvious reasons, but Devaney did offer up one little tidbit that I found interesting...

I will say this: I feel much more comfortable about the environment we have in this building now than I did two years ago. There will be people we keep on the draft board this year that we would have had off of it two years ago. That's all I can say.

The question was about passing up on players with off-field issues. And while I doubt the "four pillars" are being retired, I suspect that since  they've turned over so much of the roster and will continue to whittle it down to players buying into the system, there's an assumption that they can do a better job of bringing players along who might not have made the cut last season because of those off-field issues.

Those are the highlights. Go read the rest of what Devaney had to say.