NFL Lockout: Rams players fill the void

The St. Louis Rams should be having rookie minicamp this week. But noooo. The NFL had to go and screw that up for everyone. It's really a shame because as we mentioned on Turf Show Radio yesterday, this would be our first chance to get a look at the new draft picks, not to mention the other players, in action...in a new offense. For now, you'll just have to use your imagination.

The lockout isn't stopping the Rams players from getting together. In addition to workouts that have already happened, CB Ron Bartell is organizing a larger team practice in Phoenix for the first week of June. The rookies are being invited to that one as well. 

As for the NFL's self-induced stalemate, it's just more of the same: waiting. The 8th Circuit Court did not issue a ruling on the league's motion for a stay to the order lifting the lockout, the stay that the league requested pending their appeal of Nelson's decision. A ruling could come as soon as Monday and no later than May 12, which is also the date Judge Doty begins to hear the case for damages in the "lockout insurance" case. If the stay is denied and the league has to pay up hundreds of millions of dollars at the order of Doty, it will make mediation, which resumes on May 16, pretty interesting.

I fail to see how the court can deny the immediate and irreparable harm argument.  

Some links...

Rob Rang from NFL Draft Scout calls Rams' fourth-round pick WR Greg Salas a good fit. 

I could have just as easily listed the first wide receiver the Rams selected in 2011 -- former Boise State star Austin Pettis (No. 78 overall) -- as an ideal schematic fit, but with Salas taken 34 spots later, he could ultimately prove the better value. Each are tall, well-built possession receivers whose game is built on precise route-running and soft, reliable hands -- precisely the type of wideouts Sam Bradford so desperately needed last year.

Here's Rang's partner, Chad Reuter, on the best defensive prospects in the 2012 NFL Draft.