When Mardy Gilyard did not attend the St. Louis Rams informal, player-led practices last month in St. Louis, local talk radio did everything but buy him a train ticket out of town. It did look a little off given his struggles with the playbook as a rookie last year. Gilyard missed the practices to attend a funeral in Florida. That crucial second part of the story was mostly lost when talk radio went wild with the rumor that Gilyard had asked the Rams for a trade. He didn't. It came from a phony Facebook page, but that part of the story was also mostly ignored.
So after all that, it's worth mentioning, for the sake of narrative continuity at the very least, that Mardy Gilyard was with the Rams in Arizona working out over the weekend. Gilyard, like the other receivers on the Rams, face some stiff competition in camp this year. No player will have a spot on the roster given to him. Credit Gilyard and all the others for putting in the work and getting themselves ready to compete regardless of the lockout or the uncertainty over roster spots once football does resume.
One of the problems I've always had with the old media way of approaching things is that a scoop gets reported, but rarely does the follow up, the next part of the story. New media outlets, at least the ones that realize the power of the medium, do a much better job of that, following through with a story rather than wrapping it up or just walking away after the "watchdogging" has been done. Don't even get me started on the vacuousness of talk radio.
I don't know if Gilyard makes the team or not. At this point, with a dozen guys competing for spots, the odds certainly don't favor him. But for all the talk that swirled around the fact that he wasn't at informal practices in May, his appearance at informal practices this month deserves at least a mention.
Oh, and for more on the Rams camp in Arizona, a true one-on-one account, be sure to read one TSTer's fanpost about talking to the Rams players and hanging out with them poolside.