Forum ChaOdisiaque

Continuity paid off for the Los Angeles Rams‘ offense last season Youth Daniel Kilgore Jersey , starting with the same offensive line combination that played together in all but one game.

It certainly did for running back Todd Gurley, who signed a four-year, $60 million contract extension in July after running for 1,305 yards and scoring 19 total touchdowns last season behind that familiar front five.

�Whoever said money don’t make you happy lied,� Gurley said with a smile Wednesday.

The Rams expect even greater stability on offense to translate into continued success in head coach Sean McVay’s second season, a belief that has been reinforced during the start of training camp.

At this same stage last year, the Rams were working in new additions at left tackle, center and wide receiver while learning the basics of a new offense, and were still weeks away from trading for wide receiver Sammy Watkins. They return 10 of 11 starters for this year’s workouts at UC Irvine, with new acquisition Brandin Cooks replacing Watkins as the big play threat in the passing game.

Quarterback Jared Goff said the familiarity is paying dividends, especially during the transition from teaching the offense in the first few days to refining each element of a system that produced an NFL-leading 29.9 points per game.

�We feel like we’re in a good spot,� Goff said. �Offensively, we’ve been starting to click. I think today was the first day you really felt that consistency starting to gel. We’re not so much installing anymore Aroldis Chapman Jersey , we’re running the same plays over and over again and starting to get a good feel with it.�

�It makes everyone so much more comfortable just to come out here and just play our game. You don’t have to think about too much, and that’s what it is all about,� Gurley said.

For Goff, his increased comfort level entering his second season as the starter manifests in a better understanding of what opposing defenses are trying to do.

�It just continues to slow down,� Goff said. �Your pre-snap process is a lot smoother, and you’re more under control of everything and are seeing things better.�

While Goff is playing faster, there has been no deceleration by Gurley after signing a contract featuring the most guaranteed money for a running back in NFL history. Goff and McVay both praised his relentlessness in practice, with a prime example coming when Gurley kept running towards the end zone as McVay was setting up the next play in the sequence.

�I got what I want, now let’s keep going,� Gurley said. �Nothing doesn’t stop. The grind continues. It’s going to be even harder now, obviously, to be able to do what I did last year, and teams are going to game plan for it. It’s my job to go out there Cheap Martavis Bryant Jersey , put myself in a great position and try to work as hard as I can. As long as I do that, I feel comfortable with the players around me and the coaches around me to put me in a great position.�

With so much familiarity returning, Gurley is ready to build on his best season to date. But he understands his individual production is the result of what the offense does together, declaring that every running back is the beneficiary of the blocking he gets before Gurley backtracked.

�Obviously, Barry Sanders is going to do what he do, but it doesn’t matter what other running back you have back there. If you don’t have all 11 doing one thing, then it’s not going to work,� he said.

NOTES: Outside linebacker Matt Longacre left practice early because of an undisclosed injury. . Kicker Greg Zuerlein made a 63-yard field goal during a simulated two-minute drill.

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France is back in the World Cup final for the first time since Zinedine Zidane’s headbutt in 2006.

Twelve years after one of soccer’s most infamous moments, Samuel Umtiti used his head to score from a corner kick in the 51st minute and earn France a 1-0 victory over Belgium in the first of the all-European semifinals.

The French players danced on the field after the final whistle and shook the hand of Thierry Henry, who helped Les Bleus win the World Cup in 1998 and is now Belgium’s assistant coach.

France will face either Croatia or England in the final on Sunday in Moscow. Those two teams play in the other semifinal match on Wednesday, also in Moscow.

France goalkeeper Hugo Lloris produced a great save in each half, denying the potent Belgian attack of Eden Hazard, Kevin De Bruyne and Romelu Lukaku the chance to advance the country to its first major final.

TENNIS

LONDON (AP) – Serena Williams came up with a comeback to reach the semifinals at Wimbledon J. D. Martinez Jersey , then walked off Centre Court with her right index finger aloft.

Williams moved closer to her eighth title at the All England Club and 24th Grand Slam trophy overall – but first since missing more than a year while having a baby – by beating 52nd-ranked Camila Giorgi of Italy 3-6, 6-3, 6-4 in the quarterfinals.

Next up for the 36-year-old American is a match against No. 13 seed Julia Goerges of Germany, a 3-6, 7-5, 6-1 winner against No. 20 Kiki Bertens of the Netherlands.

The other semifinal Thursday will be No. 11 seed Angelique Kerber of Germany vs. No. 12 Jelena Ostapenko of Latvia. Kerber needed seven match points to close out No. 14 Daria Kasatkina of Russia 6-3, 7-5 at Centre Court, while Ostapenko defeated 2014 Australian Open runner-up Dominika Cibulkova of Slovakia 7-5, 6-4 on a windy No. 1 Court.

In the last men’s quarterfinal, which was suspended because of darkness after the third set Monday night, 2009 U.S. Open champion Juan Martin del Potro defeated Gilles Simon of France 7-6 (1), 7-6 (5), 5-7 http://www.cowboysauthorizedshops.com/a … ite-jersey , 7-6 (5).

NBA

LAS VEGAS (AP) – NBA Commissioner Adam Silver is certain that changes are coming to the league.

Some are easy, others, not so much.

Speaking after the NBA’s Board of Governors meeting, Silver said he thinks the league is ready to scrap the rule requiring players to be out of high school for a year before becoming eligible to enter the draft. That one should be relatively simple to move forward now, while notions such as how to find more competitive balance are still a puzzler to the league and its commissioner.

Silver said he loves `where the league is right now,’ but believe there cold be a better system. Part of that, he thinks, will be reverting back to the policy that will allow players to go into the league right out of high school – something that should be in place in time for the 2021 NBA Draft, though that timeline has not been formally announced.

Any change to the rule will require that the league’s Collective Bargaining Agreement will have to be amended.

LAS VEGAS (AP) – Michele Roberts was unanimously re-elected to another four-year term as executive director of the National Basketball Players Association.

Roberts first moved into the role in 2014, about two years before the players and the league agreed on the current Collective Bargaining Agreement. The extension means that Roberts will almost certainly be deeply involved in negotiating whatever the next CBA will look like.

The union was without an executive director for more than a year before Roberts got the job, and she said overcoming the skepticism of players – who were reeling after the way Billy Hunter’s term as director came to a turbulent end – was critical to her success.

Her second term will end in 2022, when both the players and the league can decide to opt out of the current CBA. She said the union is already preparing for what the next CBA will look like.

NFL

NEW YORK (AP) – The NFL Players Association filed a grievance with the league challenging its national anthem policy.

The union says that the new policy, which the league imposed without consultation with the NFLPA Dorance Armstrong Jr. Color Rush Jersey , is inconsistent with the collective bargaining agreement and infringes on players’ rights. The filing met a statute of limitations deadline and will be heard by an independent arbitrator, an NFLPA spokesman said.

In May, the NFL approved its national anthem policy at its owners meetings in Atlanta. The policy allows players to protest during the national anthem by staying in the locker room, but forbids them from sitting or taking a knee if they’re on the field or the sidelines. Teams will be subject to fines if players don’t comply and will have the option of punishing players.

When the league announced the policy, Commissioner Roger Goodell called it a compromise aimed at putting the focus back on football after a tumultuous year in which television ratings dipped nearly 10 percent; some blamed the protests for such a drop. The union said at that time that it would file a grievance against any change in the collective bargaining agreement.

BASEBALL

TAMPA, Fla. (AP) – The Tampa Bay Rays unveiled an elaborate plan for a new domed stadium that would take them across Tampa Bay to the Ybor City section of Tampa at a cost of nearly $900 million.

The 30,842-seat stadium would be the smallest in Major League Baseball and would be covered by a fully enclosed and translucent roof, not a retractable dome.

Stuart Sternberg, principal owner of the Rays since 2005, called the plan �a dramatic break from the past� and explained the blueprint as the franchise’s la.