LOS ANGELES — Nick Caley says that when he saw young tight end Davis Allen properly execute a cross-sift he had the same feeling as watching his oldest daughter walk for the first time.
“BOP!” yelled Caley, slamming a fist into his open palm while speaking with The Athletic as the Los Angeles Rams opened training camp last week. The tight ends coach helped head coach Sean McVay install new (to this system) blocks for the tight ends last spring and summer, which was Allen’s rookie season. These and variations of these — also referred to as “blast”/blast kick-outs, move blocking — feature the tight end going in motion either before or right at the snap, moving across the formation and then diving upfield as a blocker in order to either create a new gap or open an old one for a running back without giving the block away to the defense pre-snap. These had been utilized relatively infrequently in the NFL lately, but especially gained popularity last fall.
Caley, 41, is now in his second season with the Rams after a long stint in New England. He also turned down an offer to become the Patriots’ offensive coordinator this spring, team and league sources said, in part because of the group of players he coaches in L.A.
Led by eight-year veteran Tyler Higbee, who will miss the first part of the 2024 season while recovering from knee surgery, the Rams’ tight ends room is a mix of youth and experience, organizational tenure and new faces. Higbee has spent his entire career in Los Angeles. Meanwhile, 25-year-old Colby Parkinson joined the Rams this spring as a free-agent signing after four years in Seattle. Allen, 23, was a fifth-round draft pick in 2023 who was thrust into the spotlight when injuries sidelined Higbee and 2023 trade-acquisition (from Miami) Hunter Long (25).
Nick Caley is in his second season coaching tight ends with the Rams. (Kirby Lee / USA Today)
Even without Higbee on the field, Caley’s group isn’t just deeper this season — it is noticeably larger. Where Higbee (6-foot-6, 243 pounds) has some lankiness to his frame, Parkinson (6-foot-7, 265) and Allen (6-foot-6, 255) are built like Budweiser clydesdales.
“We (all) mesh very well,” said Allen, “we come from all different walks of life but I think we share an appreciation of wanting to be at our best. But we’re all pulling for each other — there’s no ‘Oh, he’s taking more reps and that bothers me.’ It’s more just like, ‘OK, we’re the tight ends. And whoever goes out there is representing the entire tight end room and coach Caley.”
Parkinson and Allen have taken on the lead share of snaps in Higbee’s absence. Long has mixed into the first- and second-team rotation, too. Because Parkinson and Allen especially seem to be emerging as impact players who can block and catch, something interesting may happen: McVay, the coach known as a catalyst for the increase of 11 personnel usage across the NFL since 2017, might need to field multiple tight ends more than he typically has in order to feature his best rotations of players.
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Now comes the part where fantasy football-heads must calm down: Nobody is saying the Rams will become a predominantly 12 personnel team, only that the usage of that personnel grouping could potentially increase in 2024. They have three receivers they really like in Cooper Kupp, Puka Nacua and Demarcus Robinson and they’d like to also keep those guys on the field. Kupp and Nacua still do all of the things asked of Rams receivers that made 11 personnel so successful in L.A. — they block well in the run game and can run a variety of concepts like fullbacks or miniature tight ends, therefore removing the need for an extra tight end. Running 11 personnel with the three receivers and lone tight end (Higbee) has also meant McVay’s offense could play faster and prevent defensive substitutions because they weren’t pausing to substitute their own offensive players.
So, things may not change too much. Yet getting multiple tight ends on the field is a stated goal inside the new-look position room.
“It’s on us on how much 12 and 13 (three tight ends) is run,” Parkinson said. “If we show that we are factors in the run game and the pass game, it’s gonna be hard to keep us off the field and that’s on us — I don’t think that’s something that will be handed out to us because of all the success we’ve had in 11 personnel, which is totally justifiable. We have some amazing wide receivers! But I think we will run as much ’12’ as we earn.”
Allen echoed Parkinson. “I think we kind of look at it as, when we’re out there in 11 let’s make sure that we do our job so well that coach McVay is like, ‘I’ve got no choice but to do 12 or 13.’ That’s what coach Caley preaches. We want to do our job and keep ourselves to a standard where we can’t give coach McVay or coach (Mike) LaFleur any other option.”
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Like any other role, earning those snaps requires mastering concepts McVay wants to use in all phases of offense. This is where Caley and his teaching progression come in.
Take the move blocks, for example.
In the Rams’ building, they started out as a theory discussed among the coaching staff, and then between Caley, LaFleur and McVay as they mapped out some of the technical points. Caley asked LaFleur if he could bring the tight ends over to the ball-handling drills generally run by the quarterbacks, running backs and receivers at the start of practices because that is a good time for the players to develop timing for different types of motions with the quarterback, from pre-snap to at-snap. In spring OTAs, Caley and a few assistants would hold “pop-up” bags because players are not allowed contact with each other during that time. “So I’m holdin’ it, keeping my a– out of the way,” he said, “but they’re working on the technique full-speed so we can calibrate and set the speed realistically when we snap. (if the motion is a pre-snap, the TE has to set back on the line before the snap. If it’s an at-snap motion, the TE has to know when to “snap off” the motion.) We’re building the elements.”
Davis Allen caught 10 of his 11 targets as a rookie last season with a touchdown. (Jayne Kamin-Oncea / USA Today)
When training camp begins, all of the technique and timing should be installed by the time the pads finally come on. Then, Caley can see what his players are really made of.
“You’ve got to be tough,” Caley said. “You’ve got to love that s— because that is not for everybody.”
For all of the schematic and personnel developments the Rams are excited about in their tight ends room, they do miss having Higbee on the field. Still, his continued presence in the position room has been a benefit to teammates, and to Caley. Information and problem-solving flow at a high pace in meetings, in part because Higbee has seen so much and in part because Caley doesn’t really have a brake. He never sits, but constantly paces and bounces from here to there to demonstrate different techniques or to show how the player should physically manipulate space (as it turns out, he also does this during interviews).
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“He is high-energy, all the time,” said Parkinson, grinning. “I don’t know what type of coffee he drinks in the morning (but) he wakes up fired up and ready to do. It has a huge impact on us, it makes us excited to be there.”
Caley laughed — he gives his players some of the credit for his demeanor.
“They’re fun to coach! They are smart, they are tough, and they love football — and I love football!” he said, throwing out his arms with a wide grin. “It’s a family, I mean, it is!”
(Top photo of Colby Parkinson: Jayne Kamin-Oncea / Getty Images)
