The Los Angeles Rams will conduct their customary Saturday walk-through Saturday, one day before facing the New England Patriots in Super Bowl LIII.
“We’ll go over to the stadium and allow the families and friends who are here to come over and enjoy that,” Rams coach Sean McVay said. “That will be more of an appreciation with all the people that are here to share in this journey with our players and our coaches. Then, we’ll have quick, little meetings (Saturday) night.”
The Patriots (13-5) will have a meeting and then head to Mercedes-Benz Stadium for a team photo and a get-together with family and friends Saturday.
McVay said he does not expect to have anybody talk to the team before Sunday’s game. The Rams had no special guests at their practices this week other than the required media, including CBS’ broadcast crew on Thursday.
“We’ve been consistent where we try to stick to our message,” said the 33-year-old McVay, who will be the youngest coach in Super Bowl history. “I just think this group is so tight knit. We kind of know what we stand for. We know what we need to do here.
“I don’t know that there’s any motivating words that I could say or anything else other than let’s just continue to do the little things the right way, one day at a time, have a belief and confidence in one another, play for each other and we trust that good things will happen.”
All 53 Rams on the active roster fully participated in Friday’s practice, the team’s last before Super Bowl LIII.
Kicker Greg Zuerlein concluded the practice at the Atlanta Falcons training facility in Flowery Branch, Georgia with seven field-goal attempts and four kickoffs.
“He felt good,” McVay said. “He hit the ball well. He hit the kickoffs and his field goals really well. That’s kind of what we expected, that’s what we hoped, and he’ll be ready to go.”
Zuerlein injured his left foot warming up for the NFC Championship Game, but still was able to kick four field goals, including a 57-yarder in overtime, as the Rams defeated the New Orleans Saints, 26-23, to advance to their first Super Bowl since the 2001 season.
Zuerlein and reserve safety Blake Countess had practiced on less than 100 percent of their normal repetitions Thursday. Countess also had a foot injury.
“Both those guys look like they’re going to be ready to go for the game,” McVay said. “We expect to have everybody ready to roll. We’re going into this game as healthy as you could hope for.”
The Rams (15-3) alternated the first-team defense’s work against the scout team with the first-team offense practicing against the scout team for an hour with two special teams periods.
They practiced with music for the first time this week, though it was on as background noise and not used to simulate crowd noise.
“Typically what we do is we’ll really blare it depending on if we’re at home or away,” McVay said. “If we’re on the road, it’ll be blaring during offensive periods. If we’re at home, it’ll be during defensive periods. Now, in a static environment, we just kind of had it in the background.”
All 53 Patriots fully participated in their final practice Friday. New England’s starting offense and defense alternated 11-on-11 periods against the scout team at Georgia Tech, working at about three-quarters speed in what coach Bill Belichick called a “quick review” and similar to its regular Friday practice.
The practice lasted a little bit more than an hour, just a little bit shorter than the usual Friday practice, Belichick said.
“This is our sixth practice,” Belichick said. “We have hit everything. I think we are ready to go.”