Red jersey season is about to begin, and everyone is all smiles.

Rams fans in St Louis can be thankful to the lockout for one thing - the jumbled up offseason schedule didn't allow the team to accede to coach Spagnuolo's desire to move their training camp out of town. So instead of a long trek to Rolla, you can pack a cooler and the kids and take a familiar drive out to Earth City. Because once again, the Rams are opening several practices to the public.

Here's the schedule, from the Rams' website: Rams Set Training Camp Dates.

Most immediately, the inaugural practice will be Friday the 29th, and the first practice open to the public will be Saturday at 1:50pm. Several of the RamsHerd writers will be out there along with two thousand or so of our closest friends, why don't you join us?

The Rams made their big splash so far in free agency with the signing of free safety Quintin Mikell. And we welcome him gladly. But now, with no more moves 48 hours later, the honeymoon period has worn off and the rumblings of frustration are reverberating among Rams fans.

While Billy Devaney and Kevin Demoff work quietly on their list of priorities, the Cardinals have consummated their Kevin Kolb deal and beefed up their offensive line with Daryl Colledge, and the Seahawks have girded for battle with Sidney Rice, Robert Gallery, and Tavaris Jackson and have plenty more cap room to spend. (Reportedly they are now working to keep DT Brandon Mebane in seafoam green.)

How deep and how broad does this frustration run? Here's a quick poll that I posted this afternoon on Twitter, repackaged for you to vote on. 

Update: Poll Closed. Click to expand these results

We got a total of nineteen responses on Twitter, with outside linebacker surprising me a little as the top priority with 6 votes. As in our assessment of our wide receiver situation, the season-ending game against Seattle weighs strongly on people's minds.

R4Hand
@RamsHerd OLB for sure I sat in the stands @Seattle watching Lynch get the edge all night long. Need to stop the run at the point of attack

However, it was a close race with no clear winner of the fear factor. DT racked up 5.5 votes, Guard (presumably RG) tallied 4 votes, backup RB 2, Jason Brown got 1 vote of no confidence, and the remaining half a vote was used on the WR position.

Does that jibe with the Rams' plans? The only strong free agent rumors we heard recently were for Saints linebacker Scott Shanle, who just re-upped in New Orleans. (A good thing, too, as Shanle was one of the very worst linebackers rated by Pro Football Focus.) Beyond that, Jim Thomas raises the names of the Vikings' Ben Leber, the Texans' Zach Diles, and Eagles' Stewart Bradley as possibilities. None are big-name players, but then Spagnuolo's defensive system doesn't depend on blitzing from the outside linebacker spots to crash the pocket. 

That said, fans need to remember the big free agent fish that the Rams already landed: offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels. We got him, and the other teams didn't. And with the fortuitous two-day lifting of the lockout at draft time, Sam Bradford has been able to immerse himself in it all summer long. 

Only two days ago I wrote the Rams need to make a splash in free agency. Today I am left confused, underwhelmed and annoyed.

The theme of the Rams continues to be “better safe than sorry” while the big free agency fish swim off to richer ponds.

Just today, the free agency golden goose, Sidney Rice, was scooped up by (hated) division rivals, the Seattle Seahawks. 

The Seahawks took the best free agent option at the wide receiver position, who is entering the prime of his career and will become a deep threat the Rams desperately needed.

Remember the last game of the season in 2010? I try hard not to think about it but the Rams’ offense was as lifeless as a Nicholas Cage movie.

137 pass yards with six points from field goals was all the offense could amass while the
leading receiver, Daniel Fells, had a grand total of 39 yards.

That game was the deciding factor in keeping the Rams out of the playoffs and saw the Seahawks make the postseason.

Fans, pundits and journalists from all Rams related circles screamed collectively all offseason that the team needed a new franchise wide receiver to pair with Sam Bradford.

Rice was right there for the taking and the Rams let him slip away.

Many will argue that St. Louis is strapped against the salary cap but the $8 million a year Seattle is paying Rice is manageable factoring in football economics and the going rate for a premiere pass catcher.

Instead of seeing Rice regularly make spectacular plays against the Seahawks secondary, the Rams will have to watch it two games a season for the next half decade.

A solution just yesterday to St. Louis’ achilles heel may turn into its worst nightmare for years to come.

Quintin Mikell was a great signing and will improve the team but the Rams whiffed again on adding a huge offensive threat.

The team better hope to solve the situation through the rest of free agency, a trade or the very least a top receiver in the 2012 draft.

If not, I wouldn’t blame Sam Bradford for being a little more than annoyed too.

The Rams have a little more room to play in the free agency pool... but not a lot.

For those a little confused (and count me among them) by the Rams spending big on Quintin Mikell -- 4 years, $27 million dollars, with $14 million guaranteed according to reports -- just hours after it was revealed that we have only $12 mil to play with, here's some clarification.

Liz Mullen of the Sports Business Journal passed on a memo from the NFLPA this morning: it turns out that the new NFL salary cap (just over $120 this year) is a "soft cap." Under certain conditions, teams can spend more.

NFL.com's Albert Breer offers more details:

If I read this correctly, this savings wouldn’t get realized off the top of Mikell’s contract, but the Rams could make extra room for it by resigning some of their veterans and shifting those dollars into this “soft” area. I also hear, though I haven’t found a verified source, that teams can “borrow” up to $3 million more against future year’s cap.

That said, an extra six million doesn't give the Rams that much more flexibility. And in his first post-lockout press conference, Rams GM Billy Devaney tried to temper expectations.

So while the Rams might have kicked the tires on Sidney Rice before he went to Seattle, I doubt there was a serious play made. Rather than get these big name weapons, the Rams are going to have to contain them when they line up opposite.

The Rams have a little more room to play in the free agency pool... but not a lot.

For those a little confused (and count me among them) by the Rams spending big on Quintin Mikell -- 4 years, $27 million dollars, with $14 million guaranteed according to reports -- just hours after it was revealed that we have only $12 mil to play with, here's some clarification.

Liz Mullen of the Sports Business Journal passed on a memo from the NFLPA this morning: it turns out that the new NFL salary cap (just over $120 this year) is a "soft cap." Under certain conditions, teams can spend more.

NFL.com's Albert Breer offers more details:

If I read this correctly, this savings wouldn’t get realized off the top of Mikell’s contract, but the Rams could make extra room for it by resigning some of their veterans and shifting those dollars into this “soft” area. I also hear, though I haven’t found a verified source, that teams can “borrow” up to $3 million more against future year’s cap.

That said, an extra six million doesn't give the Rams that much more flexibility. And in his first post-lockout press conference, Rams GM Billy Devaney tried to temper expectations.

So while the Rams might have kicked the tires on Sidney Rice before he went to Seattle, I doubt there was a serious play made. Rather than get these big name weapons, the Rams are going to have to contain them when they line up opposite.

New Rams free safety Quintin Mikell is equally talented against the run and the pass.

The Rams made a surprising move in free agency Tuesday, signing perhaps the best free safety available, Philadelphia's Quintin Mikell.

Earlier today, we looked at pessimistic reports of the Rams' salary cap room, and at the Rams' apparent low priority for true free safety play in their recent history with Oshiomogho Atogwe, and pretty confidently predicted that this would be the least likely position to invested in. Clearly I was wrong on that count, and perhaps the reports we saw limiting our spending were wrong as well.

All that aside, what kind of player are the Rams getting? One who excels in all facets of free satefy play, say those who scout the game closely.

From ESPN's Mike Sando:

From Doug Farrar at Yahoo! Shutdown Corner, calling attention to Mikell's 3rd-rated 48% "stop rate".

From Pro Football Focus: Quintin is pretty much good at everything.

We know that Spagnuolo prizes physicality and tackling ability in his defensive backfield, areas that Mikell is plenty capable in. But the job requirements of the free safety also require you to be capable as the last line of defense, often matched up against some of the elite talents in the game.

I delved into three Eagles' matchups from last season where Mikell graded particularly well, and plucked three individual plays against three of the best offensive players in the league to demonstrate what he will bring to the Rams' rapidly improving pass defense.

Remember when we learned that the NFC West was the "richest" division in football in terms of cap money to spend in free agency? The news spawned a whole new round of free agent dreaming. "Why not Barry Cofield AND Reggie Bush AND Sidney Rice?" asks the dreamer.

As it turns out, the cap-crunchers have spoken again, and the Rams are now looking like the pauper in this division of riches. After originally reporting a $35.6 million dollar surplus in Billy Devaney's GM checkbook, ESPN's John Clayton now is the bearer of some very bad news.

$12 million? That doesn't leave much room for a bold statement, especially if the team's slated rookie expenses -- a hair over $5 million, says Mike Sando -- have to be cut from this same slim pie.

Meanwhile, Seattle is said to be in the running for Sidney Rice, and has reportedly already brought in a familiar face at quarterback -- fellow Viking (and former understudy of the now-departed Matt Hasselbeck) Tarvaris Jackson. That's a topic for a whole separate post, but worth noting as a sign that Pete Carroll's team plans to be as aggressive in this year's free agency pool as they were in last year's draft.

Arizona also has much coin to spend, though their ongoing flirtation with both the Eagles' Kevin Kolb and the Broncos' Kyle Orton will leave them much lighter in the pocket in terms of draft picks. 

All of which means the Rams will have to be very choosy with their free agent spending. How this might affect the key areas of need: