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Tanks for the memories, Eric Kush. Great little daughter you have there, Austin Hill. Now you’ve got more time to play. As much as we respect the heck out of your uncle, you just need to get stronger, Ian Seau. Stay in touch. And stay strong. By Saturday moing, most of the Rams’ final 22 cuts were made, and disclosed to the public. But until HBO cut up and spliced together its final episode of “Hard Knocks” and aired it Tuesday night, viewers might not have achieved proper closure, especially those invested in the docu-series going back to its Aug. 9 begiing. Episode 5 reinforced the quick and sometimes blunt nature of the business can be as the Rams, put in the spotlight this year, got to t...

Da, if Case Keenum isn’t a thoughtful, intelligent and fuy guy. If you happened to stumble upon a 10-minute interview the current Rams’ No. 1 quarterback did with Fred Roggin and Leea Tweeden during the Tuesday afteoon “L.A. Today” show on KLAC-AM (570), that should have come across more than a couple of times. But if asked to measure your interest or likeability of Keenum based on what you’ve seen through the first couple episodes of HBO’s “Hard Knocks,” you may have little to no opinion at all. Leading up to Tuesday’s middle installment of the five-part series, the recurring storyline each week is some variation on: How long will it be before No. 1 overall pick and rookie Jared Goff is rea...

As sure as the sun rises in the East and sets in the West – a fact that Rams rookie quarterback Jared Goff still may unsure about and will likely become an on-going punchline – HBO’s “Hard Knocks” shined as promised for the launch of a five-part series Tuesday night, somehow compacting several months’ worth of franchise relocation, training camp arrival and the team’s first Coliseum appearance into one enlightening and entertaining hour-long episode. Touching on all the advertised storylines and more, starting from Goff’s jouey on a Goodyear blimp ride above the South Bay, to center Eric Kush’s eclectic collection of tank tops, the one piece of news that came to light from Episode 1 is Rams ...

Marty Callner’s remarkable resume of producing music videos and concert specials for the last 40-plus years coects him more in the Hollywood community with Whitney Houston than the Houston Texans. But should he receive another Emmy Award as an executive producer of HBO’s “Hard Knocks” after what happens with the upcoming five-week series spotlighting the Los Angeles Rams — and there’s no asterisk that notes Callner is actually the show’s creator — it might find better shelf space than any other Grammy, Director’s Guild or MTV Awards he has scattered around his home in Malibu. “When it’s your vision, and your baby, and you see it recognized … I work really hard in everything I do,” the 69-yea...

Just short of mid-May, there’s already about 100 hours of material shot and logged about these relocated Rams for the HBO series “Hard Knocks.” Most of it chronicles the logistics involved in the move from St. Louis to L.A., but there are choice cuts collected from having chronicled the NFL Draft circus, and even more as the rookies gathered for workouts this month in Oxnard. And all digital diarying might not even get aired. Coordinating producer Ken Rodgers and director Matt Dissinger admit that the crazy part of this process that leads to the show’s first of five episodes on Aug. 9 is that by the time training camp opens in late July in Irvine, so much more stuff happens that the stories ...

OXNARD >> An NFL team is the sporting equivalent of the Kremlin. In medieval times, it would be surrounded by moats. This is the league where the coaches speak into their flip cards, lest Bill Belichick read their lips, and former Chargers general manager John Butler chased fans off a hilltop that overlooked the practice field, a promontory that was forever renamed Butler’s Bluff. But sometimes the gates open, and open wide. No club in professional sports will grant wider access than the Rams will give HBO during this summer’s training camp. For the 11th time since 2001, HBO is coming out with the five-part documentary, “Hard Knocks,” and this year the Rams will be the ones grunting, growlin...

Say this much for the Rams: They certainly don’t mind dealing with distraction. As if moving from St. Louis to Los Angeles doesn’t present enough of a challenge for the upcoming season, they’ve decided to chronicle the first-year transition back to L.A. as the featured team on the HBO show Hard Knocks. The Rams spot on the series has been speculated for awhile now. It became official on Wednesday at the NFL’s aual league meetings in Boca Raton, Florida. HBO was intrigued about telling the story of the Rams retuing to their former home after playing the last 22 seasons in St. Louis, and Hard Knocks will provide an all-access vantage point from which fans can watch. Hard Knocks kicks off its f...