ST. LOUIS (AP) - Grant Wistrom's first day with the St. Louis Rams was a bit of a humbling experience.
The sixth pick of last weekend's draft, a defensive end from Nebraska, definitely noticed the difference between college and the pros on the first day of the team's minicamp.
"Everybody was an All-American in college and they were the best players on their team," Wistrom said after a two-hour morning workout. "You've got 320-pounders out there who can run under 5 flat in the 40 and bench press a Buick." Wistrom and other rookies and free agents got a crash course on the Rams' playbook Thursday night, then hit the field.
"It's coming at you a mile a minute and it's tough," Wistrom said. "I'm trying to pick up on things as quick as I can.
"Probably for the (veterans) it wasn't much, but for somebody who's all new to it, it was pretty intense."
Not intense enough for Coach Dick Vermeil. The practice was inhelmets and shorts, which meant very light contact. Wistrom worked against last year's No. 1 overall pick, Orlando Pace, but only at half-speed.
"Just watching (Wistrom), he has that great, explosive quickness," Vermeil said. "But when you're not in pads, you can't explode into somebody.
"We're telling him not to explode into the play and you're contradicting what you want out of a player, but without pads you don't have a choice." Vermeil.said the same thing about second-round pick Robert Holcombe, a running back from Illinois.
"Robert is the kind of back who will never really startle you until it's live," Vermeil said. "He's a stutter-step guy and you can't turn him loose in this kind of situation."
Wistrom wasn't the only one who was a little confused. All the rookies and free agents are in the same boat.
"It was so intense, it was easy to make a mistake," said sixth-round pick Glenn Rountree, a 308-pound offensive lineman from Clemson. "Right now it's mostly physical - I mean mental."
Holdouts aren't Grant Wistrom's style. The St. Louis Rams' first-round pick made it to training camp on; time Sunday in Macomb, Ill., a day after agreeing to a six-year, $12.75 million deal. The former Nebraska defensive end said getting the deal done so he could be one of the guys was a lot more important than the impressive dollar amount that includes a $6 million signing bonus.
The bonus is the second-highest in franchise history, trailing only the $6.3 million bonus offensive tackle Orlando Pace got last year as the first overall pick of the draft.
"It'll be nice to see a check with all those zeroes on it, but to be honest I don't think it's going to affect me that much," Wistrom said. "I don't feel any different, and I probably never will."
Last year, Pace missed all of training camp and didn't sign until mid-August. Two years ago, first-roundersLawrence Phillips and Eddie Kennison held out 2-3 weeks.
Wistrom couldn't wait to get to camp. The last two days of negotiations he was essentially holed up his St. Louis apartment awaiting the call from his Agent, Tom Condon. He was packed and ready Friday night.
So far, Wistrom doesn't appear to be acting like a millionaire. He celebrated Saturday night by ordering chicken and a beer at a chain restaurant in St. Louis and he showed up for his signing news conference wearing not a three-piece suit, but shorts, a T-shirt and sandals.
His only splurges so far: he bought a Lincoln Navigator for his father and paid off his mother's credit cards. "A pretty good chunk of change," said Wistrom, a Webb City, Mo., native.