It All Comes Down to Rams' New Corners,By GARY GRAMLING January 20, 2019
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1. Some 10-plus months ago, the Rams swung two deals that seemed to transform their secondary into something potentially special. First, they got Marcus Peters from the Chiefs in a trade that was immediately dubbed the stealingest steal or all stealy steals that have ever been so stealily stolen and so on and so forth. Then, they brought in Aqib Talib, an old Wade Phillips pal. The Rams hadn’t just added two talented corners, they had added two of the most dangerous ball-hawking corners in football. They’d have Aaron Donald wreaking havoc up front, then Peters and Talib feasting on the back end, grabbing pick after pick.
As the Rams head to New Orleans for the NFC title game, it's in spite of their cornerback play. The duo that was supposed to be among the team’s strengths now looks like its biggest vulnerability. Talib missed half the season after ankle surgery and, while he’s rounding back into form, isn’t quite back to his old self. Then there’s Peters, who the Rams traveled with No. 1 receivers for a while this year. They had to abandon that approach after Peters too often became the human embodiment of a piece of bread heated to a char by some kind of electronic mechanism.
When these teams met in Week 9, Talib was out and Peters could not cover Michael Thomas. (You remember, he caught 12 passes for 211 yards including the 72-yard TD after which he performed the season’s lamest touchdown celebration by rehashing the previous decade’s lamest touchdown celebration—kind of like the TD celebration equivalent of when they remake The Emoji Movie in 2029). Even if the Peters-Talib duo had lived up to expectations this season, the Saints are a tough matchup for them. Peters and Talib are both off-coverage corners who want to keep an eye on the backfield and jump routes. But Drew Brees feeds off that. He’s arguably the best of all-time at manipulating defensive backs with his eyes and his shoulders—looking into the backfield against Brees is begging for trouble. The best way to defend the Saints right now would be to put your corners up on the line of scrimmage and make Brees, whose suspect arm strength was on display at times late in the year, beat you over the top. For the Rams, that would be asking their corners to completely change their styles, take on new identities, transform their very souls! It’s probably not a very good option.
The Rams could win on Sunday if Aaron Donald plays at his absolute peak and wrecks the game—always a real possibility. Or, if Jared Goff plays the game of his life and the Rams simply outscore New Orleans in their own building. Otherwise, Wade Phillips will have to come up with some kind of original plan for his two question marks at cornerback.
