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Rams43
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Speed_Kills
The Rams have major major major question marks at lb, and dl
Just a ton of unknowns. My fingers are crossed but how in the world you can make these declarations without knowing how the Rams are going to look up front is beyond me. But carry on 43. This is a yearly thing with you
I just hope you are right.
What? I’m just quoting AD here, Speed.
Where to start?
Gaines vs “regular season” Suh.
Fowler for a whole season and he’s been on an ascending trajectory since he arrived.
Matthews at Edge vs Ebu.
Kiser as a 2 down ILB vs injured Barron.
More experienced JFM, Joseph-Day, in DL rotation.
Peters now used properly by Wade.
Healthy Talib.
Weddle vs Joyner.
Healthy Brockers.
Rapp and Long to provide scheme flexibility and improved depth.
Each of the above seems like an upgrade to me. And last year’s season ending D was playing pretty darned well, as you know.
I think that we’re flirting with a top 3-5 D for this season.
Thus, my optimism.
Well 43 I agree that the D has interesting possibilities because Wade is cooking up all sorts of sub-packages that take advantage of their secondary.
So it could be a good D.
But I have some agreements/disagreements with some of the other details here.
1. right now an overlooked Sebastian Joseph-Day is in the lead at NT. It could be that both SJ-D and Gaines are players, but the "Gaines is the de facto starter" talk stopped in OTAs, according to reporters who saw practices. We don't know HOW good NT will be but it's reasonable to say that one of the 2 newcomers or both could be better than a sleep-walking Suh.
2. Not sure how much Matthews has left as an edge rusher. Is he even a 4-5 sack guy? I think the main advantage with CM is his versatility, which contributes to the whole sub-packages thing.
3. Fowler is a question mark, IMO. Who knows if he is an "at least 8 sacks" kinda guy. Not sure we can say yet.
4. Kiser does not replace Barron, he replaces Littleton. Littleton replaces Barron. Barron was never the run-stopping MIKE LB, Littleton was. Kiser is (on paper anyway) probably a better run defender at MIKE than Littleton was. Littleton could be just as good or better at the other, coverage ILB spot Barron held last year. So possibly improvement. So Kiser could be better at MIKE than Littleton and Littleton could be as good or better at the coverage LB spot than Barron. But either way it's not Kiser v. Barron.
Short version! Yeah the combo of Kiser + Littleton could be better than the combo of Littleton + Barron.
5. It COULD BE that J F-M steps up. Worth watching.
6. Agree on all things said about the secondary but would add that in addition to the starting 4, they have Robey-Coleman, Christian, Rapp, and Long. This could be the best Rams secondary in who knows how long. The early word is that Wade is (as I said) going mad scientist nuts coming up with multiple sub-packages.
7. If the issue with Brockers last year was playing hurt (and I think it was) then yeah he could return to 2017 form as a 3/4 DE.
I don't see as much certainty there as you do but I do see possibilities.
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Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/08/2019 07:14PM by zn.
