No one expects any one player to replace Aaron Donald, and the Rams have made it clear that they aren't even trying to do that.
But do the upgrades at other positions make up for the loss of AD? Maybe even more than make up for his loss?
Rams43 got me thinking about this in a post he wrote today, and I think the Rams might have upgraded the defense overall even as they part ways with The Great One.
Using Madden's Overall Ratings from 2023 and 2024 as a baseline I've attempted to make a math model out of this exercise. There are, of course, other rating systems out there (e.g., PFF) and the old eyeball test might even work for this. But here's what Madden says, and I think any rating system you want to use will show the same thing.
Here's a list that shows: positions, this year's starter, his Madden 24 grade, last year's starter, his Madden 23 grade, and the difference.
Ourlads is my source for current starters [
www.ourlads.com] and the guys who were listed as starters on 01/01/2024 [
www.ourlads.com].
I made up numbers for Fiske and Verse for this season and also for Turner and Young for last season - use your own numbers if you'd like.
DE Fiske, Braden (72) :: Williams, Jonah (65) <== +7
NT Brown III, Bobby (71) :: Turner, Kobie (75) <== -4
DT Turner, Kobie (80) :: DONALD, AARON (99) <== -19
LOLB Verse, Jared (71) :: Hoecht, Michael (65) <== +6
LILB Rozeboom, Christian (68) :: Rozeboom, Christian (59) <== +9
RILB Jones IV, Ernest (81) :: Jones IV, Ernest (73) <== +8
ROLB Young, Byron (76) :: Young, Byron (71) <== +5
LCB WILLIAMS, DARIOUS (85) :: Witherspoon, Ahkello (79) <== +6
SS Curl, Kamren (82) :: Fuller, Jordan (78) <== +4
FS Yeast, Russ (69) :: Johnson III, John (82)<== -13
RCB White, Tre'Davious (90) :: Durant, Cobie (66) <== +24
NB Lake, Quentin (74) :: Lake, Quentin (65) <== +9
Tallying the differences, the raw data says that this year's defense is 42 'Madden Points' better than last year's. And yes, some of the numbers are a little goofy (e.g., I think Verse is a bigger upgrade over Hoecht than shown, Yeast probably isn't that big a drop off from Johnson ... if any, etc.) but IMO the oddities pretty much even out and the conclusion would be the same even if you adjusted the ratings to your liking.
This exercise supports what I and many others think - that the Rams have upgraded enough other positions on the defense that they more than compensate for AD's loss. PFF says that the Rams had the 19th ranked defense last year [
www.pro-football-reference.com] . I'm thinking they will finish higher this year, partly because the Rams have upgraded the overall talent on defense.
AlbaNY_Ram
