Suh a Strong Addition for the Rams’ Star-Powered Defense, But Questions Still Remain

Ndamukong Suh a Strong Addition for the Rams’ Star-Powered Defense, But Questions Still Remain

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Here are the concerns--

The bad—or, more accurately, the caveat—is that this dynamic defensive tackle duo doesn’t suddenly make Los Angeles a surefire top-10 defense. Two big questions remain. First, with both men being classic first-and second-down 3-techniques, who moves to 1-technique on running downs, and how will that go? And second, can a defense afford to have TWO linemen who take as many risks as Donald and Suh? When they penetrate and make the play, it’s beautiful. But when they penetrate and don’t make the play, the defense gets gashed.

Even more aggressive are Los Angeles’s cornerbacks. Only one corner plays a riskier brand of coverage than new Ram Aqib Talib, and that’s fellow new Ram Marcus Peters. These are two of the game’s best playmakers, but they also give up many plays. Some defensive coaches would not be comfortable with that at one outside corner spot, let alone both.

With corners like these, it’s imperative a defense’s pass rush gets home and makes a quarterback throw early, because that’s how route-jumpers like Talib and Peters do damage. If that pass rush fails to get home, the route-jumpers can be liabilities. This undoubtedly factored into the Rams shelling out $14 million for Suh. What’s still missing, though, is a dominant edge rusher. Last year’s top end, Robert Quinn, washed up, so he and his $11.4 million cap number got dealt to Miami. That leaves Matt Longacre and Samson Ebukam as the only true edge rushers; offenses won’t be installing any extra chip-blocking protections for L.A.

The Rams need an edge rusher, but few are available. Free agency has none left, and this year’s rookie edge-rushing crop is light. Perhaps that stoked L.A.’s fervor for Suh. Knowing no outside rusher was out there, the next best play was to become super dominant inside. Nevertheless, this front seven is still not great on the edges, which is something that’s been said of few top-shelf defenses before.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 03/26/2018 05:42PM by RamBill.