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Florida_Ram
There is plenty to speculate about when trying to project how well the Rams DEFENSE in 2018 will perform.
The OLB EDGE Pass rushing production along with how well their the RUN defense will improve in the upcoming season is a real question mark.
We all know the Rams defense on paper is super bowl caliber in the secondary and interior defensive line. The outside pass rush and linebacker run defense is yet to be determined.
I'm on board with those that believe the Rams defense will be good enough to win the Super Bowl.
If the interior defensive line and secondary don't play up to their paper rankings, the Rams will have a hard time advancing to the NFC Championship game.
* this secondary gives WP a lot to work with in terms of the variety of coverages he can field against any given opponent. Not just the starting 4 (and I really like Joyner in this mix) plus obviously Roby-Coleman and Shields.
* The DL goes without saying. Barring injury, they have Easley, Donald, Suh, Brockers---with Brockers going to camp as a DE for the first time (last year he just switched there after game 4). The questions are, who backs up Suh at NT, and who are the other 1 or 2 rotation/depth guys? I think they have good options when it comes to that. The 4 DL sets ought to be as good as the 3 DL sets. In terms of the 4 DL sets, it looks like they can just line up personnel designed to meet the particular challenges of the teams they play. So for example, they can put Suh at end too, depending on the opponent and what they need to do.
* Inside LB. Nothing real has happened yet, meaning we haven't seen them in action with real bullets flying, so we don't really know BUT WP has long had a knack for manufacturing a good ILB set out of low picks and spare parts. I like Barron (I know some don't) so really it's a question of who mans the MIKE spot. And there, again, it's just a matter of Wade coming up with yet another decent ILB out of what they have to work with. I am cautiously optimistic about this.
* ILB and NT should answer a lot of the run D issues. I notice that Atlanta attacked them on the ground once they accounted for Brockers being out. So issues at ILB, NT, and DE probably contributed to the run D problems in that game. Brockers being healthy, more depth and experience at DE, Suh, and coming up with a better Mike than last year ought to solve a lot of that, or so you would think. Again the only real unknown is NT depth behind Suh.
* OLB/edge. Lots of unknowns, as everyone recognizes. Ebukam was a rookie last year and rookie pass rushers rarely do anything. Longacre was playing well last year until he hurt his back (which finally got him IRed). Longacre is an effort guy, but then so was Kevin Greene (not saying ML is KG, just that effort guys can be good pass rushers). Losing Fox and Obo isn't good but they do have candidates for at least a 3rd outside guy...though again, rookie pass rushers rarely do much. And they could conceivably come up with packages where Littleton rushes too. The thing is, they did not have stellar outside rushers last year and still managed to be 4th in sacks and 4th in sack percentage. Can they do that again? It looks like it's built around Donald drawing attention and freeing up at least one outside guy. It's a WP thing to be less system dogmatic and more oriented toward building a D that fits what his players do, so it's natural for him to come up with ways to get offenses worried about Donald and then take advantage of that. Now there's Suh too. And on top of all that maybe Ebukam comes through and turns out to be a good one. To equal last year, they need to come up with 20 or so sacks from a committee of outside rushers. On all this, too, I am cautiously optimistic though this is the one that will draw the most scrutiny from fans.
* If everything else clicks as predicted, they will have a very good D no matter what. If they solve the outside rush issue, even just at a decent "good enough" level, than this could be one of the best Rams defenses we've seen for years and years. And I mean going back to the 70s.
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Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 06/25/2018 07:45AM by zn.