Wanted to throw out a few things that concern me now that we have a good idea of what this team is going to look like.
1. Defensive Scheme. By far #1 on my list for a few reasons. First off our new DC has a background steeped in cover 2. He's a different guy from Staley and I don't know that he's got the expertise to run this defense the way Staley did. I am sure he could run a cover 2. But the Rams are varied and unpredictable on the back end, or were last season. Can he sustain that? I'm not so sure.
Morris seems like a great dude. But who's gonna gear him up in the Rams' defensive DNA as Snead put it? McVay? Just something that's been eating at me a little. I didn't like Atlanta's defense at all. This might be a friend hire that hurts the bottom line.
2. C & RG. Corbs was an average RG. Which was nice to see given the pain we had watching Blythe there vs any defense that had power up front. But even assuming he can move over and get it done at center the Rams need to fill RG. Who will do that? They list Evans as the guy to start camp there (well Jourdan did from a source). But Evans has been very much hit and miss in his snaps thus far. I suspect Brewer might be in play, but no matter how hard I try I can't get excited about who will be filling that spot.
If Corbs stays at RG we have the same prob. Shelton is likely the best option from there but neither him nor Allen excite. The fan base has been up in arms on center and rightly so, and it just seems to me that no matter how they move guys around we're going to have one weak spot.
That said you can have a good line with one subpar guy up front. But where that starts to hurt you is in the playoffs where your "good" line will suddenly wilt. So crossing my fingers and hoping here but have to be honest this is a concern.
3. TE. There's a good chance we're going to see an extremely high 11 personnel set tendency. Which will limit the lack of quality the Rams have at their F spot in their 12 grouping. But either way this part of the roster is quite weak. It's Higs, some potential, and Mundt. I do like the Harris pick very much mind you, I think they might have found a guy there. But he probably won't help this year outside of teams. Best hope is he comes on down the stretch and maybe gives us a highpoint option for certain downs/distances. And who knows maybe Hopkins is a rare gem they're sitting on. I think that's unlikely but it's possible. But for this season Higs is our hope and God help us if he misses time.
4. Slot CB. Rams obviously believe they're good here. But I'm not so sold on Burgess in the slot. And I'm not a big fan of Long. I trust the Rams on this btw, but I would be lying if I said I didn't have some concern. This will be a position I watch very closely in preseason, which hopefully we get to see.
5. Blindside OLB. Our depth here is a problem IMO. I just don't trust Lewis. I expect he'll get dinged up, nurse some knee issue, or flat-out end up on IR very early this season. The trend is clear with that guy so no reason to expect otherwise. Which means we have a lot of hope riding on Oko. Hollins was a solid rotation option for us last year but there really is very little rush threat from this group and the depth is iffy. Now if we were to hit the lottery on Garrett that would be amazing. But we can't expect to hit on a round seven rush option. Big concern for me.
My take here is that this looks like a roster that will get to the playoffs but then what happens. How far we can go once we get in though, that's the concern. This is no longer a team that is happy to make the playoffs. It's a Super Bowl or bust type unit so hopefully we get it done this year.
